12. Gracie
Gracie
“This water pressure is ridiculous,” Thornar grumbled. My lips tugged into a small smile. I couldn’t complain about the shower—I’d really enjoyed it—and now I was wrapped in a towel, feeling refreshed after a very long night of sleep.
After the attack, each of the allied territories had claimed a wing of the capitol building for their forces, offices and all. It meant no beds, but we had couches, a makeshift living space, and—best of all—several working bathrooms.
It felt surreal, brushing my teeth in a towel as Thornar showered a half room away. My cheeks heated at the thought of him naked. I was more than half tempted to join him, but we had a meeting to get to.
“I feel guilty for staying in such a nice space when I know everyone else in the city isn’t living that way,” I said to the three of them. Basir nodded in agreement as he passed by the door, and Ravik tilted his head in thought as he sat on the couch and pulled on his shoes.
“I think after the war, we may want to look at including this city in the plans we have for the Cold Moon Pack. We may not lead them, but we can offer resources.”
“I like that idea,” I said as I went to the closet where we’d stored our bags.
I pulled out a gray cotton dress and quickly changed.
I put on a black belt and some boots, loving how comfortable everything felt after wearing tactical gear for what felt like days on end.
The protective gear had been needed, but I wouldn’t complain about a break.
“I didn’t get to see anyone last night, I was so tired,” I said. I’d nearly fallen asleep at rebellion headquarters. “Did your mom and dad come?” I asked Ravik.
“No, just Banthor and Siguun. Solenne stayed with my parents.”
I looked forward to seeing his brothers. And if Banthor was here that meant Elowen was here, and I had missed her a lot. I was curious if they had made any progress on gathering information on the ritual from the archives.
“Ready?” Thornar asked a few minutes later as he reached for a jacket. I followed the three of them out, grabbing Ravik’s hand as the other two talked easily.
The capitol building held a chill that had nothing to do with the temperature.
While luxurious, it still felt wrong—like Alpha Sharp’s darkness lingered here.
Our footsteps echoed off the stone and as we passed open windows, the scent of smoke from the attack yesterday carried through.
Ravik’s thumb moved absently over my knuckles as we walked, but his jaw was tight, his mind clearly somewhere else.
“What are you thinking about?” I asked.
“Sable. Among others.” He glanced down at me. “We have hundreds of Cinder Ring members in custody now, including the higher-ups. A few got away before we could grab them, but I’m hoping at least some of the ones we have can give us information on Ivan.”
“Where are they keeping them?”
“The prison,” he answered. “For now, until we question them about supply chain paths that connect to Ivan’s command centers, nothing happens. Once we know what they have, we’ll decide the rest.”
Basir looked back. “When they’re done with Sable, I want to see him.”
I didn’t need to ask what he meant by that.
The room we gathered in for the morning meeting was huge, built for holding grand balls—but for now all the ceremonial furniture had been pushed against the walls, and in its place was a large table with at least thirty chairs surrounding it.
The surface was covered with paper and tablets, and as we walked in, familiar faces turned toward us in greeting.
Kaliyah and Lacey stood to the right of the table, heads bent together over the former tablet.
Between their posture and the tone of their voices it was obvious there was no tension between them—the opposite of what Lacey had suggested.
In fact, they looked more like a couple than anything else.
Lacey said something that made Kaliyah laugh, quiet and real, her hand finding the small of Lacey’s back like it belonged there. Maybe there was still hope for them.
Maybe this was why Lacey avoided her. Interesting.
Waylon’s voice carried from the other side of the table, Bishu at his right with her arms crossed and her eyes sharp on the map in front of them. Haiden stood across from them, gesturing at something with frustration. They were likely trying to map out their plan for the next phase of attack.
“There’s a lot of people,” I murmured to Ravik, looking around at everyone gathered in the room.
It wasn’t just those at the table—it was all of their advisors, commanders, and captains that surrounded it.
There would have been a point in time, less than a month ago, when this type of room would have given me anxiety.
Not so much now. Still, I let out a breath of relief when I saw Elowen sitting right across from us.
“Gracie!” she squeaked, waving us over. Banthor smiled indulgently.
