by A A Woods
“If you will not help us,” Yokan was saying as she tilted Carlette over the edge of the pit. “Then your partner is of no more use than a herd animal.”
The wolf’s eyes rolled up, fixing hungrily on Carlette. The seventh eye, usually a jewel-bright glimmer, was dull and starved.
They had been feeding the wolf dead meat. Its power had shrunk.
But not enough.
Carlette had touched the Amonoux in the Giant’s Wood. Distracted them. It was more than any of her classmates could hope to do, but even she couldn’t enhabit one of these gods of the mountain. To stop an Amonoux, to actually reach through its web of power and control it… only Voka had ever managed such a feat, and her line was long dead.
Which meant that if they dropped her in that pit, there was no way to stop the wolf from devouring Carlette, body and soul.
Fear clogged her veins.
Was this what Quaina had felt with the starving she-wolf bearing down on her?
“Don’t,” Tuk said, his voice level. Forceful.
Shaking.
“Tell me where Caika hides, little Nuri boy?” Yokan asked as Carlette pushed back, trying to shove away from the pit’s edge. The cairog that had captured them was right overhead, its tiny rider holding on with nothing but her knees. She was dark-haired, Moian, young, with a smug face partially hidden by a black scarf pulled over her nose. Carlette met the girl’s dancing eyes, felt the cruel amusement.
This rebel, at least, would enjoy watching her die.
Carlette wriggled, but Yokan only shoved her out further. She was dangling now, her entire torso hanging over nothing but air. The Amonoux below her drooled, thick ropes of saliva dripping from dirty, blood-matted jaws.
“I can give you information about Tuleaux,” Tuk said, his eyes snapping to Carlette and then back to Yokan. “I was there as a prisoner. I can tell you where the jails are. The prince is there, and the pirate queen. She was in the cell right next to me—”
“I have freed over twenty of my warriors from their prisons,” Yokan said as Carlette tried to throw herself backwards. “I know Tuleaux almost as well as I know these mountains.”
Tuk was breathing heavily now. Carlette felt Yokan’s nails slide against her tunic. If she let go, Carlette would fall head-first. Her skull would strike rock and the last thing she saw would be the red dust of iron ore and the dark brown blood that had turned the wolf’s coat the color of autumn leaves.
“I don’t know how to find it on land,” Tuk said, his voice pleading.
“What mountain is it on?”
“I… I can’t…”
Yokan’s fingers opened. Carlette fell forward, cried out. Fingernails closed over her shoulder, piercing her skin, stopping her fall.
“I will not ask again,” Yokan said.
Tuk pursed his lips. Met Carlette’s eyes.
“It’s on Adenai,” Tuk said, casting his eyes to the floor. “Above the cloud-line.”
Yokan cackled.
“How fitting, that such a place would sit on our life-mother.” She pulled Carlette back, grinned down at her. “See, you were useful after all.”
Yokan threw Carlette aside, gesturing to her warriors and releasing a stream of orders in twisted Ebonal. Carlette’s gaze fell on Tuk. She saw his worry, his sick relief.
And then another blindfold was tightened around her head.
Chapter Fourteen: Red Lost, Red Found
The Bloody Paws tossed Carlette into a dusty corner of the enormous cave. She hit hard, breath whooshing out of her as she rolled onto her side. Fabric cut into her sore hands and forehead. She pushed with bound feet until her back found a wall and curved herself against it, rubbing her fists against the ragged stone.
One finger wormed loose of the swaddling.
Finally.
Information flooded into Carlette as she tasted the life in the cave.
Another body landed next to her own as the sounds of a campsite rose around them. Carlette listened to pots clattering, voices shouting in strange languages, animals snorting and clicking. She sensed Tuk’s familiar mind next to her.
“Are you okay?” she whispered.
Tuk snorted and shifted. “Of course I am. A bunch of wild monsters don’t scare me.”
His voice was quivering.
“Thank you,” Carlette breathed, her voice low and soft.
“For what? Keeping you alive was purely selfish, I assure you.”
“Still,” Carlette said. “I’m grateful. You could have let them kill me.”
