Another servant appeared at Chambers’ elbow—how many did the man have?—with a coat and hat. “Your horse is ready, sir.”
“No rest for the wicked,” Chambers said, hat in hand.
Godwin plucked the hat from Chambers’ hands. “Don’t be ridiculous, man. You’re ready to fall over. I’ll fetch the doctor and your sister.”
Alek could scarcely believe his ears. Godwin’s injury didn’t make him incapable of riding a horse, but it left Luis and Solenne alone so soon after the beast had breached their home.
“I can’t possibly ask that of you. Founding is too far to go on an errand and to leave your family unprotected,” Chambers said, echoing Alek’s own thoughts.
“This is an emergency, not an errand.” Godwin leaned against the short staff as he considered the options. “Send Alek. He has the youth and energy to make the journey and back again.”
Chambers turned to Alek, as if noticing him for the first time. Sun spilled through the opened front door and flashed on his eyes. “It’s too great a task, and Christiana does not know him.”
Alek looked from Chambers to Godwin. He did not want to leave Solenne—his mate— unprotected. Godwin would not take it well if Alek voiced how the beast refused to leave, whether at the implication that Godwin could not protect his family or at Alek’s claim.
Last night his actions made his true feelings clear, and his condition. She was in his blood. He had never thought he could have a mate and yet his grandfather had suffered the same curse, had a family and an illustrious career.
He needed to think. Time on the road would be helpful.
“I insist,” Alek said, ignoring the nudge Godwin gave him. “A letter of introduction from you would suffice and answer questions your sister may have.”
Chambers held his gaze for a long moment, as if measuring Alek. “Very well. You may have use of my horse. I’ll cover your travel expenses, of course. Send for a change of fresh clothes while I write to Christiana and the doctor. Blast that foolish boy.”
The words sounded empty, like Chambers had not planned for his nephew to be injured on the full moon, but he wouldn’t pass up an opportunity to send Alek away.
A quick scrub with a bowl of scalding water, a meal—finally—and Alek was on his way to Founding.
Solenne
Boxon Hill
Marechal House - The Greenhouse
* * *
The greenhouse had seen better days. In truth, all of the Marechal estate had seen better days, years, and decades. A patchwork of glass paneling, some old and some new, comprised the structure. Well, that was generous; wood boards replaced broken glass, and the greenhouse had slightly more patches than actual glass.
Still, it was warm enough and allowed enough sunlight to grow food stuff all year long. Solenne commandeered a few raised beds for herbs, because while she preferred to forage, demand for essential ingredients outstripped local resources.
Normally, work soothed her. The manual tasks allowed her mind to pick through problems, but today her thoughts spiraled.
Everything was odd, and nothing fit properly.
Solenne wished she had more eloquent words to explain the sense of restless unease in her gut. Miles stayed for a few days for observation, and Luis would not leave his bedside. Godwin announced he would devise a trap to capture the beast once and for all. She only saw her father at mealtimes and never for long, which frustrated her to no end. Mr. Parkell had broken his leg badly fleeing the house and now had a fever. Charlotte wouldn’t leave his bedside, despite the appalling way he had treated her at the dance.
Three months had elapsed since the attack that took her father’s eye, and she summoned Alek. They had three months to plan, and they had been woefully unprepared. They had another three months to devise a new plan, but she feared Godwin would try for more of the same.
They had been lucky to escape with as few injuries as they did. The beast had been in their home.
Had licked her.
Next time, they might not escape so lightly.
As for Alek, he scarpered off to Founding the next morning, answering none of the questions he promised to address. He left a week ago on Colonel Chambers’ errand and had yet to send word. Solenne’s worry increased with each passing day, and no one seemed remotely curious about his unusual hair growth during the solstice, his claws, fangs, or that he kissed her.
Her spade dug into the raised planting bed, turning over the soil with more force than strictly necessary.
