Chapter 212: Long Live the Queen
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*****
RETH
They were only an hour out of the Tree City when the horns began to blow.
Reth's beast had flickered its ears and wanted to ignore the persistent sound, but he'd forced it aside and taken his natural form, sliding to a halt next to Behryn who had halted to listen.
"We have to go back, now!"
"Just a minute. We have a system so they can tell us what's wrong. Just… listen."
The horn blew long and low in the far distance, almost out of hearing, then another, closer, repeated the sound.
"It's an attack, definitely," Behryn said, his knuckles going white on his spear. "They'll tell me where in a moment."
Reth's heart hammered against his ribs and his hands curled to fists. Elia was back there. With their cub. "We need to go back, now!"
"Hush, Reth!" Behryn snapped, putting a hand up to quiet him. The horns sounded again, four short, sharp blasts, then two longer ones.
Behryn's eyes went wide and he snapped his head to look at Reth. "Oh, shit, Reth. I'm so sorry—"
But Reth tore into beast form and was already running.
*****
When they made it to the Tree City, Reth leapt back into his human form, but stayed at the sprint through the trails, screaming at any guard he found, asking where it had happened. They all pointed him back to the cave.
Next to him, Behryn loped, his long legs eating up the trail beneath them. They both panted heavily, but Behryn was still able to speak.
"Let me go ahead, Reth. You have to. I have to make sure it's safe for you! We can't lose both of you!"
"Fuck off, Behryn. I'm not leaving her th—" Suddenly Reth's feet went out from under him as something caught on his ankle and he tumbled to the earth, landing heavily on one side with a grunt. He rolled and was back on his feet within a few seconds, but Behryn was already halfway down the trail, going even faster now, screaming back at him, "CAUTION, KING. HAVE CAUTION FOR YOUR PEOPLE'S SAKE!"
Three guards appeared along the trail. Reth's lip curled back from his teeth. But as the young men came towards him, eyeing each other warily, he snarled, "What is protocol?"
"You should walk with us, Sire," the closest one said. "We'll have your back, and Behryn can be briefed and make sure it's safe. That there's no trap."
"No trap? No trap? The trap has already been sprung. How long has she been gone?"
The guard swallowed. "Almost two hours, Sire."
"Two—?" Reth clawed his hands into his hair, a mournful call echoing from his throat, out over the trees, then another. And then a mighty roar, as the King of the Anima vented his rage and absolute terror.
Guards be damned. He ran. And they ran with him.
*****
He paced the great room as Behryn spoke with the guard who'd been in the meadow, and Gahrye, who'd been on his way to the cave for first light, as Elia had asked.
"The front door was unlocked and open, but there was no one anywhere to be seen."
"What of the guards we left in the bathing pools?" Reth snarled.
Behryn rumbled at him. This was his briefing. But he tipped his head at the guard to answer.
"Raehn, the guard, and the archer were found stuffed under the rocks behind the waterfall," the guard said quietly. "I was… I had been relieved early. I left. To sleep. I thought… I thought we were supposed to."
"Who relieved you? Where is that guard?"
The guard stared at Behryn who frowned. "Answer the King."
"It was Jak," he said quietly.
"WHAT?" Both Reth and Behryn spat at the same time.
"He was back. We were so happy. He said you kept it quiet because you were trying to keep the wolves from knowing he'd gotten back safely. That he'd been taken…"
Reth snarled and almost shifted. Behryn shot him a look. "How long between when you were relieved and when the horns blew?
"Less than an hour. An hour at most."
They turned to Gahrye, who stood with his arm folded, off to the side, his face pale and tense.
"When did you get here, Gahrye?" Behryn asked calmly.
"I… just before daybreak. I came in to find the door open and no one here. I went back out to ask the guards if she'd left and they said the only one who'd left was Reth. I had them call the horns immediately. I hope… I hope that was okay." The muscles at the back of his jaw twitched.
