Forever Wolf

by Maria Vale

  “Because I’m a member of Cruor.”

  The world slipped out from beneath my feet. Heavy ringing filled my ears, and the treetops spun together. I’d assumed assassin from the get-go, but Cruor? Who would go to such lengths as to hire the undead?

  Realization struck hard and fast, and my gaze jerked to the pooling mass of darkness near his feet. He leached shadows from the corners and hidden crevices of the forest. Even the once-solid blade had dispersed, joining the curling tendrils around my captive. They licked his skin and gathered in his aura, waiting to do his bidding. That wasn’t some Kitska monster gathering the darkness—it was him.

  He’d been toying with me all this time, and I had seconds to react.

  “Iky, serrated. Now.” Iky shifted, coating his arms with thousands of miniscule barbs that punctured the man’s clothing and skin, and locked him in place. Blood trickled from a multitude of pinprick holes. Gleaming red droplets that wormed their way out and oozed down his ink-black coat like veining through marble. Blood I couldn’t use. The first wasted rivulets dripped from his fingers and splattered against the gravel path. He watched them with fierce eyes, and the dark wisps receded. Good. At least he had enough sense to realize when he was beaten. “If you try to dissipate on me, you’ll end up as mincemeat. Why am I on Cruor’s shit list?”

  Irritation tightened his face as my beast and I so deftly turned the tables. “I’m not going to dignify that with a response. As if I’d tell a job the details of my work.”

  Egotism, even in the face of death. The Charmers Council had to be behind this. If they’d somehow caught on to my underhanded dealings, they’d sooner hire someone to kill me than leave the sanctity of Hireath. But Cruor? I chewed on the inside of my cheek. Charmers valued all life. Execution was rare. Hiring someone who walked with the shadows all but guaranteed my death. With me already sentenced to a lifelong exile for a crime I most certainly did not commit, they must have felt a more extreme response was appropriate. No chance to plea my case. No chance to return to my people.

  Gripping my hands into fists, I glared at the assassin. “Gods be damned. Killing was not on my agenda today.”

  A brittle laugh devoid of humor scraped through the air. “If you kill me, another will be sent.”

  He was right, of course, and I prayed my next words wouldn’t be my death sentence. I needed this bounty gone. I had business in the south I couldn’t postpone. The Myad was my only hope of ever going home. “Then take me to Cruor.”

  His green eyes widened a fraction. “Your logic escapes me.”

  “Good thing it’s not your job to understand how I think. Take me to Cruor, or Iky will end you. Plain and simple.”

  “As if you could kill me.”

  Iky snapped another finger without my prompting, and the man hissed.

  “What were you saying?” I asked.

  “Fine.” He rotated his head, peering around trees before jutting his chin to the left. “You won’t like this.”

  Tendrils exploded in a swirling vortex that blanketed out the Kitska Forest. Rivers of black surged beneath our feet, and my stomach turned itself inside out. We were thrust forward, and yet we hadn’t moved a muscle. Intertwining shadows sped through us, around us, careening us toward a destination I couldn’t even begin to pinpoint. Tears pricked the corners of my eyes, and I sucked in a breath.

  And then we came to a screeching halt, the outside world slamming back into us as the darkness abruptly receded. I white-knuckled a fist against my stomach and glared at the assassin in Iky’s arms. His smirk was maddening.

  The comfort of Midnight Jester was now what felt like a world away.

  Slowly, I unfurled my hand and caught sight of my Charmer’s symbol, weighing Iky’s branch and my apparent insanity against his time. Every beast had a weakness, and his was a shelf life. Two hours of strength for every twenty-two hours of sleep. With every minute that passed, Iky’s limb retreated to the base until it would fade from existence, forcibly returning him to the beast realm to regain his stamina.

  I had fifteen minutes, give or take.

  Stepping to the side, I gestured to the woods. “Let’s get this over with. Iky, pick him up.” His hooks retracted a fraction, and Iky cradled the man to his chest like an overgrown child.

  The assassin scoffed, unintelligible curses dropping from his lips.

  The void had transported us close, but I still couldn’t see the hidden death grotto known as Cruor. Yet I could feel it. The weight of eyes and shadows. My hairs stood on end as we made our way through the suffocating foliage, darkness dripping from limbs like tacky sap. Above us, birds squawked and feathers scraped together as they took flight, swirling upward and chasing the setting sun into the horizon. A heavy branch creaked. A shadow more human than night rocketed from one tree to the next. The assassin stared after the figure without saying a word, but smugness laced his expression. One of his brethren, then, going to alert the others.

  Icy hands wrenched my heart, and I gripped the book-shaped locket hanging about my neck—the miniature bestiary all Charmers carried—and begged the gods for favorable odds. I could have waited. Could have called forth another beast, but Iky’s strength took a serious toll on my power, and my arsenal that could fight off the legendary might of Cruor was small. Besides, summoning another could be the difference between a peaceful negotiation and a declaration of war. The latter I would surely lose. I needed every chance to run I could get, in case negotiations went south.

  Mangled iron fencing battled against the overgrowth of the cursed forest, marking the edge of Cruor’s property, and I paused at the gates. In the distance, the evening sky birthed a manor shrouded in darkness. Alone on a hill and two stories tall, with more windows than my eyes could count, the guild was just shy of a castle.

  Slate black and covered in vibrant red gems, a rycrim core glittered from between neatly trimmed hedges and the side of the house. Magic energy pulsed from it in an invisible dome over the mansion.

  I’d begged Dez to invest in a rycrim core for months. Changing every candle by hand, warming the bathwater over a fire—I wanted the simplicity of self-lighting fixtures, a faucet that immediately poured scalding water. But convenience cost more bits than we could afford to spare. Murder apparently paid well.

