Iron Oracle

by Merry Ravenell

  “She was looking for something?” I asked. Had Kiery been tasked with this before me?

  “No, not exactly. Like she was haunted by—nevermind. It’s probably not important.” He put the car back into gear and pulled onto the road. He balked at asking the dangerous questions. The ones like why and who is Anita protecting?

  We had been gone a long time, and it was dark by the time we arrived.

  “What the—” the front lights of the main house were on, which wasn’t unusual. But in the center of the cluster of buildings was a tall pole, with something silhouetted against it. Something human-shaped was tied to the pole.

  A horrible, horrible, horrible feeling slammed into me.

  “Oh no, no, no, no,” I gabbled. The headlights illuminated everything.

  It was a man. Lucas stopped the car, and I clawed my way out.

  Hix.

  I staggered up to the pole. It was a single long pole, about eight feet tall, with a large iron ring at the very top. They had chained him, his wrists stretched over his head and dangling from the chain, feet just above the ground, and he had been bound around his thighs and chest to the pole with leather straps. From the blood and bruising, they had silver bars on the underside.

  The blood had frozen on his body. His head sagged on his neck, the one eye he had left open and staring, frozen in the cold.

  “No.” I flung myself at the pole and clutched my arms around his legs. He was stiff and cold.

  “No!” I screamed, shaking him, the chains jangling. “No!”

  His eye stared back at me, dead and empty.

  “No!”

  On his chest was a single strange prick that caught my eye, just a tiny slice. Of all the other abuse, that thing stood out to me. Dazed and stumbling, I went around to the back of the pole.

  A war-form had stabbed him in the back.

  Not even a warrior’s death.

  I dropped to my knees in the snow, paralyzed, beyond tears, beyond screaming, beyond even my heart beating.

  No.

  I had sworn to save him. I had failed.

  ...he’s going to die for you, buttercup...

  I screamed.

  I couldn’t stop screaming. I just screamed, and screamed, and screamed.

  No! He can’t be dead. It can’t be over! It can’t be!

  The RedWater wolves threw their heads back and howled ghostly, silent howls with me.

  ...Gianna...

  The Bond flailed and bucked against the tether, my soul screaming for my mate to come carry this anguish with me.

  ...Gianna...

  From the house emerged several forms.

  One of them separated themselves from the group, moving with a serpentine grace.

  Luna Adrianna bent down by my ear as I shuddered with grief and rage. “He called you his Luna until the end,” she whispered in my ear. “I do believe the poor wolf loved you. He seemed quite happy to die in your name.”

  “You bitch, you horrible, horrible bitch—”

  “What would you have done, Luna?” she whispered. “How many have you executed?”

  It wasn’t zero. It wasn’t zero.

  “What did you think was going to happen to him? He served his purpose, had nothing useful to say, so now he’s gone. He was never leaving this place alive, stupid girl, no more than Lucas would have left IronMoon alive. But it was amusing to watch you think he just might. Hix was more practical. There. I remembered his name and spoke it.”

  “But you didn’t give him a warrior’s death!” I snarled at her. “You stabbed him in the back!”

  “Would your precious Gabel have given my Lucas a warrior’s death?” Her eyes pierced mine. “Think about the fangs you carry in that pouch and ask yourself that. Think about how many Gabel has killed and thrown away while you watched. He justifies it as crimes against honor. Well, so do I. The First Beta of another pack does not get to come here and shout about my mate’s honor and get treated with dignity.”

  “Even if what he said is true?” I hissed.

  “What would you have done to Lucas? We aren’t different, Gianna, no matter how much you want to think we are.” She patted me on the head and straightened.

  I snarled and swiped at her.

  She ducked away with easy grace, pivoted on one foot like a ballet dancer, and kicked me in the rib. I rolled backwards in the snow, coughing. Her graceful pivot didn’t stop for me, and she completed the neat three-sixty and continued on the walk to the house as if she had been doing a simple twirl.

  “Follow her,” I choked to the RedWater wolves, “and Lucas.”

  I crawled to the pole and lay in the snow, weeping and praying the Moon would return him to me.

