“Itisa beginning of sorts.” She tilted her head, studying me with the patience of a being that measured time in centuries. “Your gift will reveal itself when the time is right.”
“That’s not an answer.”
I wanted to demand something less cryptic, but the warmth was already withdrawing. My wolf whimpered as it receded, and the sound carved a hollow in my chest.
“Go in peace, lost child. And return him to me when he seeks rest.”
“Who?” I asked, but she was already gone. Everyone was. The beach had emptied.
Light split the air, and the tree spat me out into chaos.
MINE TO TAKE
Arioch
The dense brush and dragon blood trees of the canyon’s rim offered concealment, allowing us to approach the gorge that yawned below us. I peered over the edge, and the force that rose from its depths seized me by the spine.
I had known we would end up here. The moment my treasure’s pull turned inland, something deeper than instinct told me where it was heading. I could feel this place long before I saw it. The power pressed against my awareness with the weight of mountains, ancient enough to make my bloodline feel young.
Then I saw its source, and my breath abandoned me.
The Ancient dwarfed everything in my experience. Even Catori’s great oak was little more than a seedling compared to it.
Tyrin settled beside me, half concealed behind a gnarled trunk. For a long moment, neither of us spoke. There were no words in any language I knew that could adequately address what stood before us.
“It calls to me,” Tyrin finally said, his voice strained.
It was doing far worse to me.Callingdid not begin to describe the summons reverberating through my marrow. It didnot whisper; itinsisted.Come closer. Descend. Press your palm to my bark and find everything you have ever wanted.The compulsion flooded my senses with warmth and sweetness, promising answers to questions I had carried my entire life.
I did not trust a single note of it.
The song on the pier had been a lullaby, gentle enough to walk me to my death in my sleep. The Ancient’s call dispensed with subtlety entirely. It battered against my skull with the relentless force of a ram against a gate, and every repetition found new cracks to exploit.
I forced my attention past the summons and onto the canyon floor, where four wolves climbed the Ancient’s roots. Ziara’s plaited crimson hair marked her like a banner, even from this height. She walked directly behind the alpha, and the artifact pulsed steadily from her direction, confirming my stolen treasure was still on her person.
Good. I tracked her movements, calculating the approach that would separate her from the pack with the least resistance. A confrontation at the base of the roots, perhaps. Or an ambush as they descended. The alpha would fight. The older soldier would be disciplined and dangerous. The younger male would be reckless.
But Ziara… Ziara would surrender.
A presence materialized on the ledge beside us. One moment, the space was empty; the next, a small creature crouched between Tyrin and me, close enough to touch. She was barely knee-height, with moss-tangled hair, filthy bare feet, and obsidian eyes that held the sharp cunning of something far older than her appearance suggested.
“You will not enter the canyon,” she announced, as if two armed fighters, one of whom, a dragon, were of no greater consequence than a change in the weather. “The Ancient is not to be disturbed by those who have not paid tribute.”
Tyrin shifted his weight, and she moved before either of uscould react. Her jaw unhinged, revealing disturbing conical teeth, and she lunged for his forearm.
Her bite cracked against stone-hardened flesh. She recoiled, clutching her mouth, dark eyes watering. Tyrin regarded her with the flat expression of a man who felt no pity or pain.
Spitting fragments of teeth, she turned to me. Her lips peeled back, revealing the remaining points, and she leaned forward with clear intent.
I met her gaze.
Whatever she found in my eyes drained the ambition from her posture. She straightened slowly, obsidian eyes wide, the predatory confidence evaporating like frost in direct sunlight. For a long moment, she simply stared, her nostrils flaring as if scenting something she had not expected.
“You…” she started, then thought better of it. She took a deliberate step backward. “Be respectful of the Ancient. She does not belong to you.”
She vanished before I could inform her that I would decide what belonged to me and what did not.
In the canyon, the canopy shuddered, recapturing my attention.
