She has both hands on my shoulders and is repeating my name: “—all right? Valstark, can you hear me, are you all right? What’s happened?”
Even though the daylight is back, that raging power whirls through me still, stirring up my blood, asking to be used.
The rivers of pack bonds are there, too, within reach. I’m used to a single dark tributary to my pack, one stream branching off to each individual. But now four distinct pathways push and pull as I inwardly examine them, with countless individuals connected.
It’s so broad where they come together, like a sea instead of a river, and the sea is churning, violent. As if cast into sudden darkness by a deadly storm.
Noemi catches her breath as she senses what’s happened, too. From a distant part of the castle, the direwolves begin to howl.
I reach out to Cratos and meet his grief and resolve:
“Yes. The Sovereign Alpha is dead. You are the Sovereign Alpha.”
Confirming what I already know deep in my bones, deep in that shadowy place that now lives inside me.
“Siegrid is dead,” I say aloud, my voice calm, strange to me.
The riot of darkness inside continues. It’s as though there’s only a thin layer between that place and the bright daylight world outside of me. My inward vision and eyesight are divided by the merest boundary that could easily break.
Then Cratos is with me in my mind, supporting me through it, lending me strength.
I flex and tense my muscles and then, one by one, relax them. I slowly straighten.
Noemi and I settle heavily back onto the bench behind us. Now it’s Noemi’s turn to regard me with careful concern. More than anyone, she knows: Siegrid and I never had a familial relationship, not really.
I’m not sure what to feel.
I knew this day would come, of course. But Siegrid always seemed untouchable, almost godlike in her power and control. I never believed she could truly be felled, I realize. Certainly not this soon.
There may not have been any great love between me and Siegrid, but she was a powerful commander, an institution among the Bonded. Her loss is like a tilting of the universe, an imbalance. I will mourn her, I realize with a whisper of surprise.
Like a soldier mourns a respected commander.
“I’m okay,” I assure Noemi. “The transition was… unexpected.”
Doubt still lingers in her eyes, but she nods and lays a comforting hand on my arm.
I study the lines of her face, thinking—Siegrid may be dead, but that doesn’t mean I don’t have family. I have Noemi, for one. Cratos, of course.
And Meryn. Most of all, Meryn.
Meryn…If my magic reacted so strongly to Siegrid’s death, what might hers have done?
40
MERYN
The shocked silence in the library makes my ears ring.
Then comes mournful howling from a distance. It’s Anassa, Cratos, Skaia, and Ephyse. They’re far outside, but their pained wails are loud enough that I suspect everyone in the city of Brightbane can hear them.
I shakily pull myself up to my knees, bracing myself against the table, then sink into a chair. Anassa’s voice is instantly in my mind.
“I am conferring with the wolves and will let you know more information as soon as I have it.”Her heartbreak comes through the bond, fierce and aching, a wretched mirror of my own.
“They’re really gone?” I ask, even though I know the answer. That was too horrifically vibrant to have been anything other than real.
“They are gone, Meryn.”