"It was exactly the right thing," Behryn said, at the same time Reth blew out a breath and his entire body shook. He dropped into a chair and clawed his hands into his hair. His hands were shaking, he realized. His heart was beating so quickly he wondered if it would beat out of his chest.
"She was taken as soon as I left," he croaked.
"Almost immediately, if they had time to get her up the ladder and out of the bathing pools before Gahrye arrived. Did you check the pools, Gahrye?"
"Yes, that was what made me nervous—the guards were gone and the ladder was down. It seemed… unusual under the circumstances. But I thought she might have been training…"
Reth snapped his head up and met Gahrye's gaze. The gaze that hardened as they stared.
"You have something to say to me, son?" Reth muttered.
Gahrye's jaw flexed again. "She's wanted to train properly for months. If you'd started back when we did she might have—"
"I didn't even know she WAS TRAINING!" he roared.
Gahrye blinked and tensed, but he didn't back down. "It should have been your idea," he said quietly.
Reth leapt to his feet, and Gahrye submitted immediately, but Behryn stepped between them, his hands on Reth's chest.
"Brother, brother look at me. This isn't the target of your rage. We have to be calm. We know who has her. We only have to get to her quickly."
Reth tore his gaze off the judgmental Advisor and finally met Behryn's gaze. "Get a tracker on the scent at the top of the ladder, and call the wolf, Charyn," he growled. "The time for caution is past. He's going to show us where they are."
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ELRETH
Elreth was late. If her father, the King, noticed, he would have her hide.
He was already on the stage when she arrived, the long, sleeveless vest that was practically his uniform swinging around his knees. Its heavy fur collar framed his face like the mane of the Lion within him. He always stood proud in these moments, his massive shoulders back, no shirt beneath the vest so they could see the rippled muscles that still slicked his torso, despite his increasing age. At almost fifty, he was still shameless. She teased him about it constantly.
He growled something and his voice echoed across the amphitheater, but she ignored it, grimacing as she slunk through the crowd, twisting between the people, whispering apologies, until she made it to Aaryn, her best friend. He saw her coming and edged aside so she could fit between him and Gwyn on his right. Gwyn smiled, but her lips were tight. Elreth smiled, then turned back to Aaryn, rolling her eyes. Gwyn's very obvious yearning for Aaryn was getting old. Elreth hoped she'd move onto someone else soon.
Aaryn glanced at her from the side, his strong jaw tight and his ice-blue eyes piercing behind the strands of silver-white hair that always seemed to need a cut.
"What's going on?" she signed to him in the finger language they'd developed when she was ten, after her father roared at them for talking during training.
"Nice to see you, too," he signed back, but the jab wasn't accompanied by his usual smile, or the hooked finger that meant it was a joke.
Elreth frowned and signed again. "Sorry. Hi. What's going on?"
"There was a fight yesterday. Snakes and horses. Must have been bad. He's really upset," he signed, using the clawed fingers they used to symbolize a predator Anima's bared teeth. "Almost as bad as you when you're pissy."
She drew a quick cross at the apex of her thighs—a rude gesture she'd created specifically to imply he had no balls—but even when he snorted, she didn't smile back. Something icy was sliding down her spine.
The Tribes were fighting?
Elreth turned to the stage. She'd assumed this was just another of her father's dramatic addresses, something he always did when he needed to bring the people on his side of whatever Kingly decision he'd made. But Aaryn was right, the man on the stage was not her patient, good-natured father, who liked to laugh and tease, and steal kisses from her mother.
The man on that stage was the King. The angry King. The Lion. He stalked the space, shoulders back and chin down, eyes fierce and teeth bared. He was Reth, the King of Anima, and as Elreth paid attention to his booming voice echoing across the morning air, her uneasiness grew.
"…I have been patient, and your Queen has been patient, but it appears you will not be moved—your hearts will not be moved! We cannot allow this distance among the people. We cannot allow tension between the tribes—all of us have seen where that leads. We lived through the division of the tribes that took us to war and almost destroyed us. So, you leave us no choice!" he snarled, scanning the crowd.