In the days since the solstice, she kept herself occupied. Godwin ignored the serious repairs the house required in favor of tinkering with his trap. Luis was no better, obsessed with devising a stronger weapon to use against the beast.
More of the same.
So that left her to be the responsible adult and to take care of what needed seeing to. The glazier from the village repaired the window for two lambs.
Two.
Solenne didn’t know whether to be humiliated at having to barter for basic repairs or insulted at the exorbitant fee. Beggars could not be choosers, but she didn’t appreciate being reminded so coolly of that fact.
The spade plunged in the dirt, hacking away at a tenacious root. Besides the entire household acting out of character, no one would discuss the events of the solstice, like they all took a vow of silence. Travers walked away the last time she broached the subject. So Solenne was in the greenhouse, working her frustration out by prepping a bed for wolfsbane seedlings because her stocks were low, because the man she loved was a werewolf.
A werewolf.
Fury boiled in her gut, anger that such a thing happened to Alek, that it kept them apart, and angrier still that he just couldn’t explain what happened to him.
Like he feared her rejection or hurting her. She honestly did not know, which added to her fury, because she would never reject Alek for a small…affliction and she knew would never hurt her despite being, you know, a werewolf.
No, she detested that superstitious term from the old world. She had used terms such as beast and creature her entire life and never thought twice. Now they felt dehumanizing. In the one and a half centuries since humans arrived on the planet, they should have developed a better vocabulary for the mutations that some population suffered.
She thought of Tristan—filled with sawdust, dressed in faded finery, and left in a corner in the library—and went cold imagining the same fate befalling Alek. Whatever happened to Tristan, he remained a person and deserved respect. Beast and creature were worse terms for his particular condition than werewolf.
Fine. Werewolf. The man she loved for as long as she could remember was a werewolf and no one would talk about it.
She gently tapped the spade’s edge against the wood frame, knocking away dirt. Then she gritted her teeth and gave a choked scream, bashing the spade with all her might. She did not kneel like a lady, but squatted. The old frame groaned, wobbling because the rusty nails holding it together were nothing but powder, and that was one more blasted thing she could not fix. Then, as if out of spite, the wood handle on the spade separated from the blade. The blade sailed across the greenhouse. Stunned, she fell back onto her bottom.
Annoyed at her defeat by gravity and old tools, she gave a kick to the wood frame.
“I think you killed it,” Luis said.
“Be quiet. You’re ruining a perfectly good sulk.” She tossed the useless wooden handle away.
“What are we sulking about?” Luis set down his satchel, fetched the pieces of the broken tool, and then joined her on the ground. He leaned back on his elbow and tilted his face toward the glass ceiling. A season’s worth of dust clouded the surface, despite the steady rain. “This place really is falling apart, isn’t it? Tell me about this bee in your bonnet.”
Solenne eyed the satchel, heavy with books. She had never known Luis to be a great reader. “Money. Father. You.”
“Alek,” he said in a teasing tone.
“Be quiet.” Sh
e wasn’t in the mood for teasing.
“You’re in a foul mood because your intended is a cursed beast.”
“Don’t say that.”
“It’s true.”
“How would you feel if it was Miles?”
Luis paled. “Do not jest. It could be. We won’t know until the autumn equinox.”
Solenne turned her gaze to the garden bed, and the freshly turned earth. “It’s a mean-spirited word. I know it’s true. I’m not blind or oblivious.” Once she had Alek snarling in her presence, at least. There had been signs, not even subtle ones at that.
Luis picked at the pile of discarded weeds, shredding the greenery and scattering dirt over his trousers. “I know you’re not oblivious, and I don’t know what other word to use except that one you always say is loaded with superstitious nonsense.”
“Werewolf,” she supplied.
He pointed a finger in her direction and tipped his head in acknowledgment. “I wanted to talk with you about our, uh, growly little problem.”
“You saw the, um…blast! Why don’t we have a better word for this? I dislike saying beast—”
“Because of Alek. Because he kissed you.”