  But the Moon had already set, and there was nothing but winter’s brittle silence.

  Eventually my two Goons came to carry me back into the house.

  Lucas : End, Beginning, Middle... In That Order

  Lucas faced Magnes, balling up all his feelings and wadding them into a corner. His anger about Hix being executed without him present, and the manner in which it had been done, pissed him off and wasn’t feigned. Hix had been his counterpart. It would have been a courtesy to give him the option of executing his counterpart. There had been no need for Hix to be executed in that moment, he hadn’t been gone long, it could have waited a few hours.

  It was an insult to him that Hix had been thrown out like so much garbage and left to dangle like a morbid scarecrow.

  “Where did you take her?” Magnes demanded.

  “To Anita,” Lucas replied. “I wanted some damn answers. You could have waited to execute Hix until I returned.”

  “That First Beta was an insult to the title and not your peer,” Magnes said.

  A day before that might have mollified Lucas slightly. Now it only made him feel more disgusted.

  “Anita called me and told me all about your conversation,” Magnes said. “Leave this alone, Lucas. It’s Oracle business, not ours.”

  “I think you’ve made it pack business,” Lucas retorted. “Who was the Oracle that used mirrors? Who is Anita protecting?”

  Magnes pinched the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger. “I don’t know, and I don’t care. Alpha Gabel has lost his damn mind and is rampaging around like an idiot. Please do not join him.”

  “We all know that Anita leveraged Gianna using a spy you planted, and you let her do it,” Lucas growled.

  Magnes shrugged. “True and fair, and I’ll accept responsibility for that much, now leave this alone. We have bigger matters to deal with. Aaron is not inclined to get his claws dirty with Gabel’s blood. I’ve summoned him here. He has some explaining to do.”

  “I would rather take warriors to the other side of the mountain and explain things to the IronMoon personally.”

  “No.” Magnes waved off the idea. “Not yet.”

  “Then I’d like to go get a shower,” Lucas growled. “Since you won’t let me get dirty.”

  “Betas and their desire for a fight.” Magnes snorted. “Fine. Go. And don’t meddle with the Oracles again, Lucas. In so much as is possible given your affair with Kiery.”

  “That’s my business, not yours, and Kiery’s made it damn clear she’s not budging,” Lucas snapped.

  “Consider it a blessing. Look how well it worked out for Gabel,” Magnes commented, unruffled by Lucas’ anger.

  Lucas left the office and stomped down the stairs and halls to his room.

  Kiery sat on his couch, heels tucked up against her rump and head bowed against her knees. The television was on a channel doing terrible ancient sitcom reruns.

  “What are you doing here?” He shut the door behind him, torn between Kiery being the only person he wanted to see, or the last. Another Oracle. An Oracle who could have stopped this. An Oracle who perhaps knew.

  She raised her head. Her eyes were rimmed in red from crying, and she was still blotchy. “Drinking your beer and waiting for you.”

  Lucas si
ghed, melting. Kiery never cried. That’s one thing he could say about Oracles. They were a tough breed. The weak ones were culled, one way or the other, and the ones who made it, especially those who were powerful and smart enough to rise to any seniority, were the toughest of all.

  They had both had shit days.

  “I had to watch.” Kiery put her hand to her forehead and tugged at her hair. “Had to go watch an execution. I tried to get Danit to at least say wait for Lucas, then I said it and got told to shut up. Didn’t even give the man a decent death. Just hung him up by his wrists and let the silver burn him. He howled the Luna’s Song the whole time. Then some two-shit warrior I don’t even know the name of stabbed him in the back.”

  Lucas stood rigid and still.

  “And where were you, First Beta? You let your IronMoon counterpart, who died for his Luna, be cut down by a warrior so worthless I don’t even know the little shit’s name. If you had been here, you could have at least made his death have some dignity. Instead he had to yank it from the air howling. At least he died happy.” Kiery growled, “Oh, that’s right. I know where you were. Ranting like an enraged dog at Anita, who called me and crawled up my butt the instant you left.”