“Morning,” I said, pulling her into a side hug. Siguun, Ravik’s youngest brother, turned in his seat long enough to flash all four of us a smile before dropping his attention back to the book in his lap.
“Just wait until I tell you what I found.” The smile she offered me was filled with pride—not so much at what she found, I doubt that was good news, but more that she had been able to find it.
“Is it about the—”
Before I could finish, a group of plain-clothes soldiers led by Edie and Bram entered. The volume of the room dropped as everyone watched the rebellion representatives approach.
“Bram!” Bishu walked around the table to give her son a hug. “It’s so good to see you.”
I could tell Edie was taken off guard. Her gaze darted between them with confusion, maybe a bit of possessiveness, before it resolved in understanding.
When they broke their hug, Bram introduced them. “This is my mom. Mom, this is Edie—she’s the leader of the rebellion in Grimfur Skulk.”
I could hear the pride in his voice. Bishu moved to greet the woman beside him, while Waylon clasped his son’s shoulder. Something about the warmth of it settled the room, and one by one, people started making their way to the table.
“Wait!” Elowen said in a hushed whisper as she stared at Edie. “I recognize you—you’re Charlie’s sister.”
Charlie? Oh—Charlie from the archives! That was who she looked like. Of course it made sense; they were both fox shifters.
Edie’s expression flickered. “You know Charlie? You’ve seen Charlie recently?”
“Of course! I was with her at the archives,” Elowen said. “She’s mentioned you before, and I’ve seen your pictures together. She’s got like seven of them stuffed in a box with a bunch of other keepsakes.”
“That sounds like her,” Edie said dryly. I caught her eyes lingering on Elowen a beat too long, like she wanted to ask more. Then my attention shifted to the other conversation between Bishu, Waylon, and Bram.
“When did this start?” Waylon asked Bram, quieter than I’d ever heard him. “You never said you were part of the rebellion.”
Bram’s gaze cut toward Edie before he answered with an unreadable expression. “Better left for later.”
Bishu and Waylon were clearly unsatisfied with the answer, but they let it go with the kind of patience I imagined came from raising forty children.
“Alright.” Waylon’s voice shifted into something more authoritative. Conversations trailed off one by one until the only sound left in the room was the shuffle of paper. “We should begin.”
At that, everyone began settling around the table. I found myself wedged between Ravik and Thornar, Basir a step behind us with his arms crossed. Kaliyah rolled out a large map, its surface featuring markers scattered across Thornfell—but distinctly centered along the east coast.
“We have to assume Ivan already knows where we are and what has happened,” Ravik said, tapping the section representing Grimfur Skulk. “Graeme fled two days ago, and any of the Cinder Ring bastards who escaped went with him to hide behind Ivan.”
“So he’ll be ready for us,” Haiden said.
“Not only that, but we have to assume it will be a full-out war the moment we cross the border,” Thornar pointed out.
“We don’t have the training or skills for war,” Edie admitted. “But what we can do is protect this city and pull all resources we have forward for use. Every weapon we’ve stockpiled, every cache Cinder Ring left behind when they fled—it’s yours if it helps end this.”
“That would be helpful,” Lacey said, her stiff manner giving way slightly with a small smile. “More so, you deserve to keep protecting the city you fought so hard to save.”
She was right. Edie’s people had bled for this city long before any of us showed up to help.
Waylon leaned over the map, tracing a line from our current position north toward Cold Moon Pack territory. “Two days, if the weather holds. We move as one body until we’re within range, then split. That’s my suggestion.”
The leaders of each territory consulted with their strategic staff before indicating agreement. Ravik moved forward to mark four points along the border. “If we approach this right, we can box him in before he can figure out a way to escape and move the ritual.”
We were going to need every advantage we could find. We’d won here, but Alpha Sharp still had soldiers with him, and every loyal member of the Cold Moon Pack would be waiting on the other side, ready to fight.
“We run the risk of him noticing and moving before we get there,” Thornar pointed out. “If we run a straight shot to the territory border, he’ll have plenty of time to prepare and meet us before we even cross.”
“Then you don’t take a straight shot.” Bram cleared his throat.
“Cinder Ring ran supply routes through Cold Moon territory for years. Quiet paths, off any map you have.” He nodded toward the table.