Solenne narrowed her eyes. How tiresome. “Yes, because Alek has been in our home for weeks and he’s not a mindless beast, despite what we’ve been taught. If we’re wrong about Alek—”
“What else are we wrong about?” Luis said, finishing her thought.
“Yes.”
“An out-of-control creature attacked us. Whatever is going on with Alek, we cannot ignore the larger issue.”
Solenne remembered how the creature sniffed her, the feel of its hot, disgusting tongue on her skin, and wondered how out-of-control it had truly been. It could have easily gutted her with one swipe of its claws but seemed to have enough sense to consider its options.
“The creature that attacked was old enough to develop immunity to silver,” she said.
“Yes, exactly.” Luis pulled a sheet of folded paper from the front pocket of the bag. “Father wants to devise a trap, but once the, um, target is contained, what are you going to do? Poke it with our little knives? Annoy it to death? I have a better idea.” He unfolded the paper, and Solenne immediately recognized the handwriting.
“Where did you get this? How dare you destroy her notebook?” She snatched the page of her mother’s faded scrawl.
Tidy lines filled the page, listing known facts. A small illustration sat in the center, distorted by fold lines. Finally, neatly numbered unanswered questions waited at the bottom of the page.
Blackthorn.
Mindful of the dirty fingerprints she left, she refrained from tracing the lines of the ancient sword. Knowing her mother, the illustration was meant to be based on eyewitness accounts but was most likely a product of Amalie’s imagination. As rigorously as her mother pursued her research, she had a nasty habit of using a handful of facts to paint an entire picture.
“I found it in Father’s study, caught under a desk drawer,” Luis said. “It’s her handwriting, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” Solenne agreed.
“We need to find Blackthorn.”
She folded the paper carefully and reluctantly handed it back to her brother. “That’s a legend.”
“The sword is real. Mother thought it was real.”
“A magic sword that can turn vampires and werewolves into a pile of dust? No.”
“Mother believed it was real.” Luis pulled out a worn book from the satchel and flipped open the pages. Carefully, he tucked in the loose page.
Solenne recognized the book immediately, despite believing it destroyed. “Where did you find that? Not tucked behind a bookcase.”
Carefully, she took her mother’s journal from Luis’ hands and flipped through the pages. The ink seemed fresh on the page, as if Amalie had written them recently. Inky fingerprints and smeared lead pencil smudged the pages. The scent of lavender and ink still clung to the binding.
“Miles had it. He didn’t steal it,” Luis added quickly. “Mama said he could read her old journals, and you know. When he thought to return them, Papa had burned her journals, so he kept them safe.”
“I know, he told me last night. This is a treasure,” she said, holding her mother’s journal like the piece of wonder it was.
“A phrase Mama uses repeatedly is not magic—”
“But a mutation,” Solenne finished. She could almost hear Amalie’s voice.
“Yes. It got me thinking about mutations.” Luis withdrew a stack of books from the satchel.
“When did you become a scholar?” she teased.
His back stiffened. “I read. We just don’t share the same interests.”
“My apologies. It was rude of me to interrupt. Please continue.”
“Not if you intend to tease me,” he said. She made a zipper motion over her mouth, which seemed to appease him. “Well, I thought about the nexus mutation. There are three varieties: werewolf, vampire, and witch.” He paused. “Please don’t yell at me for using those words.”
“We really do need a better lexicon, but one problem at a time.”
“Right. Three mutations.” He held up a hand and ticked off fingers. “A shift in form. A shift in metabolism. A shift in matter. But we only concern ourselves with two of those.”
“Because those suffering that mutation are—can be dangerous,” she quickly corrected herself. “Alek aside, we know that the, um, newly transformed, often slaughter their own families, sadly.” Many a hunt started in the remains of a home, torn asunder by blood and violence.
“But a witch with the ability to transform matter?” He opened a leather-bound book to a strip of ribbon marking a page.