  “He died serving his Luna. No one can take that from him,” Lucas said. It was something, at least. “He got to sing. He got to sing and everyone heard him, instead of doing it in the dungeon.”

  Kiery snorted.

  He went to the fridge and pulled out two beers. He popped the top off both and handed her one. She took it and guzzled down a long swig, then dropped her head back onto her knees, shoulders shaking with silent sobs.

  “I need a goddamn shower.” Lucas drank half his beer. Then he pulled off his shirt, threw it on the couch. Then the belt. Then his jeans. “Go away, Kiery.”

  She raised her tear-streaked face, and whispered, “Why?”

  “Because I don’t trust Oracles. You’re all in it together.”

  He had never said anything so harsh, in such a cutting tone. “What are you talking about?”

  “You know who the Oracle that used the mirror was.”

  “No.” Kiery shook her head. “I can’t be sure. I don’t know.”

  “Who was the Oracle that used the mirror Gianna found?” he shouted over his shoulder from the bedroom.

  Kiery slid off the couch and went after him. “I was just a kid back home in NightScent. Thessa didn’t know, and Anita said she didn’t know either. I just came hunting rumors and stories and I—I don’t want to talk about this.”

  Lucas got into the shower, the cold water slamming into his tired body. “Well, they’re lying. Anita knows. Anita just won’t tell anyone, and I guess Thessa is her little bitch.”

  “What? Thessa knows?” Kiery yanked the shower curtain back.

  “Don’t act like this is news to you.” He yanked it closed again. “Go away, Kiery.”

  “Whoa, fuck you, buddy—”

  “Not tonight you won’t.”

  She yanked the curtain rod down and tossed it away. It clattered to the ground and splattered water everywhere. “I am the SableFur Oracle, and don’t you dare accuse my Oracles of being corrupt! You tell me what Anita said to you. Now.”

  “Your Oracles? They’re Anita’s Oracles, you just apparently haven’t realized it! Did Anita tell you about Gianna’s eye?”

  “No. What’s wrong with her eye?”

  “I see you are spectacularly well-informed, Oracle. Such a fine job you do. So much respect you command.”

  “Oracles are not warriors, you prig. Not the same level of mass stupidity and violent tendencies. But I’m starting to feel violent.”

  “You’re not a match for me, Kiery.”

  “You won’t fight back either. So I’ll carve you up like a goddamn goose if you don’t start talking. You tell me what the hell happened! You tell me what my dreams mean!”

  “What dreams?” Lucas asked.

  Kiery shook her head and waved her hands. “No, I can’t even describe them. Tell me about Gianna.”

  “She’s got a white half-moon where her iris should be.” He pointed to his own eye. “She came out of that vision or whatever she was in with white smeared on her thighs and white in her eye and bruises like she’d been beaten.”

  Kiery drank some of her beer. “What sort of white goop?”

  “That sort of white goop.”

  “You sure she wasn’t just having a little alone time under the sheets? Your sheets, weren’t they?”

  “I know the difference between what a woman smells like and what a man smells like, Kiery. And I didn’t touch her except to carry her like you told me to.”

  Kiery finished off her beer.

  Lucas leaned on the shower wall and the water pounded over him. It also splattered Kiery and made puddles on the floor for lack of the shower curtain. “So forgive me if I don’t trust Oracles right now. You guys are into some very weird shit, and there’s an angry Moon goddess glaring at all of you.”

  “I’m not one of the cool kids, I guess.” Kiery wandered out of the bathroom and back into the front room.

  Ten minutes later Lucas, wrapped only in a towel, appeared and said, “And you’re still here.”

  “Yep.”

  “I am not drinking with you.”

  “You are. And you’re going to tell me all the complaints you have about my Oracles. I can’t undo what happened with Hix—”

  “Hix was always going to die.”

  Kiery grabbed the towel. “Lucas, please don’t let them de-fang him. Please make sure he’s at least buried well. Please. He died singing the Luna’s Song, he died for a Luna who wasn’t, and he died so gladly for her. If you never do anything else for me, please make sure they don’t defile his corpse and soul.”

