Chapter 29 #2
“No one is.”
“This is guessing. No matter what, we’re guessing. On the ship, I know that X means Y. This—this is lives, Roderick. People I care about. And stars, the children…”
This was clearly agonizing for Anya. And while he was deeply concerned about their friends and the children, critical decision-making was nothing new. He could shoulder the guilt if he was wrong. He’d endured far worse.
“I’ll decide then.” He grasped Anya’s hand and stood, pulling her to her feet. “We’re going into Aquillas. If it turns out I made the wrong call, you can throw me back into the sea. We’ll leave a message in the cave here too—arrange some rocks on the beach. Sound like a plan?”
“Yes. Excellent idea.” She sniffed. “I apologize. It seems I can’t think straight today.”
Roderick rested a hand on her shoulder. “Octavio will protect Lady Rowan with his life. I ordered him to. Not that I needed to. He’s quite fond of Lady Rowan, in case you haven’t noticed.”
“Oh I noticed.” Anya chuckled weakly and swiped at her eyes. “But I don’t think she has.”
“Best not to tell her. More entertaining that way.” He winked, making her chuckle turn to a laugh. “Come on. Let’s get to work.”
While Anya burned sticks to write with, Roderick arranged stones into a message beyond the tide line:
WENT ON
R + A
It was good enough. If the Lupus Star did come by, Octavio would almost surely find the cave given his survival training identical to Roderick’s.
It would be easier to leave a detailed message in ashes. He placed the last stone, then stretched his back with a satisfying pop.
“Are you almost finished?” Anya called.
“Yes!” He hustled back to the cave. Anya had her message scrawled onto the wall:
Went on to Aquillas
“Perfect.” Roderick nodded. “Short and sweet. Octavio and Lady Rowan know we’re trying to establish a trade route, so the capital, wherever that is, will be an obvious meeting point.”
“My thoughts exactly. Here is your shirt, by the way.” Anya slipped his dirty white shirt off and held it out. “Thank you.”
Keep it, keep it, keep it, keep it, his heart sang. But he couldn’t exactly make a good first impression in Aquillas without a shirt.
“You’re welcome.” His pulse quickened as he put it on. It was still warm from Anya’s body and carried a little hint of her bergamot scent with it.
Best decision ever.
Ulv, tr?kk der dine forfedre tr?kketTa med magien din til skaperen, og kom hjem
“Well, the words are still here. Still mysterious. Still gibberish,” Roderick said, holding a luminous ball of moss to the wall.
“There has to be a lever, or a door! Something!” Anya growled. “It can’t just be words.”
Roderick stretched an arm up, searching for more clues above the inscription, but found only unblemished cave wall.
Anya paced back and forth in front of the wolf carving.
He stepped to the side to give her room, then noticed the other side of the dais was much smoother than where he’d been standing in front of the wolf. He knelt and squeezed the moss over it.
“Paw prints?” Roderick whispered to himself.
“What?” Anya whirled around.
“There’s paw prints down here.”
Anya fell to her knees across from him. Water dripped from her moss as she held it over the prints.
“Ulv…trakk…der…dine…forfedre…trakket…” Anya sounded out the ancient words. The letters were familiar, but the words still seemed like nonsense to Roderick.
“Trakk?” he said, nowhere close to Anya’s pronunciation. “Trawk. Traek. Track.”
“That’s it!” Anya’s golden eyes lit up for a second, then she stiffened.
“What? If you have an idea, do it!”
She brought both hands to her face. The moss glowed between her fingers, illuminating her cheeks.
“Turn around.”
“What? Why?”
“Turn. Around,” she growled.
“Fine.” Roderick sat on the step and turned away. Fabric rustled behind him, then stopped.
“Close your eyes. And cover them.”
“It’s plenty dark, Anya.”
“Just do it.”
“Yes, Your Highness.” Roderick rolled his eyes even though Anya couldn’t see it.
“That’s better.”
The shift of clothing continued until he heard Anya’s dress fall to the ground, followed by, presumably, her underskirt. Crimson heated his cheeks. What was she doing? Oh Divine, did she want to—
“What I’m about to do may seem strange, but you have to stay calm.”
“I-I-I—” His heart pounded against his ribs, shattering the words forming in his throat. He had so much to tell her, sins to confess. He wasn’t strong enough to refute her advances again. This woman made him weak in the knee and in the heart.
“Oh stars, you’re panicking, aren’t you?”
“No—no, I just—sh-shouldn’t we talk more first?” A hint of heat emanated from the closeness of Anya’s body as she moved behind him.
“No. I’m not wasting another moment. We can talk during. At least, I think so. I researched your kind during the evacuation.”
She researched this? That made one of them. And talking? He could barely breathe right now, barely think, how would he talk while they—
There. Anya’s voice flowed right into his mind.
Just like Yomira’s.
You can turn around now.
A golden wolf sat in Anya’s place, fur glowing light blue from the moss in its jaws. Anya’s dress laid crumpled beside the wolf. Instinctual panic lit up his nerves, but he swallowed it down. Those eyes. They were Anya’s eyes. He could see the little flecks of brown that speckled her yellow irises.
He couldn’t decode the words on the wall, but he knew what this meant.
Anya was more wolf than he ever imagined.
I must say, I expected more screaming. She huffed through her black nose.
“Believe it or not, this isn’t exactly new to me.”
Really? Anya cocked her head.
“My…I’m not sure what to call her. We killed a few paladins together. I suppose that makes her my friend. Carolyn Wright. She helped me get Millicent out of the dungeon below the basilica. She can shift like you.”
Carolyn Wright? The tailor!? Happy yips echoed in the cavern. Anya seemed to completely ignore the little part about killing.
He nodded.
She’s my favorite designer! Lady Rowan and I order her dresses from the mainland! She can do this too?
“Yes, she can. And I’ll be sure to introduce you when we get back to Balcott. Now put those paws to work. You said you had an idea?”
Right. Right. Anya swept her alabaster tail from side to side as she re-positioned herself over the prints. She jumped up and down a few times, shifted her paws, lifted them one at a time, and even tried moving off and back on, but nothing happened.
Damn it, Anya growled. What else could it be?
Roderick surveyed the carving on the wall. “The wolf on the wall is howling. Try that.”
Anya dropped the growl and perked her ears up. Of course!
Roderick watched as Anya planted her paws on the prints, then threw back her head and howled. It echoed through the cavern like the curves of a bugle, turning an already beautiful, somber note into a song of its own.
A vibration ran beneath their feet, then deepened into a roar.