Looking over his shoulder, Solenne recognized the passage. A written account of an early colonist who transformed water into ice. “That’s a useful trick for the summer, but really. Lead into gold? Water into wine?”
“Liquid into a solid? You don’t see how that could be useful?”
Solenne shook her head. The witch mutation was rare. So rare that she had never seen or even heard of a witch. None seemed to exist in recent memory. “If they were even real, which I doubt.”
Luis shook his head. “The mutations are all about channeling energy from the nexus, yes? That’s what Mama wrote. The crea—those like Alek have to shift to spend the energy. I’ve never encountered a blood drinker, but plenty of scholars agree that their metabolism consumes itself, giving them an unending hunger and a craving for, um, blood. Their bodies burn themselves up to spend the energy. And witches? They manipulate the energy to transform matter. Organic. Inorganic. That’s useful, Solenne. Don’t you see? Too useful to slaughter.” He handed her book after book, each filled with ribbons to mark significant passages. The bindings positively bulged from his notes. “We’re the witches,” he said.
Solenne sat in disbelief. “Luis, no.”
“Yes! Don’t just dismiss this out of hand. People with the witch mutation were—are—useful. They were recruited to be hunters. Look.” He opened another book, the title worn away on the cloth binding. The book fell open to a familiar page.
The Blackthorn Blade.
“Luis, again, that’s a fairytale. A story.”
“If the early hunters were witches, they could manipulate matter. Why not channel nexus energy into weapons? Blackthorn glowed under the moon,” his voice changed as he read from the page. “Crafted by the most skilled smith and empowered by the hunter, the blade could turn the vilest creature into ash during a nexus event.” He shut the book. “Empowered, Solenne, by witches. And if it was a focus for nexus energy, then it makes sense that it was at its most powerful during the solstice or equinox.”
“Luis, you’re talking about a magic sword.”
“It’s not magic—it’s science!” His words echoed in the greenhouse. Clearing his throat, he adjusted his cravat. “This is science. The original settlers may not have had the best vocabulary to describe what they
saw, but the other generations did, and they agree. Blackthorn was real. Our family made amazing weapons, the kind we just don’t have anymore.”
Even if the Blackthorn Blade were real, which she highly doubted, Solenne did not understand why it mattered. “Exactly. We don’t have any functional weapons from the original settlers. We’ve got a heap of broken tech that doesn’t work. We need to focus on what we have and what we can do.”
“Mother believed it was real. I’ve read her notes—”
“And it got her killed,” Solenne snapped.
Luis may have been too young to remember that day, but she remembered every moment with startling clarity. Amalie attempted to charge the battery of an old pistol with nexus energy. At least, that was what Alek reported. He had assisted her in her workshop that day.
The battery exploded with a force hard enough to shake the stone house. They found her in her basement workshop, shrapnel buried deep in her heart.
The scent of burnt hair lingered for weeks. The thought of the putrid odor was enough to make her stomach turn.
The color drained from Luis’ face. “Yes, well. It’s not magic. It is science, therefore it is reproducible. I’m certainly not a witch, and I don’t suspect you are, either. Recessive genes, you know. Our best course of action is to find Blackthorn.”
Solenne did her best to keep a neutral express but her foul mood won out. Blackthorn may have been a real sword, perhaps a fine one, but its extraordinary qualities seemed to have grown into the thing of legend. “No. Absolutely not. We do not have the time or the luxury to go on a quest for a magic—scientific—sword that’s been lost for generations. We wouldn’t know where to start.”
“We do.” Luis pulled out another book, green leather with gold gilding. Solenne recognized their book of fairy stories. He opened the book to a page featuring a wood carving of a very noble-looking man holding a sword aloft. Blackthorn glowed, if the black lines radiating from the sword were any indication. “Great-grandpapa Charles lost Blackthorn in a battle with Draven in the city in the mountains beyond the West Lands.”
Wolf's Bane Page 13