The Wolf

by Jean Johnson

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Acknowledgements

  ONE

  TWO

  THREE

  FOUR

  FIVE

  SIX

  SEVEN

  EIGHT

  NINE

  TEN

  ELEVEN

  TWELVE

  THIRTEEN

  FOURTEEN

  FIFTEEN

  SIXTEEN

  SEVENTEEN

  EIGHTEEN

  Song of the Sons of Destiny

  Berkley Sensation titles by Jean Johnson

  THE SWORD

  THE WOLF

  THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP

  Published by the Penguin Group

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  Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  This book is an original publication of The Berkley Publishing Group.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

  Copyright © 2007 by G. Jean Johnson

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without

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  the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

  BERKLEY SENSATION is a registered trademark of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

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  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  eISBN : 978-0-425-21463-3

  I. Title.

  PS3610.O355W65 2007

  813’.6—dc22

  2006100278

  http://us.penguingroup.com

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  I’d like to thank my three lovely beta-ladies for another outstanding job, Stormi, NotSoSaintly, and AlexandraLynch. You’re still making me look great, and I appreciate it. (Not to mention how fun it was to meet Stormi and her husband in person!) My thanks also to others who’ve put up with my pestering them at odd hours around the globe, especially to Alienor, Stellarluna, and JustJeanette for letting me bounce ideas off their heads, and to Pern_Dragon for cold reading this novel and letting me know it wasn’t too confusing to read on its own, without having to read the one before it first.

  And as always, many thanks to the Mob of Irate Torch-Wielding Fans for toasting my toes with your impatient demands for more! Visit groups.yahoo.com/group/MoITWF (18 or older only, please).

  ONE

  The Second Son shall know this fate:

  He who hunts is not alone

  When claw would strike and cut to bone

  A chain of Silk shall bind his hand

  So Wolf is caught in marriage-band

  Alys of Devries pulled back from the pool, answering the call that had interrupted what she had been doing, though she didn’t want to answer. “In here, Uncle!”

  Without hurry—never hurry, which would suggest there was more going on than she could let anyone know—she glanced back down at the volsnap pool. Only the fanged, finned creatures swam in its water. Only her own reflection rippled back up at her, as one of the horrid creatures riffled the surface with a close pass of its body.

  “Have you finished feeding the tanks?” Lord Broger inquired, descending the steps of the chamber.

  “Almost, Uncle; I just have this last pool.” She stooped, picked up the bucket of entrails, and tipped it over the pool, pouring quick and high as it splashed, for the volsnaps lunged out of the water, jaws gaping for snatches of the offal. They would snatch at her, too, if she was ever foolish enough to come within reach during feeding time. There were charms to keep them in the water at other times, so long as she didn’t touch the surface of the pool.

  Lord Broger eyed his niece. The girl had shaped up nicely in the past three years, ever since the influence of those cursed brothers had gone. “I have bad news and good news. The bad news is, the Nightfall fools have managed to do something to thwart my scrying attempts. They have done so too well to even use what I learned back when I sent the wyverns. And I dare not send any more wyverns, lest the Council detect their presence.”

  Alys wished he would, so that the Council could. She turned away from the feeding-churned, stone-lined pool, her expression passive but polite. “And the good news, Uncle?”

  “The Baron of Glourick has paid me handsomely to marry you. Literally, so there’s no wriggling out of this bargain, for you.”

  Not even by a flicker did her bland expression change. She wanted to run screaming from the room. Especially since the baron in question had hygiene habits that made a volsnap’s dinner look good and had the temperament of her uncle when it came to how he treated other people. Not to mention the baron was past sixty years in age . . . and that she was never going to be in love with him or any other man her uncle sought to force her to wed. The warning she had been given in the reflection of the no-longer mirror-smooth pool seemed all the more urgent to heed now, but she couldn’t even hint at what she had to do. Not if she wanted to do it successfully.

  “I thought I would be on hand when you finally crushed the Nightfall fools,” Alys finally offered, shrugging.

  “That pleasure is mine—as was the pleasure of killing their uncle, that fool Daron. Who was ‘only holding the County until the Prophesied Disaster is past’—fool!” Broger spat, with a twist of his head, literally dampening the stone of the wall next to him, where he stood on the next to last step. He mustered a smile after a moment and stepped down onto the floor—not for his niece, but for the creatures imprisoned by iron, stone, and spell around her. “But my pretties will have their fun, and so shall I . . .

  “What are you doing, still standing here?” he demanded, looking at her as she stood there, hand clenched around the handle of the feeding bucket. He flicked his dark brown head at the stairs and the door. “Go. The caravan leaves in two hours. You’ll be at Glourick Castle within a week, and wed as soon as you arrive. No arguing, or I will bring you back and feed you to the mekhadadaks. The baron was willing to pay the most money and land of all, and I will not disappoint him in this barter. You will not disappoint him. This time, the bargain has been struck and will be completed.”

