by Parker Foye
He carried his bag with him, with the idea to collect samples for examination. An hour of wandering later, and all he’d gathered were tired dog roses and an interesting piece of fallen bark. Frustration made Griffith drag his feet, but stubbornness kept him following the route his memory knew.
With his head down, and mind somewhere in the hills, Griffith nearly tripped over his own feet when the man stepped onto his path. Wild red hair, tangled beard, clothes tattered and ill-fitting. He smiled at Griffith with jagged teeth.
The arrowhead at Griffith’s belt smouldered with heat. Danger.
On occasion, Griffith’s charms were unnecessary. He could’ve divined the ill intent of the stranger on his own merit, by the way he smiled. Like a wolf from a fairy tale. The kind Griffith had never heard before Morgan delighted in recounting them.
A strange wolf, so close to Hywel territory, made Griffith take a step back. He’d wandered too far. Leg muscles tightening in preparation to run, Griffith slackened his grip on his bag, to disguise reaching for the wardings in the outside pocket.
“Who are you?” Griffith asked, as the man circled him. Griffith circled in turn. He’d learned that trick as a boy, when Llywelyn and Daffyd played at hunting. Don’t give them your back.
“Emery,” the man said. “Of the Keeley pack. Left hand of the alpha.”
“This isn’t your territory.”
“Or yours,” Emery snapped, darting in to clack his teeth.
Griffith didn’t flinch. Growing up with wolves meant a lot of play-fighting. His nerves had been one of the reasons Morgan had taken him as apprentice, though Griffith realised as such only when it became almost too late to extract himself.
“The alpha—”
“What alpha?” Emery interrupted, disdain in his voice. “Alpha needs to fight. Else she’s but a wolf. Like a warden without wardings. Little boy.”
Before Griffith could sling mud of his own, Emery snatched Griffith’s bag and tossed it aside. The bag’s guts spilled over the grass but Griffith didn’t care, already scrambling in the opposite direction. He swiped his thumb over his ring and smeared a streak of blood on the warding he’d managed to snatch, tossing it at Emery.
Emery didn’t move fast enough. Dirt exploded over him in a cough of earth and stones, and he bellowed, swiping blindly at Griffith. Fumbling for another warding—Griffith couldn’t remember precisely what he’d stuffed in his pocket, but had no time to check—Griffith painted the card and swore when his fingers started to burn. He flicked the warding out as flames flickered into life, a blister joining his other scars. More prepared, Emery rolled to the side, though the smell of burning hair followed. His human shouts turned guttural, breaking into a wolf’s voice.
When the flames cleared, a wolf loomed in Emery’s place. Cold prickled over Griffith’s skin.
I am going to die.
Fear stuck Griffith in place as Emery’s upper lip peeled back from his teeth, and he menaced leisurely forward. Like he knew Griffith’s legs weren’t responding.
“Look, I think we should start over—”
A high-pitched whistle cut through Griffith’s fumbling words, making both of them start. He’d never heard the noise, but his heart went cold at the sound. He clutched the charms at his belt, soothing the little wooden horse. It was supposed to nicker, but he hadn’t the knack. Instead it shrieked in warning, as bright as the panic gripping Griffith.
The horse sang when Morgan neared.
No reason for a warden as powerful as Morgan to approach a middle-of-nowhere place like Aberarth unless he worked with Emery. Morgan preferred his laboratories in France, where British wardens and their scruples didn’t bother him.
And if Emery ran with Morgan—Griffith needed to warn Llywelyn. To offer his strength. Hywel and Jones might never again hold the ancient bond of wolf and warden, but Griffith didn’t need it. He’d abandoned his friend once and wouldn’t again.
Silencing the horse by stroking its carved mane, Griffith pushed aside his fear. No time for fear. No time for anything but living long enough to warn Llywelyn.
Glancing at his bag, Griffith judged distance and rolled quickly sideways, snatching it up, rolling to the other side when Emery’s pounce blocked out the sun. Claws scraped Griffith’s face and hand where he’d moved too slow, pain biting him with hot teeth. Swearing, Griffith kicked Emery, making him yelp, and wriggled away. He needed to make his escape before Morgan found him. Griffith wasn’t prepared to fight Morgan. No one could be.
