Chapter 19 #2
Shasta exhaled, a plume of steam in the cold. “It is the will of the Goddess that brings you here. But it is the will of men that brings shame.” She inclined her head. “Your daughter’s mate bond is the talk of every coven from here to the Eastern Sea.”
“Savannah’s actions were… unanticipated.
” The understatement tasted bitter. “But we both know it’s not the bond that concerns the Council.
It’s the precedent. If wolves can break centuries of tradition at the whim of a girl, what next?
Vampires refusing blood oaths? Witches abandoning their covens?
” I leaned in, let the heat of the fire paint my face orange.
“What happens when a High Flame Caller chooses her own path? Does the world survive that, Shasta?”
She flinched, barely. But it was enough.
I watched the gears turn in her mind: the stories of her own line, the cousin who’d defected to the Midwestern vamps, the mutiny that cost her mother her position.
Shasta prided herself on being unbreakable, but she understood how quickly tradition became memory, and memory became rot.
“The world survives,” she said, “but it is changed. Not always for the better.”
“Then we agree,” I said, soft as a confessional. “The old ways are not perfect, but they keep us from the abyss. If the Council breaks faith, it breaks everything.”
She shifted, robes whispering against the stone. “You came for my vote.”
I nodded. “You already know I need five. The rest can be bought or bullied. But yours is worth more than gold. Your word on this will turn the room.”
She studied me for a long moment, blue eyes unreadable in the glow. “You are not like your daughter. You know how to ask for things.”
“She used to be like me,” I said, and let the lie stand.
Shasta pressed her lips together. “You were always a better liar than a wolf.”
“I’m whatever you need me to be.” I smiled, showing teeth. “That’s the whole point.”
A long silence, broken only by the sizzle of sap in the flames. Shasta watched the fire as if waiting for a sign, but I knew the real work was already done. Fear of disorder was the mortar that held the whole edifice together.
“If I cast my vote,” she said, “I’ll expect something in return.”
I let the question hang. She wanted me to ask, so I didn’t. She filled the silence herself. “There are elements in the Western Territories who want to see the covens split. Otero is making promises he cannot keep. If the Eastern Wolves remain united, so do we.”
I nodded. “You’ll have your alliance.”
She smiled, small and sharp. “You’ll have your vote.”
We stood at the same time. Shasta stepped down from the dais, the hem of her robe hissing through the salt. She offered me her hand—bare, ungloved, the sign of trust. I took it, squeezed once, and felt the delicate bones beneath her skin.
The deal was done.
Back in the corridor, I let the cold burn off the scent of fire. The first vote was always the hardest; the rest would fall like dominos. I walked the archways with my head high, let the blue flames lick at my shadow, and didn’t look back.
The world could go to hell, as long as I got there first.
The sun never rose in Gloamreach. It hovered behind a perpetual veil of clouds, turning the twisted black trees into silhouettes and the ground into a grave of moss and rot.
Even the air here was a conspiracy—wet, dense, so thick with spores and secrets you could taste them on your tongue.
The witches who ruled these woods liked it that way.
They believed in darkness the way some people believed in currency or God.
The entrance was marked by a pair of dead wolves, strung up in the branches and draped with ribbons of sinew.
A warning, or maybe a welcome. I passed beneath them, head high, and followed the path of broken stone into the heart of the enclave.
No one challenged me, but I could feel eyes behind every tree, every knot of fungus.
The Gloamreach witches weren’t known for hospitality, especially not for men, especially not for wolves.
But the Mistress of Shadows had invited me, and that meant she wanted something.
Her chamber was a nest of woven branches, the walls thick enough to blot out even the suggestion of day.
It reeked of mushrooms and burnt cloves, the kind of scent that clings to your clothes long after you’ve left.
The Mistress herself sat in a high-backed chair, a quilt of black feathers draped over her shoulders.
Her hair was a riot of curls, half hiding her face, which was pale and sharp as a knife.
One eye was painted with kohl, the other bare, and the asymmetry made her look always on the verge of laughter or violence.
“King Calloway,” she said, voice so smooth I nearly missed the threat in it. “How rare to see you outside your concrete kingdom.”
I bowed just enough to be polite. “Mistress. I trust the moon finds you well.”
She snorted, then flicked her gaze to the leather satchel I carried. “You’re not here for pleasantries.”
“Nor are you.” I took a seat across from her, ignoring the way the chair seemed to crawl under my weight. “We can skip the dance if you like.”
“Not yet.” She poured a drink from a glass decanter—something black and viscous. She didn’t offer me any. “Word is your daughter’s made quite a mess of things.”
“Word is correct.” I let the satchel fall to the table between us with a thud. “But that’s not why I’m here.”
She eyed the bag, then me. “What do you want?”
“A moment of candor.” I reached into the satchel and drew out the diary.
Small, battered, bound in leather so old it was almost gray.
I set it on the table, fingers never leaving the cover.
“This was hard to come by. Imagine my surprise when it turned up in the hands of a southern informant, of all places.”
Her body went still, except for a tremor at the corner of her mouth. “You’ve read it?”
“Cover to cover.” I flipped it open, careful to keep the ink facing her. The pages were crammed with months of entries regarding a secret. A daughter—no, a changeling; she’d kept hidden all these years.
She was silent, but her fingers dug into the feathers at her collar. “You don’t understand what that means.”
“I understand enough. I understand that if these notes ever reached the Supreme Council, the resulting inquisition would burn Gloamreach to the ground.” I closed the journal, let the silence hang. “But I’m not interested in arson.”
She wet her lips, the kohl-lined eye never blinking. “You want something.”
“A single favor. A vote.” I leaned forward, voice low. “Tomorrow, when the Council meets, you will oppose the mate bond between Savannah Calloway and the Iron Valor dog. You will say it’s against natural law, or tradition, or whatever fiction you need. I don’t care what words you use.”
She barked a laugh, harsh and ugly. “You’d blackmail your own daughter out of happiness?”
“She made her choices.” My voice was granite. “Now I’m making mine.”
She looked away, toward a glass sphere on a shelf that pulsed with a dim blue light. I watched her reflection in it, the way her jaw clenched, the faint panic behind her mask. “If I refuse?”
I slid the journal back into the satchel. “You won’t.”
A long moment. Then she slumped in her chair, every inch of defiance gone. “This is the last time, Declan. The last time you get to pull my strings.”
“We’ll see.” I stood, brushing the moss from my trousers. “Thank you for your time, Mistress.”
She didn’t rise. She didn’t even watch me go. I left her there, shadowed and small in her own kingdom, the taste of victory sweet and fungal on my tongue.
Outside, the path had changed. The dead wolves were gone, replaced by a tangle of black flowers blooming in the night. A sign, maybe, or just another reminder that in this world, nothing stayed buried for long.
Two votes in hand. Three to go.
I set my course for the next, already thinking ahead to the flavor of blood and fire.