CHAPTER THIRTEEN SILVER FIRE
T he first wolf fell without a wound.
One moment he was lunging through the smoke toward the Crown line, all gray fur and flashing teeth.
The next he hit the snow hard, body twisting as if some invisible hook had caught him behind the ribs.
He tried to rise and could not. His paws scraped at the frozen earth.
His breath came out in harsh, wet bursts.
Marion felt it.
Not the way she had felt wounds before, with healer’s instinct pulling her hands toward pain. This struck through the bond-lit air of the Grove and dragged sharp claws down her own chest. Not Euan’s pain. Not hers.
The Grove’s.
She staggered.
Euan caught her by the arm. “Marion.”
“I know.” Her voice sounded wrong. Too tight. “I know.”
That was a lie. She did not know anything. Not really.
The dark silver vapor boiled around their feet, sliding over snow and roots, crawling up men’s legs like it had purpose. It did not drift like smoke should. It hunted. It found wolf skin and sank in. It found blood and bit.
The fallen wolf convulsed again.
Marion tore away from Euan and ran to him.
“Stay low!” someone shouted.
That might have been Fergus. It might have been Euan. It might have been every sensible person in the Grove, which meant of course she ignored it.
A soldier stepped from the smoke, face half covered by a leather mask, silver tipped spear aimed for the wolf’s exposed throat. Marion did not think. She lifted her hand and silver gold light flashed from her palm. The spearhead struck it and hissed.
The soldier stopped, startled.
Marion was startled too.
Then Euan hit him from the side.
The man flew into a tree with a crack that sounded unpleasantly final.
Euan turned, eyes blazing. “You cannot run straight at spears.”
“You cannot tell me that after running straight at crossbows.”
“That was different.”
“How?”
“I am better at it.”
Marion would have argued if the fallen wolf had not made a choking sound.
She dropped beside him. He had shifted halfway back to human, one arm clawed, one hand human, face trapped between shapes. His eyes rolled toward her, gold gone pale with pain.
“Breathe,” she ordered.
He gave a sound that was probably meant to be rude.
“Fine, do not breathe. See if I care.” She pressed both hands to his chest anyway.
The silver smoke clung to him in threads. She could see them now, thin black lines under the skin, moving through veins with ugly little pulses. Her gift surged hot through her palms. The wolf in her pushed behind it, not fighting, not resisting. For the first time they moved together.
Gold fire.
Silver light.
The poison recoiled.
The wolf sucked in a breath so hard his whole body lifted.
Marion nearly smiled.
Then pain bit into her hands.
She gasped and jerked, but did not let go. The smoke did not like being forced out. It snapped back at her, cold and sharp, trying to climb into her wrists. She shoved it away with more instinct than knowledge.
“Out,” she snarled.
The light flared.
The black lines under the wolf’s skin shattered like burned threads.
He collapsed, breathing.
“Good,” Marion said, though her hands shook. “Stay there.”
His mouth moved. “Mistress.”
“Do not call me that while lying in the snow half naked. It makes this stranger than it already is.”
He stared at her.
Then, absurdly, he laughed once before coughing.
Euan appeared beside her, blood on his shoulder and fury in his face. “You are hurt.”
“Everyone is hurt.”
“Your hands.”
Marion glanced down. Thin silver burns crossed her palms. They stung badly, but they were already fading under the strange light beneath her skin.
“Well,” she said, flexing her fingers. “That is new.”
Euan caught one wrist and turned her palm up. His face darkened.
Before he could say whatever overprotective thing was forming in that handsome and unreasonable head, a cry rose from the western side of the Grove.
Silver fire.
It came in glass globes hurled from the trees. They shattered against roots and stones, spilling white flame that did not burn wood at first. It burned fur. It burned blood. One wolf rolled in the snow, howling as the flame crawled along his flank like living oil.
The Grove erupted.
Warriors charged. Crown soldiers fired crossbows. Wolves shifted in bursts of bone and fur. Some changes were clean. Some were not. The smoke made everything wrong. Marion heard bones catch halfway, men cry out with wolf voices, claws scrape at throats that could not open enough for breath.
The air filled with the stink of silver, fear, wet fur and burning herbs.
Aodh swung the execution axe in both hands and cleaved through the shaft of a spear. Apparently the old man was far less ceremonial when irritated.
Morna dragged a young woman away from a patch of silver fire by the back of her collar. “Stop screaming and roll, you daft pup!”
“I am rolling!”
“Roll better!”
Marion would have laughed if terror had not been sitting on her lungs.
Euan pulled a fallen sword from the snow and pressed the hilt into her hand.
She stared at it. “What am I to do with this?”
“Point the sharp end at men who come too close.”
“I am a healer.”
“You are also annoyed.”
That was true.
A soldier rushed them.
Marion lifted the sword awkwardly, but Euan was already moving. He caught the man’s wrist, twisted, and sent the blade flying. Marion shoved her glowing palm into the man’s chest before she could decide whether that was acceptable behavior. Light burst out. He flew backward into the snow, groaning.
Marion looked at her hand.
“Oh.”
Euan looked at her too. “Useful.”
“I did not mean to do that.”
“Mean to next time.”
Another soldier lunged from the smoke. Marion turned and did exactly that.