“If your people know where to look, you could move smaller units faster than two days—ahead of the main force.”
Ravik’s gaze flicked to Basir, something unspoken passing between them.
“I know the paths,” Basir admitted. Nobody asked how.
“And these teams, who would they consist of?” Bishu asked.
“Us.” Ravik’s voice was serious. “Gracie and the three of us need to reach Ivan before the ritual.”
My stomach tightened. I knew what came next, and it wasn’t going to be about routes or flanks. It was going to be about me.
“Before we finalize troop movement,” I said, “there’s something I need to explain to all of you. To everyone who’s agreed to move against Ivan and risk so much to save so many lives.”
The room quieted, and I forced myself to stand a little straighter, my hands tangling in front of me. This wasn’t something I could say from behind my mates. I’d come this far, and everyone in this room deserved to know the full extent of what was going to happen.
“Most of you—or your leaders—know some version of what happened to me after the trade conference,” I started. “That I was marked during a ritual meant to kill me. What some of you don’t know is what that ritual actually was, or what it means for what we’re about to do.”
With a deep breath, I explained it plainly to the entire room: that Ivan’s upcoming ritual wasn’t just a sacrifice, it was designed to consume—to strip life and feed something old and hungry. One of the unnamed gods.
That the bond between me and my mates wasn’t only a mating bond. It was a counter-force, deliberately opposed to what Ivan was building—a gift from a god named Vaelithra.
I told them about the power I’d been given by the other gods and my journey through their realms so by the end of my explanation they’d understand the full weight of what this mission meant.
“Ivan’s ritual will steal the lives of thousands,” I said. “The god scar on our bond can stop him.”
None of the leaders seemed surprised—maybe they’d assumed it was more complicated than we had let on—but I could see the weight of it settling over the rest of the room.
Speaking this openly risked the information getting back to Ivan, but it would be worth it if it meant our allies understood the true stakes of what we were discussing.
“So this isn’t just a war,” Kaliyah said slowly, working through it.
“No. If Ivan finishes the ritual, he doesn’t just win a territory or gain some power. He becomes something none of us know how to fight.” I made myself keep going, even as my pulse climbed.
“And when I pull on our bond,” I continued, not clarifying that there was still a part that needed to be formed, “it won’t stay contained to the four of us.
It will reach every pack bond, every mating bond in range.
That’s the counter-ritual. That’s what actually pushes back against what he’s doing. ”
I may not have known how exactly to pull on the bond yet, but I had to believe we’d figure it out when the time came.
I looked around the table, at every face turned toward me, waiting. “Which means I can’t be somewhere safe while this happens. I have to be at the front. It’s the only place where the bond will do what it needs to do at the scale we need.”
Nobody tried to talk me out of it. Something in my chest eased, a quiet kind of relief I hadn’t expected. They believed me.
“There’s something else.” Elowen’s voice cut through the silence, and every head turned toward her as she stood, a worn leather folder clutched to her chest. “I spent days in the archives before coming here. I think I’ve finally found its name.”
“The ritual?” Ravik asked.
Elowen nodded, setting the folder down and flipping it open to reveal pages of brittle, handwritten text. “The Devouring Rite.”
The name alone gave me chills.
“It’s old—older than most of the information we have on The Eight.
I have no idea how Ivan even got hold of it.
The thing to know, though, is that this rite requires very specific timing.
” Her eyes lifted to mine. “It requires the full moon and a blood moon, together, on the same night. That’s rare. ”
“What difference would that make?” Kaliyah asked.
“A blood moon amplifies sacrificial magic,” Elowen said. “It’s why the old texts call it a doubling. Whatever Ivan intends to take that night, the blood moon means he’ll take more of it, faster, with less resistance.”
“Eight days from now,” Bishu said, her eyes darkening with concern, “will be both a full moon and a blood moon.”
“It’s the only night this will work for him. His only chance,” Elowen agreed.
“And our only chance to stop him.” My voice was a whisper.
After that, the room got loud fast. Commanders called for their combat unit leads, the meeting breaking into half a dozen overlapping conversations.
I slipped back a step, then another, until I found the wall and the door along it. I needed a moment to breathe.