“Get off you heap of—Shit!”
Emery sank his teeth into Griffith’s shoe, as if intending to drag Griffith home like a cat with a mouse.
Not going to happen.
Clawing furrows in the dirt, Griffith struggled desperately to be free, yanking his ankle. One of his nails snapped and smeared blood in the grass. He twisted in Emery’s strangely careful hold, bashing his shoulder on an embedded rock, and nearly choked on his curses when he saw the corner of his warding peeking from beneath a pile of dirt.
Some wardings burned when they were used. Some disappeared. Some simply faded into a pretty piece of card, and no amount of blood could wake the magic again. Griffith had thought the earthshaker would’ve smouldered, as offensive wardings did, but it hadn’t. He snatched the card as Emery dragged him past and daubed his ragged nail over the dirty surface. The rune in the centre sparked to life, and Griffith tossed it at Emery’s back, covering his face with his arm.
Emery howled when earth exploded around him, dropping Griffith’s foot. Not waiting for his luck to change, Griffith stumbled to his feet. Sweat nearly blinded him but he ran from the past trying to catch him, fear driving him forward and hammering in the fevered beats of his heart. Bellows sounded behind him but the precious few seconds of disorientation slowed Emery, and Griffith prayed for speed as he pumped his arms. Heat burned from the arrowhead at his belt, an unnecessary reminder, and his hip sang with pain as his chest ached for air when he finally stumbled across the boundary lines, tumbling head over feet.
I’ve made it.
He panted, eyes wide.
I shouldn’t have.
He twisted around on his belly, staring when Emery collided with something Griffith couldn’t see. The noise of impact made Griffith wince, even as he struggled to comprehend what had happened. He watched Emery stumble back, favouring his right side, and kick dirt at the space where something had stopped him. Where Griffith’s grandmother had once held his hand and told him stories of their family, wardens reaching back hundreds of years.
The boundary lines.
Magic.
Bellowing in rage, Emery paced on the other side of the lines as Griffith shivered with relief and shock. Picking himself up, Griffith spared only a glance for Emery’s furious face, for the evidence of escaping a certain death. He needed to see Llywelyn. Warn him.
Ask him again about magic.
Griffith’s head was light, and his ankle throbbed by the time he reached the treeline, nearly colliding with branches spiky with winter. Unable to act quickly enough to right himself, he started to fall but hands grabbed him. He twisted in their grip, shoving at a solid chest and fumbling for a warding. A firm grip on his wrists, wrenching them apart, stopped him. Griffith blinked sweat from his eyes and sagged gratefully in Llywelyn’s embrace. He let his head rest on Llywelyn’s shoulder, heart thumping in his ears. Despite his encounter with Emery—and the threat of Morgan—he’d never been more terrified.
I almost killed us both.
“Griff? What’s wrong?”
Griffith glanced over his shoulder, itching with the thought of Emery watching. Waiting. He curled his fingers down, trying to reach where Llywelyn held his wrists.
“There was a wolf. Said his name was Emery.”
“Damn it!” Llywelyn’s hands tightened briefly
around Griffith’s wrists before he released his hold, folding his arms tight and turning away. His jaw clenched, like there were words he bit back. He looked at Griffith from the corner of his eye. “He hurt you.”
Cuts and bruises were waking into Griffith’s awareness as adrenaline ebbed away, leaving him drained and achy. Without Llywelyn to lean on, he wobbled in place. Sharp pains spiked in his ankle and the ragged mess of his fingernail, and both of his hands were rusty with blood. He wanted to deny his injuries, unimportant in the face of Morgan encroaching on Hywel-Jones lands, but by god he hurt.
“It’ll heal,” he tried.
Llywelyn glowered. “I should’ve killed him when he first came sniffing around.”
“Then you know him?”
“He’s—We can’t talk here. The hill. Come back with me.”