  Lucas gripped her hand and lifted her fingers off the towel. “I would not permit such a thing to happen to a fellow warrior.”

  “Good. Now tell me about my Oracles.”

  Lucas sighed, and got more beer. Then he sank down close to her, and told her everything from the moment he had put Gianna in his bed, to the conversation on the way home. That took one beer. It took half of the second before he could say, “Gianna isn’t pregnant. I thought that this might be about her. The runestones she found. About the pup. That maybe Gabel... I don’t know. Rejected her or something. That she has a now-bastard pup in her belly.” He winced and put the beer to his forehead.

  “He did repudiate her. That’s sort of rejection times five thousand,” Kiery said.

  “I don’t know. Something. Ug.”

  “But?” Kiery asked.

  Lucas looked at her. “You already know.”

  Kiery said, “I saw a face in the mirror. I saw... tell me, Lucas. Tell me what I think I already know.”

  “It was Gabel’s mother. Gabel is the pup. He’s a SableFur bastard, his mother was chased off with a litter in her belly. There may be more, there may not. Nobody seems to know who she is. Anita disappeared her, and Anita says she will not say the name or it will destroy SableFur.”

  Kiery swallowed hard, stricken.

  Lucas peeled at the label on the beer bottle. Then he set it aside and pulled her close to him, gripping her to stop her shaking as much as his. “I’m right, aren’t I. You’ve seen it.”

  Kiery nodded.

  “What are we going to do?” he whispered. “Adrianna has to know.”

  “I’m certain she does,” Kiery whispered. “I’m certain she’s always known. But we can’t prove it, Lucas.”

  “It would be your word and mine and Gianna’s. The only thing we have is the mark in her eye.”

  “It’s not enough.”

  “Why wouldn’t Magnes confront Gabel? Why is he resisting attacking the IronMoon while they’re weak?”

  Kiery shook her head. “I dreamt of Magnes wearing a crown carved of Gabel’s skull, and wielding a scepter made of his right arm and hand, and a cloak over his shoulders made of Aaron’s hide. Row after row of werewolves
howled his praises in a dark cave made of burning stone, but thanking him for saving them from the Comet.”

  “What does it mean?” Lucas asked.

  “That Magnes will use Gabel to become King-Alpha,” she whispered by his ear. “And Aaron is, I think, working with Gabel.”

  “Magnes defeats them, he gets all their holdings,” Lucas whispered.

  “Yes. Quite an incentive to let Anita do whatever she wants, isn’t it? Anita buries Gabel so no one ever knows about her sins, Magnes wears his crown.”

  Lucas pondered this, his entire world view pivoting around.

  “Aren’t the other senior wolves restless? Don’t they want to attack Gabel now?”

  “Yes. Magnes has been deflecting our insistences.”

  “Now you know why.”

  Lucas hugged her tighter, and searched her eyes with his. “Kiery, the only proof we have is Gianna’s eye. Even if we got a name, no one would remember it to care. It would be meaningless. But Magnes’ deflection has caused ripples. There’s only one thing we can do.”

  “Are you asking me if I will die at your side?” Kiery asked him.

  “If I fail, you and Gianna will die with me. I believe I can defeat Magnes in combat, but Adrianna will still have the support of others, and we will still die unless... unless something unforeseen happens.”

  She kissed him warmly, hands shaking as she held his jaw tight. “Howl your challenge, First Beta. I will go with you.”

  “Will you...” he touched her arm.

  She asked, “What happens if we survive? Can you live with your Luna being an Oracle?”

  He grimaced. He didn’t want to be an Alpha. Lucas pressed his fingertips into the skin. Their star-crossed romance was no secret to anyone in SableFur. The rift between them so large everyone had seen it. “We’ll need something else in our favor. It’s a fool’s errand. We’ll die just like Hix died.”

  “One of my sisters was violated. I cannot allow this to happen, and the one who did it must be held accountable. Gianna has sown the seeds, she has the mark in her eye, the pack wonders and doubts, Hix uncovered the secret in his Luna’s name. Now the Moon needs a champion. And I think you just volunteered.” She smiled at him and stroked his cheek fondly.