“And you could have let me get eaten by those things in the forest. We’re even.”
Carlette was silent for a moment. Boots thundered past, towards a commotion somewhere beyond their feet. Carlette widened her senses, tried desperately to touch the minds of those around her, to find out what was going on. Her bare finger prickled as she wove herself into the chaos around her, felt the excitement, violence, bloodlust.
But with her eyes covered and her head still throbbing from the cairog’s attack, she couldn’t possibly hope to enhabit anything.
“Did they search you?” she said when the footsteps had gone by.
“Very rudely.”
Carlette swallowed, slumping. There it was. Soon they would question her, do whatever they did to captured members of the Order. And worse, her edict of safe passage would be in Yokan’s slimy claws…
“I dropped your hood on the way here,” Tuk said. Carlette jerked upright. “No idea where—it was impossible to tell anything with that creature manhandling us. But they didn’t find it.”
Her breath caught. “Why did you do that?”
“There was a rumor in Caika. Something a rebel confessed to us. He told us that the Bloody Paws are hunting down red hoods. Specifically. Killing them in a particularly awful way. He wouldn’t say why—died during the interrogation process—but we did manage to understand that their leader is looking for someone. A long-lost relative or something. And everyone who’s not that person… she kills.”
Carlette didn’t know what to say. This man, a prisoner she had fully intended to hand over to the worst fate imaginable, had saved her.
Twice.
She swallowed again, inhaled smoky, blood-tinged air.
“Tuk… why are you helping me?”
She felt him shrug.
“I never really believed that hoods were evil. I mean, I saw what they did to Kammunuk. And I heard the stories. But whenever I saw one captured… they were just… people. Sold and traded like animals. Forced into service.” Tuk shrugged again. “I guess I can understand what that feels like.”
Carlette didn’t know what to make of that. He was like no one she’d ever met.
Suddenly, there was an explosion of noise nearby.
“What’s going on?” Carlette hissed, trying to shoulder her way into a seated position.
“They’ve just brought in two more prisoners,” Tuk said. Then he hesitated. “I think one is your friend.”
Carlette’s heart sank as she heard a new voice, high and panicked.
“Let me go! Hands off me, you barbarians!”
Aheya.
The Amonoux’s growling intensified as the struggle reached a painful climax. Aheya screamed. Tuk stiffened.
“It’s not often,” came Yokan’s oily voice, “that we catch a red hood sneaking through the mountains at night. All alone, unguarded. You made it easy for us.”
Aheya cried out and Carlette heard the horrible sound of a blade being drawn.
“We’ve been watching Durchemin for months, looking for your kind. Berries on the vine, ripe for the plucking.”
So that’s why they attacked when I was at Howl, Carlette thought. They saw my hood.
And now they see Aheya’s.
Carlette ached as the scene played out in her mind. Her friend, sneaking out of Jemelle, trying to find Eylon in some doomed and hopeless quest for normalcy. Desperate enough to be careless.
Aheya was silent. Tuk shift
ed. Carlette reached out, touched his mind. It was familiar, inviting, easy, even with her eyes covered. He tensed for a moment, protective walls snapping into place. Carlette floated a soft, unspoken question.
Please?
After a breathless moment, Tuk let her in.
She could see.
It was almost worse.
Aheya was on her knees in the middle of the cavern, held by a woman with silky black hair and tanned skin. The Bloody Paw rested a scythe against Aheya’s neck, grinning at Yokan, eyes glittering with white-rimmed malice. Black, angular tattoos coated her bare shoulders, the marks of a Sibilese warrior.
Aheya’s whole body was shaking as Yokan brushed her head in a gentle caress. Carlette kept her touch on Tuk’s mind gentle and unrestrictive, painless.
She felt his heartbeat quicken as if it was her own.
“What do you want?” Aheya spat.
“What do I want?” Yokan asked, thoughtful. She released Aheya’s head, addressed her gathered troops. “I want my land to be free. I want you settlers and half-breeds to stop invading my forests, punching through my mountains. I want the women of my tribe to grow up without the fear of ending up in your evil Convent, under your worthless men. Little girl, I want your kind dead.”