  Iky whined aloud, a low vibration thrumming through the air. Less than ten minutes left.

  With a heavy breath, I pushed the gate open and tried to shake the eerie grating of hinges as I stared down the winding path leading me straight to death’s door.

  Kingdom of Exiles

  On sale June 2019

  Terms used in the Legend of All Wolves

  Æcewulf: Forever wolf. Real wolf. The Iron Moon moves Pack along the spectrum of their wildness. Pack who are already wild at the beginning of the Iron Moon are pushed further along and become æcewulfs. There is no changing back.

  Banwulf: Bone Wolf. This is what the packs call the wolf tasked with announcing the end of days. The wolf humans call Garm. “Now Garm howls loud before his cave; the fetters will burst, and the wolf run free.” —Völuspá

  bedfellow: A kind of mate-in-training. Since Pack couplings are based on strength, bedfellows must be prepared to fight challengers for rights to their bedfellow’s body: cunnan-riht.

  Bredung: The ceremony by which two Pack are mated. It comes from the Old Tongue word for braiding and symbolizes the commitment of an individual to mate and to land and to Pack. The commitment is iron-clad.

  Clifrung: Clawing. The harshest punishment short of death by Slitung in Pack law. A wolf who is clawed becomes wearg, an outlaw.

  cunnan-riht: Mounting rights.

  Dæling: The ceremony that determines both the initial hierarchy and pairings of an echelon. Since challenges are a fact of Pack life, this will change.

  Eardwrecca: Banished. Packs are intensely social and exiles rarely surv
ive.

  echelon: An age group, typically of Pack born within five or six years of one another. Each echelon has its own hierarchy. Its Alpha is responsible to the Alpha of the whole pack.

  Gemyndstow: The memory place. A circle of stones with the names of dead wolves and the dates of their last hunts.

  Gran: An elder. The word does not imply blood relationship, as family ties are largely inconsequential in the face of the stronger ties of Pack.

  Iron Moon: The day of the full moon and the two days surrounding it. During these three days, the Pack is wild and must be in wolf form.

  lying-in: Pack’s mutable chromosomes mean that pregnancy is rare. When it does happen, the last month is fraught as pups change into babies and back again. The mother must change with them before her body rejects them. It is exhausting.

  nidling: A lone wolf at the bottom of an echelon’s hierarchy. Because lone wolves are considered disruptive, the nidling is forced into a kind of indentured servitude to his or her Alpha pair. They rarely last long.

  Offland: Anywhere that is not Homelands, the Great North’s territory in the Adirondacks. Offlanders return to Homelands only for the Iron Moon and the occasional holiday.

  Pack: What humans would call werewolves. Pack can turn into wolves at any time and usually prefer to be in wolf form, but during the Iron Moon, they must be wild. These three days are both their greatest weakness and, because it binds them together, their greatest strength.

  schildere: A shielder is a protector, the lowest degree of wolf pairing. From the Old Tongue. In the youngest Pack, shielders protect one another from being eaten by coyotes.

  seax: The dagger worn by all full-fledged adult Pack when at Homelands.

  Slitung: Flesh tearing. The ultimate punishment. Every wolf participates so that the whole Pack bears responsibility for the life they have failed.

  Shifter: Shifters are not bound by the Iron Moon, and since humans are dominant, Shifters see no advantage in turning into something as vulnerable as a wolf. Unfortunately, they have adopted many of humans’ less-desirable traits, while retaining the strength and stronger senses of a wolf-changer—the worst of both worlds for Pack. In the Old Tongue, they are called Hwerflic, meaning changeable, shifty.

  Wearg: Among Pack, it means outlaw, bloodthirsty. Among humans, it means outlaw or monster and derives from the word for wolf.

  westend: Waster, destroyer. Old Tongue for human.

  Wulfbyrgenna: The wolf tombs. It is what the Pack calls the coyotes who eat their remains.

  Year of First Shoes: This is the first year that pups start changing into skin and, as the name implies, the year they start wearing shoes and clothes. It marks their transition from pups to juveniles.

  Acknowledgments

  I would like to acknowledge salty licorice and Cheetos. Without them, this book never would have been finished, though maybe my spacebar wouldn’t stick.

  My one tiny piece of advice to anyone interested in writing is to make friends with fellow writers. Those I’ve met in person and virtually have been a constant comfort in a job that involves a disproportionate amount of time staring at a wall the color of dusky tobacco. I also continue to be in awe of the women of Sourcebooks—Susie Benton, Heather Hall, Laura Costello, Stefani Sloma, Kirsten Wenum, Ashlyn Keil, Beth Sochacki, Kaitlyn Kennedy, Cat Clyne, Mary Altman, and Dawn Adams—who have always been inexplicably kind and patient and supportive. Then there’s my editor, Deb Werksman, who knew exactly how to talk me through when I was having trouble. To my astounding agent and advocate, Heather Jackson, what can I say? I am almost speechless with admiration. Almost.

  Finally, the unimaginable has happened, and I am in a position to thank readers. During more than one Cheetos- and licorice-fueled wall-staring marathon, a reader said something kind and made me remember why.

  About the Author

  Maria Vale is a journalist who has worked for Publishers Weekly, Glamour, Redbook, and the Philadelphia Inquirer. She is a logophile and a bibliovore and a worrier about the world. Trained as a medievalist, she tries to shoehorn the language of Beowulf into things that don’t really need it. She currently lives in New York with her husband, two sons, and a long line of dead plants. No one will let her have a pet.

  Also by Maria Vale

  The Legend of All Wolves

  The Last Wolf

  A Wolf Apart

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