Breath quickening, Elreth searched for her mother, the Queen, and found her standing further back on the stage, face tight, eyes on her mate, her arms folded beneath her breasts. She looked angry, and… afraid? Then she caught eyes with Elreth and something fierce entered her gaze.
But after a moment, her mother just looked back to her father, stress and worry on every line in her face. What was going on?
Her father glared and paced the front of the stage, while in a semi-circle centered on it, the rows of wide, grassy levels—each large enough for a full-grown male to lay down—rose, packed with Anima on every inch. All the tribes were there, the people of the lions, the birds, the horses, and serpents—even the few wolf packs that remained loyal to the King. There were more on the grassy tops, and gathered under the trees behind the amphitheater. With their Anima hearing, they didn't have to be close to know what was said.
Every Anima of age stood, riveted, as her father glared at them.
She'd been rushing to get here and hadn't paid attention to the people. But now she sucked in a long, drawn-out breath and let herself scent the tension and confusion of those around her.
"Big problem," she signed to Aaryn, the hair on the back of her neck rising.
Aaryn nodded and signed back, "Never seen him like this before."
Elreth had—but only when he spoke of the days when he'd almost lost her mother. The days when the whole Lupine wolf tribe still walked the forest of WildWood and… holy shit.
"What started the fight?" she signed quickly.
"What do you think?" Aaryn's face went flat as Elreth's darkened.
It had to be the disformed. She gave the little sign—one hand cupped around the other fist, but thumbs up, instead of curled as it would have been for the general Anima.
Aaryn just nodded, the little muscles at the back of his square jaw twitching.
The disformed were Anima who couldn't shift into their Beast forms. The Anima of generations past had always regarded them with suspicion. But her parents had worked hard for twenty years to begin integrating them more fully into the tribes. And they'd had some success. Especially with the younger people. But recent months had brought drought, and struggles over resources. The growing population of disformed had become a point of contention in the tribes that had a higher percentage of them.
Aaryn, as a disformed himself—and worse, a disformed wolf—had borne the worst of Anima prejudice since his earliest days when it was clear he couldn't shift into beast form. Add to that, he was the son of one of the traitorous wolves that had almost ended her parent's rule right before Elreth was born. He'd only been four when his father died in the battle. But now, twenty years later, the increase in the disformed population still raised resentment in some circles. And those circles were not silent.
Elreth lifted her hands to sign a question, to see if Aaryn was okay, when her father's voice rang out.
"The disformed will be asked to leave the Tree City, but allowed to remain in WildWood. They will be given their own tribe and encouraged to make their own way—"
As the crowd began speak, their voices rapidly becoming more insistent, Elreth froze, her heart pounding.
"No," she breathed.
Voices began to rise around her, mostly in surprise, but there were a few who showed excitement because they'd always been against the integration of the disformed Anima into their tribes.
Elreth's stomach plummeted to her toes—then rose again on the flames of her anger.
Aaryn's scent spiked in a strange tangle of fear and rage. She could hear his heart—as familiar to her as her own—pounding.
"Did you know about this?" he breathed.
"What?! No! Of course not! You know I'd never—"
"It is not the solution we would have chosen, but after physical conflicts yesterday between tribes, you leave us no other option!" her father snarled over the hubbub of the crowd below. Her mother's face lined with worry. "We will not allow another War of the Tribes!"
Dread clenched Elreth's stomach.
"He thinks he's going to make me leave?" Aaryn growled, bristling, his hands clenched. He moved to step forward, but Elreth fisted his shirt to stop him. He looked down at her, his piercing blue eyes furious.
It was instinct to fight anything—or anyone—that threatened someone she loved. Elreth didn't even think.
"If you will not hold to all your people, you don't deserve any of them!" she yelled, whirling to face the stage as the entire gathering turned to look for her with a murmur of shock.
But her father's eyes snapped straight to her face.
And then he bared his teeth.
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