“What is wrong with her? My queen? My queen!” He has the audacity to sound worried. As if he wasn’t just plotting my demise with his other alphas.
“C…Conri?” I finally crack open my eyes as if coming to after a long dream. “My king? What…Where…” I make a show of looking around the tent. Widening my eyes as if clarity is dawning on me. “Oh…” I begin to laugh, like I have some monumental relief easing my muscles. “It worked.”
“Worked? What worked?” Conri’s grip tightens on me. He leans slightly in and drops his voice. “You are verging on making a fool of me, Faelyn. Something that no amount of love for you can spare you from the consequences of.”
The words are harsh, void of any concern or compassion. It’s a cracking of his facade and I am relieved to finally see it. Not that the rest of them can, or do. Conri wouldn’t allow that.
It’s easy to smile at his threat. Making a fool of him was what I wanted. How easily it came to pass. But I try to hide my mockery, instead keeping my expression serene and joyful—as if there is nothing for us to worry about even though my insides are knotted.
I hope this works…
“I thought about what you told me of these lands and I have a gift for you. For all of you.” I finally turn my attention to the tentflap, where the rest of them huddle, looking in. Evander is doing a good job of being composed. But I can see the worry behind his eyes. The skepticism. “Let’s go to the center of camp.”
Conri agrees, albeit reluctantly. I keep waiting for the moment he can smell Evander still hot on my flesh. But my spell seems to have worked. When Conri stands and faces the rest of those gathered, he wears a bright smile. He helps me out of Evander’s tent. I feign weakness in the process, as though I have exerted great effort and can barely stand without support. However, my wobbly knees aren’t entirely an act…
We make our way to the center of camp, where the bonfire has begun to burn low. To think…hours ago I danced around that fire with Conri. I thought that perhaps there could be a path forward together. I almost gave in to the sweet words he was whispering to me—that there was a way I could do right not just for me, but for Aurora, the spirits, and even my home.
I almost fell prey to him once. I won’t let it happen again. I will make him regret ever thinking he could use and discard me.
“I am looking forward to seeing this surprise, future wife,” Conri says loud enough for them all to hear, then, just for me, “For your sake, I hope it’s exceptional.”
He releases me and steps away. The whole pack has gathered, no doubt brought to alarm by Conri’s howls. Now held in place by curiosity. They all stare at me, some genuinely interested, while others ooze a sense of satisfaction, as if they are waiting for the moment I fail and this all comes tumbling down. I wonder what they think Conri will do to me should I continue to disappoint him. Judging by the hungry gazes and wicked, satisfied grins, it wouldn’t be good, and they will be delighted to watch.
I kneel and press my fingers into the ground. I spare one thought for how this all might have been had Conri been genuine. What might we have been able to accomplish? Greatthings, I dare to think. But I don’t need him to achieve my goals. I am strong enough to do it on my own.
“Brundil, great and ancient spirit of earth, hear me, I summon you to my cause,” I intone, low and slow, trying to give the air of authority and mystery at the same time.
All those gathered hold their breath. Total silence. I join them. Waiting in anticipation. Nothing happens.
Brundil will come back. She’ll help me. I believe it with all my being.
The ground rumbles. Murmuring breaks into outright shouts and screams of surprise and horror as large cracks rip through the camp, racing toward me. The ground around me splits, lifting slightly, as though I am on a pedestal. Lykin jump, avoiding the cracking earth. It rises in places and lowers in others. Whole tents are consumed into the rumbling earth—tents I hope are empty. But I can’t do anything to stop Brundil now. Not that I would want to.
The bonfire is swallowed whole. It falls deep into the depths, the orange consumed and reduced to a puff of smoke. As the last curl of gray rises to the air, the lykin catching their breath, clutching each other, and murmuring in shock and horror, the earth begins to groan anew.
Screaming now. They think I have brought about the end times. Or that I am attacking them. The knights change into wolf shapes, trying to find their footing on the earth. What do they think they could really do to me if I was attacking? From my vantage, I’m the one in control.
I stand, wobbling, but Brundil keeps the column under me blessedly still.
“Brundil, come to me!” I thrust out my arms, tilt my head back, and shout to the heavens, my voice echoing across the plains like thunder.
The earth rumbles with the reverberation of my words. A geyser of mud shoots up from the large crack before me. But it doesn’t rain down around us. Instead, it hovers unnaturally, slowly melting into the shape of a mighty golem with two smooth boulders for eyes.
“Hello, witch.” Brundil’s voice rumbles like the deep earth. I appreciate that she decided to leave off “little.” “You have summoned me?”
“I would like to ask of you a boon—a blessing on these people of your lands, should you have the strength,” I shout so that all can hear. Brundil displayed her might. Now I want her to display her utility and, by proxy, my own. “Will you create a copse of trees here, somewhere that game might thrive for generations to come to feed the lykin of these lands?”
Brundil gives me a hard stare. My stomach squirms as if I have swallowed worms. If she refuses, it will show that I have precious little control of the situation. My ruse will be up.
But she comes through. “Very well. But it will be paid for by your power as well.”
“Done.”
The word is still reverberating in my ears when she collapses back into the earth. There’s rumbling again, but of a calmer sort. The grasses ripple with a wave that pulses underneath them, out from me.
An invisible hand pulls on my ankles. I sink into the earth, the pedestal around me cracking as though I am suddenly an immense weight. My power is pulled out through my feet, down and into the earth. It is the sensation of wet fabric being yanked underneath my skin. Ripped from me with ruthlessness.
I tip my head back, gasping, as if trying to break the surface of invisible water so that I can catch a breath. But my lungs are being pulled with the rest of me. They are collapsing inward. It’simpossible to catch a breath. My very soul is being ripped from my body.