The Bloody Paws jeered. The Sibilese warrior’s mouth curved in a vicious smile.
“Then kill me and be done with it.”
“Not so easy, child. No, I’m going to give you a chance.” Yokan paced around Aheya, a predator circling a kill. “You see, I’m looking for someone. Someone who has been lost to me for many years.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Aheya snapped.
“You see, my ignorant friend, there is an enhabiter out there in whose veins runs Voka’s blood, and mine. Your people would call her my niece.”
A significant pause filled the air, thick with hatred.
“Many years ago, my sister and I were given to the strongest man in our tribe. The last of Voka’s line. He was brutal. Some would say savage. But then, people say that about me.”
Through Tuk’s eyes, Carlette saw Yokan’s smile spread, the midnight unfolding of a grotesque flower.
“Seventeen years ago, my sister’s monthly blood stopped. The tribe rejoiced; our leaders celebrated. We had hope again.” Yokan’s grin spread, if possible, even wider. “That was, until she disappeared.”
Carlette’s pulse was quickening, almost deafening as it thudded in her ears. She had to act, and fast.
“My sister,” Yokan continued, “was powerful. We scoured the forest, searched everywhere. But by the time we tracked her to the walls of Tuleaux, it was too late. We found her body, hidden in a shallow grave beyond the wall. And when we opened her belly… she was empty.”
Aheya’s face was disgusted, but the leering smiles of the Bloody Paws around her made Carlette realize they’d all heard this story. Many times. To them, it was exciting. The beetle-speaker stood behind Yokan, short and dense with muscle, her black hair chopped boyishly short. She smirked as Yokan went on.
“Don’t you understand yet? Somewhere in Tuleaux, a child was born. A child of great potential, with wolf-rider blood and Ebonal strength. The strongest our kind can produce. If such a child was born a girl, able to inherit Voka’s great gift, she would survive. She would rise to Jemelle’s highest tower.”
Yokan took Aheya’s red hood between her fingertips, lifted it in front of Aheya’s waxen face.
“She would wear this.”
Aheya’s chest heaved, her panicked breath fogging the air. The Sibilese warrior held her tighter.
“My mother was a Raebus clanswoman,” Aheya snarled. “I was born in the Convent.”
“Then you are of no use to me,” Yokan said with a helpless shrug. “Either way, we will soon know.” Yokan nodded to the woman holding Aheya. “Bring her.”
Aheya struggled, kicking out as the warrior dragged her upright. The Sibilese woman’s inky black braid swung like a pendulum, ticking away Aheya’s last moments. Carlette watched with a horrible sinking sensation as her best friend was dragged to the edge of the pit.
The Amonoux’s snarls were thick and hungry.
“My test is simple,” Yokan said, as if this were nothing more than a morning exercise. “Stop the wolf and you will be spared.”
“We have to do something,” Carlette breathed as Tuk shifted beside her.
“I can’t!” Aheya said, her voice a wail. “No one can! Amonoux are too powerful, their strength—”
Yokan grabbed Aheya’s hair, brought the girl’s face up to hers with a sudden, savage intensity.
“Voka could,” Yokan said, in Aheya’s face. “Voka did. And somewhere out there is a girl that can end this war, lead us to victory. I hope that girl is you,” Yokan’s eyes swept down Aheya’s skinny frame, wasted from months of terror and secrecy. “But I doubt it.”
“Tuk, help me,” Carlette said, leaning into the Nuri mechanic.
“How?” Tuk whispered back.
“Please!” Aheya shrieked as she dangled over the pit’s edge. “Please, I’ll help you! I don’t work for Jemelle, I was trying to escape!”
“None of us can escape our debt,” Yokan sneered. “Any more than a beast can escape its nature. You are what you are, child. If you wanted a different life, you should have chosen better.”
“I didn’t have a choice! Please, I’m just like you!”
“You’re nothing like me,” Yokan said, jerking her chin in a nod.
Carlette struggled against her bonds.
