Reynard looked at where his uncle was pointing but saw only scratches on the rock. He shook his head with the last of his strength.
Rhogun pointed at his own face.You know this dumb eye of mine? Not so dumb after all.
He lifted his eyepatch, revealing an eye that was devoid of color and dead looking. He covered his other eye and looked only through the dead one.
It’s instructions,he said.At the top here it says, ‘How to soften a Tether.’ This is from Boe, it has to be. It’s a foxglove concoction, and it says it softens a Tether enough that we can go up to 20 miles outside of Serenity without headaches or confusion and Khain won’t be able to sense us, even if we’re marked.
Reynard shook his head, barely able to believe that this was happening to him, his brain rejecting the words he could not see. “What if it’s wrong? What if it’s a trap?” he said.
“Things can’t get worse than they are right now, fox,” Rhogun said softly, and the other males murmured in agreement. “This is all we’ve got. It’s either this or do Khain’s dirty work.”
“Never,” Reynard said. Pain speared through him, and he cleared his mind, softening his defiance enough that he could stand it.
Rhogun got right up in Reynard’s space and spoke inruhi. He’s planning another poisoning.
Reynard clenched his fists, anger suffusing him, giving him energy. His family hadn’t lost one female to the poisoning 30 years before, because they’d heeded the warnings and taken precautions.
“I definitely can’t go then. Someone has to warn Dred.”
Rhogun considered. “Yeah, there is that.” He looked at the others, then back. “Ok, you do it, we’ll figure out a way to get you wherever you want to go.
“Put me in the hole,” Reynard said, his strength and will flagging.
Rhogun nodded and said he would. Reynard sat down on some blankets and leaned back against the wall, falling into a stuporous sleep the moment his eyes closed.
34—Fuckin’ Hero
Canyon woke on the ground in the dark, broken boards and glass under his naked butt. He stared straight up into a starlit sky, his body whole and unbroken. He sat up and looked around. All was quiet. The house that Khain had torn the roof off was just gone, a crater where it had been. The houses all around were mostly destroyed, their interiors exposed, their remaining walls leaning.
Canyon shifted into his wolf and then howled softly for his brother.
Fifty feet away, Timber sat up, his hand on his head, also naked and dirty and covered with bits of glass and wood. He groaned and swiped at the crap on him.
“Fuck,” Timber said, then he shifted into his wolf also. He shook and bits of glass and debris went flying. Canyon shook, then sneezed several times, then wiped his muzzle on the grass, trying to get the Khain grossness off of it, then they met each other in the darkness and went to the crater.
That sucked.
Big time.
Fuckin’ hero,Canyon said, meaning Reynard.
Hell yeah—think he lived?
Hope so—I want to buy him a drink someday.
I’m in.
Canyon used his shoulder and side to push at part of a couch balanced on a pile of crap. It crashed to the ground.
We need clothes,he said.
Yeah.
They went back to the Crimstone Academy, climbing up the way they had come down. Both of their phones were ringing. They dressed quickly then grabbed their phones.
Canyon held his ringing phone up.Trevor,he said.
Timber held up his. “Wade.”