Twice in two days. Despite his injuries and confusion, a frisson of excitement warmed Griffith at Llywelyn’s invitation. He ducked his head, letting that be his acquiescence. Llywelyn reached out, as if to brush Griffith’s shoulder, but withdrew his hand and nodded instead.
They walked in silence. Each breath made Griffith’s aches throb, aware anew of his body, and Llywelyn’s proximity. Scarcely an inch between them.
An inch and four years.
Griffith grimaced, feigning a greater limp when Llywelyn caught his expression. Llywelyn slowed his pace in response and offered his arm. Griffith took the excuse and curled his fingers around Llywelyn’s elbow as they wove a path through the trees. Despite the danger, and Morgan lurking in his awareness like a canker, Griffith allowed himself to feel relieved. Just for a little while.
When they reached the mouth of the hill, Llywelyn sniffed the air before ushering Griffith down dark tunnels. Llywelyn kept checking for scents, his caution and the swallowing darkness making tension prickle at Griffith’s nape. He clung to Llywelyn’s arm and tried not to stumble. Concentrating as he was, when Llywelyn finally stopped, Griffith walked straight into him.
“Watch where you’re going,” Llywelyn grumbled, righting them both.
Griffith pulled a face, glaring in Llywelyn’s direction. “I can’t see anything!”
Llywelyn’s little noises of confusion and realisation would’ve been funny, if Griffith hadn’t been dripping with fatigue. Wolves could see in the dark. How long had it been since Llywelyn had spoken to someone outside his pack, to have forgotten human limitations?
“Haven’t you got candles?” Griffith asked.
Another noise of dissent. “The hill’s closed at the moment. We’d choke.”
“Then have you a dish? Or something like that. I can make light.”
Griffith didn’t need sight to known Llywelyn wore his sceptical expression. He took firm hold of Llywelyn’s arm, glad of the dark to disguise the heat in his face, and fished in the special pocket he’d sewn in his jacket after one too many nights caught without candles. Swiping his ring over his thumb, Griffith smeared blood on the warding and winced as light flared into life, yellow around the edges. Llywelyn seemed carved from shadows, surprise casting deep lines in his face as he glanced between Griffith’s hand and his face.
“Come with me. I’ve something you can use.”
Cupping the warding and moving steadily, Griffith followed Llywelyn into a room dug out of the hill. Soft lines resolved into a pile of blankets and lumpy cushions, while boxy shadows hid towers of books. Griffith twisted around, trying to read the titles, but a clatter drew his attention.
“What are you doing?”
Llywelyn held up his find from a pile in the corner, victorious. An old lantern shell, smudged from use, perfect to hold the warding. Griffith smiled and carefully slipped the warding inside, as Llywelyn held the lantern steady. Light diffused through the room, stretching farther than when cupped in Griffith’s hand.
“Thank you. I know you didn’t need to.”
Llywelyn shrugged, folding gracefully to the ground. Griffith set the lantern down and failed to mimic Llywelyn’s grace, collapsing to the ground in jerky motions, like a broken accordion. Llywelyn snorted, but said nothing.
“Tell me about Emery,” Griffith said. That way they could both be uncomfortable.
Shadows made Llywelyn’s expression dark as he tilted his face from Griffith. For a moment, Griffith didn’t think Llywelyn would speak, but then Llywelyn licked his lips. He met Griffith’s eyes.
“They came in June. After the Council officially declared all hands lost and we held the funerals. The Keeley pack, I mean.”
The funerals. Griffith went cold with the reminder. He drew his knees up and wrapped his arms around his legs, hunching his back. Bruises ached with the motion but he ignored them. Physical wounds could mend.
Llywelyn busied himself with his pipe, until a thin trail of smoke diffused in the low light. “They’ve never really left since. Emery’s alpha wants the land.” His lips quirked and he tapped the bowl of his pipe. “My father used to tell stories, saying our hill was full of gold. But there’s nothing beneath the ground but a few scrapes of coal. Ifanwy thinks it’s the magic they want.” He pulled a face. “Without an alpha, it doesn’t matter. As soon as the wards fail, Emery can have anything he wants.”