  “If you truly think this is the best alliance and price, Uncle, then I will obey,” Alys murmured and took herself away. Thankfully, her uncle was in too good a mood to cuff her as she headed up the steps.

  Re
turning to the slaughtering room up beyond the stairs, she rinsed out the bucket, washed her hands, and removed her protective, slightly bloodied apron with unsteady hands. While Broger’s mind was still deciding something, deciding the fate of her hand in marriage, she had been able to sway him. I don’t think he’s really your type of ally, Uncle. . . . How much did he offer? That much? He cheated you, Uncle! . . . He doesn’t have enough magic in his veins, Uncle—do you want to pollute the bloodline with something inferior? . . . If I go to that man, Uncle, will it not make a powerful enemy of this other?

  She wasn’t surprised he had finally made up his mind; she had stalled him for three years—really, for the nine-plus years he had borne the unwelcome care of her after her parents’ accidental death. She knew it was an accident, too; Broger would never have burdened himself with a child. He had even neglected his own son, too, until the boy showed signs of magic. Whereupon he had taken Barol under his unpleasant tutelage. Her cousin had learned his lessons well, once he became interesting enough to Broger.

  But she was very, very glad Morganen had contacted her just now, especially with those three precious words. “It is time.” Time for me to flee this place! Thank you, Kata, Jinga, for answering my prayers!

  Her childhood friend’s message was practically a gift sent by the gods, given the news she had finally been sold to the highest bidder. Leaving the butchering room—which she hopefully would never have to see again—the twenty-four-year-old woman wound up the stairs of the hidden fortress, buried inside one of the mountains ringing Broger of Devries’ original home, and entered his study. Stepping through the mirror-Gate, eyes closed tight against the disorientation, she emerged in his workroom in Corvis Castle.

  That was how he maintained his “precious pretties,” the vicious, magic-created beasts in his hidden menagerie. Two mirrors, cast back-to-back, split apart by his power, and forever linked as a doorway to each other. Linked only to each other, too; they weren’t registered with the Mage Council, and since they only linked to each other and were constantly active, there was no unexplainable rise or fall in the energies of either location for the Council to notice.

  She was tempted, as always, to turn and smash the frame. That would shatter the mirror in the only way it could be broken, permanently tied open and thus surfaceless as it was. But she didn’t.

  Leaving the workroom instead, she paced through the halls she had played in as a young girl, heading to the room that had once belonged to another. The servants avoided her. Not because she was the niece of their new lord, but because they knew their lord didn’t care for her and by now undoubtedly knew she was being sent away. Exiled as surely as the original sons of this hall had been, if for a different cause.

  Broger had married the sister of Lord Saveno’s wife. When Lord Saveno had died—shortly after his wife, the Lady Annia, had passed away in childbirth—and then his sons had been exiled, Saveno’s brother Daron had taken over the County of Corvis. As next in line to the seat of the county, the man had no offspring and there were no other kin; Daron was vulnerable. Broger had assassinated him so carefully, only his gloating in front of his niece had been proof the deed was by his own doing. The Council certainly hadn’t been able to tell.

  Stepping into the vacuum of power two months after the sons had left—Saveno’s sons had been decreed the Sons of Destiny and exiled for the crime of being targeted by a powerful Seer many years before—Broger had then paid dearly for paintings of the ancient castle on the island of Nightfall. That was where they had been exiled. Broger intended to use those paintings as scrying aids, for porting in beasts to torment and hopefully kill them. He had always longed to be a nobleman, and though the Council and the King and Queen had declared him to be only a “Count Pro Tem,” he was determined to exterminate the rightful line and make himself fully the Count of Corvis and his son the next rightful heir, instead of the eight sons living in exile.

  As she reached her room, Alys again wondered how Broger’s younger brother Tangor, her father, could have wound up so nice and wonderful. Even after nearly ten years, she missed her parents, still wished they hadn’t been swept to their deaths in a flash flood while crossing a river near their home.

  Tansia, one of the few servants who had befriended Alys, was directing the others, Maegra and Kelvin, in the packing of Alys’ things in the room that had once belonged to Saber and Wolfer of Nightfall, when they had been young boys. Tansia spotted Alys and flung herself at the other woman. “You poor thing! You poor dear! I’m not even allowed to go with you.”

  Alys hugged her, then set her back. Her emotions held tightly in check, she soothed the maidservant. “It’s all right, Tansia. It is better that you stay here. There is no telling what this Baron of Glourick is like as a master. Uncle is bad enough.”