The Sibilese warrior opened her long fingers.
Aheya disappeared into the pit with a gut-wrenching shriek.
“Tuk! Take off my blindfold! Now!” Carlette hissed, rolling on the stone.
Tuk threw himself to the side. His hands brushed Carlette’s face. He fumbled with the tight fabric.
And then Carlette could see.
Her senses flew open like balcony doors. She absorbed the rush of Aheya’s terror, the bloodlust of the crowd, the hunger of the wolf. Carlette didn’t care if she was giving away her position, didn’t care that the Bloody Paws were looking for someone exactly like her. All she cared about was her friend screaming in the pit.
Carlette let instinct be her guide.
She reached out, following familiar threads.
With a tentative touch, she brushed against the Amonoux’s mind.
She couldn’t possibly enhabit such a creature, could she? All her life, she’d been told it was impossible. Illegal. Only Voka had done it. Only Voka could do it. And the rebel leader had been a monster of catastrophic proportions. A ghost of the mountains, a nightmare.
Aheya’s scream filled the cavern.
“Please! Please!”
Yokan’s story had awoken something in Carlette, unleashed a swarm of questions. Why had Mya slapped her when she had asked questions about her mother? Why had Grand Mera done worse? The subject of Carlette’s birth was a gaping hole in her life, a tender spot that she wasn’t allowed to touch.
But now she found herself wondering.
Was her mother Yokan’s long-lost sister?
Was her father the last living descendant of Voka?
With the recklessness of a child diving into a shallow pond, Carlette shot a spear of power towards the Amonoux, knowing that if she couldn’t penetrate its defenses, she would be smashed against them. At best, she would pass out.
At worst, she would lose her mind.
Thinking only of her friend, of dear Aheya who wanted nothing more than to follow her own heart, Carlette flung herself at the Amonoux’s mind…
And entered it.
Chapter Fifteen: The Furix
It was power beyond anything Carlette had ever known.
Even in its weakened state, this behemoth of a creature was wrapped in life-force, swathed in souls. Energy crackled in the wolf’s blood, a repressed, subdued majesty that the rebels had kept chained and starved. Through the Amonoux’s eyes, Carlette
marveled at the swirls of consciousness that lapped against the cave. The eddies of life. Each pair of eyes saw something different—Carlette could only understand a portion of what the wolf’s brain experienced—but through that seventh and most mysterious eye, she could see the woven magic of the world, tighter where humans and beasts stood, looser in the empty space between, but always there, surrounding them.
All at once Carlette understood. These wolves were a link in the chain of Ferren. Like a snowstorm or a wildfire, the Amonoux were neither good nor evil but an integral part of this land. These were the mainstays of hooded power, the guardians of the island’s magic.
Carlette had only an instant to marvel at the Amonoux’s vast and terrifying mind before it sensed her presence. The wolf snarled, sharp slices of mental energy striking Carlette. She tightened her hold. Her eyes glowed. The wolf shook, its massive shoulders quivering.
The Bloody Paws fell silent.
Aheya, cowering against the side of the wolf pit, clawed at the wall, hauling herself up.
Carlette held onto the Amonoux with everything she had, absorbing its pain, coxing it to trust her.
Let her go, she pleaded. Let my friend go.
For a moment, everything was still.
Then Yokan broke the silence.
“Bring me a torch!”
Tuk swore. Carlette shook all over from the effort of holding the Amonoux back. All it would take was a single rebel torch, an unlucky glimmer to reveal the bright white rings in the Amonoux’s eyes.
And hers.
Leaning against the cave wall for support, Carlette used the last reserve of her mental strength to slip into the black-haired girl on the celling. Byrna. It was a bristling mind, teeming with foreign magic.
Carlette sliced through the girl’s defenses like a knife through animal fat.
Everything hurt.
She felt Tuk’s shoulder against her own, keeping her upright.
With a single swift command, Carlette forced Byrna to pull out a dagger and drop it into the pit. The knife clattered against the stone. Watching through the Amonoux’s eyes, Carlette saw Aheya turn toward the sound.