Though Griffith had been raised with magic close at hand, it had been the sort created through dedicated study and not a little trial and error. Ancient magic, like the kind his ancestors had trapped with their warding stones, seemed to come from a world that no longer existed. For all Griffith had searched, he’d not truly considered what he’d do on finding magic. When he finally saw undeniable proof in York, he’d booked a ticket to Wales the same day.
He’d never considered that, to Llywelyn, magic hadn’t gone anywhere. He’d never considered magic could have such force as Emery might run face-first into it and magic leave him bleeding and bruised.
The thought of losing the chance to learn that magic—and losing the only protection their territory had against Emery and Morgan—made Griffith cold with fear. He rubbed his thumb over his shortened finger, more raw than the crusted mess of his new missing nailbed, and hardened his jaw.
“They’ve got a warden. My old master. I’m certain of it.”
“How certain?”
“I made a charm when—It doesn’t matter. But I’m sure it’s him.”
Llywelyn’s lips thinned, eyes tracking the movement of Griffith’s hand. He tapped his pipe again.
“Explains their confidence. Leave by Yule or be slaughtered, they said.”
Heart thumping loud in his ears, it took a moment before Griffith realised Llywelyn had stopped speaking. He had no follow-up from “leave or die.”
“And?” Griffith prompted, hands wide.
Llywelyn smiled. It was a terrible smile. “And what?”
“Jesus Christ, Llywelyn! Why aren’t you leaving? Wolves and warden working together will destroy you. You know they will! And Morgan—You know they will,” Griffith repeated, voice growing quiet as Llywelyn failed to raise his in turn. Griffith didn’t know what to do with a Llywelyn who didn’t argue, who smoked his father’s pipe like they were sitting with ghosts. Like he readied himself to join them.
Yet he looked like the boy Griffith had known. The one Griffith had carried in his heart for years. The one who wanted to leave Aberarth when Griffith wanted to stay.
“Where would we go?” Llywelyn asked. As Griffith had asked, years before.
“Anywhere,” Griffith said. As Llywelyn had said.
That terrible smile. Llywelyn-the-boy was gone, and the man sat in his place. He rubbed his face, rearranging the shadows on it.
“I can’t. We can’t. We appealed to the Council but they don’t have anyone to send. Everything’s a mess, Griff, you don’t know the half of it.”
“So you’ll stay and be slaughtered?”
“The alpha has to stay, that’s how pack works. Even if the old magic won’t recognise Ifanwy, the Council would take our absence as forfeit. There are few others left, waiting on news from other packs to take them in. We have to protect them. We can last that long.”
“Maybe I can bolster the lines somehow...”
Llywelyn huffed a laugh. “So you believe me now, do you?”
Griffith scrubbed his hand through his hair. “I don’t know what to believe.”
Leave or die. Or, as Llywelyn seemed to hear it, a little of both. Griffith didn’t need to ask what would happen once the rest of the pack were safe. With only Llywelyn and Ifanwy left, they’d fight Emery’s pack until they became part of the hill. The way Hywel wolves had for generations, but degrees more violent.
“I saw a berserker,” Griffith said, not knowing he was going to. Not knowing the resignation in Llywelyn’s eyes would be familiar until it struck him. Llywelyn’s gaze flickered to him. “That’s why I came back. I found proof of magic, real and from the earth, I mean. Not only wardings and loci. I found it when I saw him, and I came back to tell you. Stories are still true.”
Llywelyn snorted. “And the happy endings?” He waved his hand when Griffith tried to answer. “A joke. I’m glad you found it. Glad you came back to tell us, though I’m sorry you found us all but gone. A berserker in—where? Italy? France? It’s not going to help us here.”
“In York, as it happens. And it means we might be able to join warden and wolf. Like they used to. If there’s magic enough for that—”
“Not this again. Peace, Griff. I was wrong when I said it all those years ago. And you’re wrong now.” Setting aside his pipe, Llywelyn eased to his feet and offered his hand. Sighing, Griffith allowed himself to be hauled up, starting when Llywelyn pulled him in close, almost nose to nose. “You need to leave. And this time, you can’t come back. It isn’t safe here for you.”