  Tansia shuddered. “I’ve heard enough rumors to know I don’t want to know.”

  The other two nodded mutely, folding up Alys’ clothes. Alys eyed the garments being folded and knew she had to do some of the packing on her own. Crossing to one of the chests, which was not opened, because it was already more or less packed, she opened it and palmed a silk pouch—she could leave behind her clothes, her meager jewelry, everything else that was hers, but not this one item.

  The moment the pendant inside touched her flesh, her escape could finally, successfully begin. Tucking the small sack down the front of her dress, between her breasts, she began assembling the things she could do without in a pinch, but would be better off if she had. A knife, tucked under her gown as well, a full cloak that could serve as a blanket or bedroll, since it was thankfully summer, cloths for her moon-time, and her jewelry all went into a pocket sash. She ducked behind her changing screen and fastened the sash around her waist, settling it underneath her plain blue gown.

  Hopefully no one would see the slight lumps it made and take it away. Then she considered the gown itself before lowering it back into place. Light blue was a color that stood out too easily, so she removed and discarded it. She had Tansia bring her a plain brown gown, one that would blend more thoroughly into forest and field, and asked her to pack away the other one. Not that she had many gowns; her uncle had been chary with her needs while she was growing up: Alys had a blue gown, a gray gown, a green gown, and a brown gown.

  Adding the plain muslin over-gown, ostensibly to protect her clothing from dirt and soil—though her uncle made her wear the apron-like garment because it made her blend in with the other servants with their own undyed aprons and over-tunics—she exchanged her slippers for boots. She was glad that her uncle had been cheap with her clothing; the hem floated above the floor a few inches instead of dragged, as was more fashionably proper. Dragging clothes would only slow her down if she had to run any distance.

  As ready as she could be, she descended to the courtyard. The caravan consisted of ten soldiers on horses, leading pack-mares and her own mount. Alys mounted and perched herself stoically on the sidesaddle, gripped the pommel with her knee and her hands, and did not look back when the lead guard gave the order to head out. She knew her uncle was watching; the last sight she wanted him to see was of a calm, stoic, accepting niece, ever obedient to her uncle’s whims.

  Alys had been scared into obedience at first by his temper, then by the hideous versions of entertainment and pleasure he enjoyed too much to do otherwise. She had grown too scared later on that her plans for her freedom and her own, rightful life—achieved with Morganen’s help—would fail if she did anything other than obey. At least, on the surface. It was the price she paid for being his kin. Leaving the Corvis courtyard, where she had learned to mock-spar with the eight brothers as a young girl during visits to her by-marriage kin, she let the guards escort her away.

  At least they were heading east, which would get her marginally closer to her goal. Alys would wait a few days, until they had ridden out of immediate, close reach of her uncle. She would not escape today. Soon, though. Soon.

  It was a good thing one of the gu
ards had her mare by its leading rein; her hands would’ve trembled, if they hadn’t had the solid weight of the pommel to grip.

  Her chance came four days later. Docile, submissive, quiet, she had managed to lull the guards’ constant watch of her into complaisance. They were trying to be vigilant under her uncle’s orders to make sure she didn’t ruin his bargain with the Baron of Glourick. Normally, women across Katan had a choice in who they wed—and usually a very vocal one—but Lord Broger had informed her coldly when she had come into his care that she had to earn the right to be clothed and fed, and that the price would be feeding his “pretties,” and wedding whomever he pleased, once he got the fullest and most useful price for her.

  Her only choice at the time had been to make herself indispensable and insinuate with calm logic all of the reasons why she should not be wed. Sitting at the place indicated to her at each campfire, listening to her uncle’s soldiers jest about how much she had been worth—a fortune in magical supplies, money, and land—she glanced around her at the night. They were in a forested section, between stretches of farmland and towns. Forest was good; it would allow plenty of cover as she fled.

  The light level would also help. Full darkness had fallen, while she had dutifully cooked their meal for them, doing servants’ work; the only reason why she even had a tent of her own was that the lecherous baron had insisted she still be a virgin when she came to him. The men her uncle consorted with considered such things valuable, for they found pleasure in inflicting pain and liked the idea of innocence brutally lost. Alys had figured that out early on and had played that card well with her uncle. Mostly it had been to keep Broger from despoiling her himself. Or allowing his son to . . . even though they were blood kin.

  ... I think it is time I left, she finally decided, making sure in a quick glance that the guards weren’t paying any attention to her. She had her cloak about her shoulders, ostensibly to ward off the cool air of evening, and everything she needed still on her. Two of the ten men were standing watch; the rest were gambling for coin off to one side, exclaiming with each toss, good or poor, of the dice on the ground. Yes, keep playing with your distractions. Distant Threefold God of Fate, keep them off their guard for me.