The blast was not elegant. It struck too low and sent the man tumbling backward over a root with a cry that would have been funny under different circumstances. Unfortunately, circumstances included poison and murder, so Marion saved the laughter for later.
If they survived.
She moved toward another fallen wolf, and Euan moved with her. Not in front. Beside. A step ahead when a blade came. A step back when she needed space. He fought like something old and terrible had finally been given permission to breathe.
She could feel him.
That was the strangest part.
His shoulder burned where the silver bolt had grazed him. His wrists throbbed. His ribs ached from the ritual chain. His heart beat fast and hard, not from fear, but battle. Beneath that was a constant pull toward her, as if every instinct in him wanted to wrap around her and drag her from danger.
But he did not.
He stayed.
He trusted.
The realization nearly cost her focus.
A crossbow bolt cut past her ear.
Euan snarled and hurled his sword. It struck the soldier’s shoulder and pinned him against a tree by his coat, which Marion thought was unnecessarily dramatic and entirely effective.
“You missed his heart,” she said.
“I meant to.”
“That is very civilized of you.”
“I am trying.”
His mouth curved for half a breath before another wave of soldiers broke through the smoke.
They came in pairs now. One with silver weapons, one with canisters.
Aldrich had trained them well. Too well.
They knew not to fight wolves with strength.
They fought with distance, smoke, fire and timing.
One soldier would draw a wolf forward, another would crack a canister at its feet.
A third would aim for the throat when the smoke made the shift seize.
Marion saw it happen twice before rage made her vision sharpen.
“They are herding them,” she said.
Euan followed her gaze. “Aye.”
His voice had gone cold.
A group of younger wolves were being driven toward a low hollow near the eastern edge.
Smoke gathered there, thick and dark. Above it, half hidden behind two pines, Aldrich stood with his cane and two masked men.
He was not commanding loudly. He did not need to.
He lifted one gloved hand and men moved.
Marion hated him more for that calm.
“Can you reach the hollow?” Euan asked.
“Yes.”
“No running straight at spears.”
“I cannot promise that.”
“Marion.”
“There is that tone again.”
His eyes cut to hers. “I am fond of your breathing.”
The words hit her at a foolish angle.
For a second the battle dimmed around the edges and there was only Euan, alive, bloodied, furious, wanting her breathing. It should not have made heat curl in her stomach when men were trying to kill them. Her body had poor timing.
“You can be fond later,” she said.
His gaze dropped to her mouth.
“So can you.”
Oh, the man was impossible.
A soldier broke between them and saved Marion from answering. Euan struck him down while Marion pushed toward the hollow. Silver smoke thickened with every step. It tried to climb into her lungs. She coughed once, tasted metal, and felt her wolf snarl from somewhere beneath her ribs.
Not poison.
Prey.
That thought was not very healerly.
She kept moving.
The young wolves in the hollow were panicking. One had shifted fully wolf but could not stand. Another was a boy in human form, clutching his arm where silver fire ate through his sleeve. A third, the smallest, had curled around herself and gone too quiet.
Marion dropped to her knees in the middle of them.
“Look at me,” she snapped at the boy.
His eyes found hers.
“Good. You may scream if you must, but do it while breathing.”
He blinked, startled enough to obey.
Her hands went to the snow.
This time she did not touch one body.
She pushed the light outward.
It moved through the ground in a ring, silver gold threading over roots, under smoke, around boots and paws. The poison recoiled from it, not far enough, but enough. The wolves gasped. The boy’s sleeve stopped burning. The quiet girl coughed and dragged in air.
Marion swayed.
Too much.
The Grove tilted.
Euan’s strength hit the bond instantly, firm as a hand at her back.
Take it.
His voice was not spoken, but she heard it all the same.
Marion gritted her teeth. I am not taking your strength while you bleed.
Then borrow it and argue later.
That sounded so much like him that she almost smiled.
She let herself lean into the bond, just a little.
Warmth steadied her.
Euan roared somewhere behind her, and three wolves answered, rallying around the hollow. Fergus led them, swinging a heavy blade with the efficient fury of a man who had had quite enough of the morning.
Across the clearing, Aldrich’s gaze fixed on Marion.
Even through smoke, she felt it.
Not lust. Not fear. Not even hatred.
Interest.
Cold, greedy interest.
He lifted one finger.
A masked soldier beside him raised a different canister.
This one was narrow, black glass bound in silver wire.
Marion’s skin prickled.
Euan turned before she called him.
He felt it too.
“Aodh!” Euan shouted. “Down!”
The canister flew.
It struck the ground not ten feet from Marion and did not burst at once. It cracked slowly, with a sound like ice under pressure.
Morna saw it from across the Grove. Her face changed. “Marion, move!”
Marion grabbed the nearest child wolf and shoved him toward Fergus.
The black glass split.
Smoke poured out, darker than the others, threaded with red sparks that pulsed like a heartbeat.
The moment it touched the air, the new bond inside Marion recoiled.
Not her lungs.
Not her skin.
The bond.
Pain scraped between her and Euan, thin and vicious, like a silver hook dragged across the place their lives had just joined.
Euan staggered.
Marion cried out and clutched her chest.
Aldrich’s voice came through the smoke, pleased and soft.
“Excellent. The bond reagent responds.”
Marion looked across the Grove at him, fighting for breath as the dark smoke curled toward her and Euan both.
Aldrich smiled.
“Now let us see which of you breaks first.”