Aftermath

“Did you hear that?” he asked, interrupting the hob. Without waiting for a reply, he rose and peered into the distance. “I thought I heard a crier say my name.” It wasn’t the greatest lie, but it was the only one Ash had prepared beforehand in case he needed to make a hasty exit from the hob’s company.

“Your ears are younger than mine,” BentWillow said. “Go and check. Best to be sure. But leave that.”

Realizing he still held the shaping tool and half-finished piece, Ash set them down on his stool and took off into the rain at a jog. He had balked when the shëlls presented him with a water-resistant cloak, not believing such a thing would be necessary to protect him from a bit of rain. Despite all the small talk he’d heard about the coming storm and how much it tended to rain in Breeze Tower, Ash had thought it all to be exaggerations.

Even with the protective cloak, rain splashed onto his trousers and into his boots after a few strides. With the streets nearly empty, Ash was able to run at a quick pace, but he had to be careful not to slip. Though the rain was in the process of washing the city clean of the filth covering the streets, there was an oily film in places. If Krachnis had been paying attention, he would have compared it to the miasma of evil in all creature’s hearts. Maybe he would even have been partially correct.

As Ash drew closer to the gravelings, following his connection to them through the master stone, he knew exactly where he was headed–the crime scene Moss had been investigating the day they’d met. With the realization came a sudden shock. One by one, his sense of the gravelings vanished. Someone was killing them. It had to be one of the werebear detectives.

He rounded a corner, not sure how he would deal with any pedestrians who had stopped to investigate. Luckily, the seamstress had lived down a side street. Anyone who had heard the considerable noise a pack of gravelings made while being killed had either run in the opposite direction or decided to stay indoors. The gravelings’ roars could be misconstrued for hunting werewolves, giving those within hearing range even more reason to stay away.

By the time Ash reached the front of the shop, the final graveling was dead. Both windows and the front door had been torn to shreds along with a fair bit of the surrounding wall around each entry point. It was obvious the detective had barricaded themself in, as dead gravelings lay across reams of fabric. The cloth’s original colors were darkening, some changing color completely as they soaked up blood.

Careful of his footing, Ash stepped across one of the motionless gravelings, using it as a bridge to bypass the treacherous floor. Stepping off the creature and onto a bit of clear space in the front room, Ash saw the creature’s head had been crushed like a walnut shell beneath a cartwheel.

Sabotage, Krachnis roared. Betrayal.

We don’t know anything yet, Ash thought.

You know who is responsible, Krachnis hissed. They seek to expose you. To deter your efforts here. When you ask after their motivations, they’ll feed you convincing lies. Don’t trust. As he so often did when riled, Krachnis mumbled incomprehensible words in a forgotten language. You can’t trust anyone.

Not even you? Ash wanted to ask. Krachnis’ reprisal to that question would be swift and merciless, involving no small amount of pain.

Except you, he thought instead.

Precisely.

The death of his minions didn’t bother Ash in light of their killers’ destructive power. He had come to Breeze Tower for the same reasons he had visited all the places Krachnis directed him to–planting portal stones throughout the Radiance had innumerable strategic advantages. In addition, Breeze Tower was one of the largest cities in the Radiance and full of lycanthropes who might be turned to his cause. As Krachnis had admitted, the werebears were proving stubborn. Their raw power alone would be a huge compliment to the mighty Untamed, but he suspected their keen minds would also prove invaluable.

A quick look across the shop’s outer rooms, workspace, and kitchen offered no signs of whoever had fought the gravelings other than quickly discarded clothes. Hurrying to the bedroom, not sure why he felt the need for haste, Ash found the detective.

Moss was in her human form--unconscious, deep wounds all across her body. The green material he’d noticed the other day must have stretched during her transformation because it still covered her, though it was in tatters across her upper body. A shredded blanket lay near her, several lengths of it tied quickly to wounds. She must have done the work while a bear because most of the makeshift bandages hung too loose, doing very little to staunch the flow of blood.

Without thinking, Ash asked Krachnis for magic and envisioned it healing Moss’ wounds. The power came, burning at his fingertips as it waited to be used, but he couldn’t channel it into Moss’ wounds. He placed his hands upon the woman’s arm and strained. When that didn’t work, he clutched the master stone with one hand while holding the other above the nearest wound--three deep furrows, weeping blood down her shoulder.

She’s going to die, he thought at Krachnis. Help me heal her.

Such weakness is beyond you, the entity scolded.

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We want the lycanthropes on our side, Ash fumbled for an excuse, tired of always having to justify his decisions. Saving one of them would be a convincing gesture.

Healing is beyond me, Krachnis said. Not even the tiniest shred of regret or sorrow tinged his voice.

Ash thought of the wood shaping, of how a moment of distraction had unlocked something within him. He had always fought Krachnis’ magic, twisting it into the forms he desired, but perhaps there was another way. Imagining Moss as a block of wood in his hands, he moved the magic around her. Instead of trying to scrape away bits of wood, in this case flesh, he envisioned the magic as the scooped side of Quertir’s Hand, adding flesh where it had been ripped away.

Nothing happened.

He released Krachnis’ useless magic, feeling impotent and wanting nothing more than to expel it in a fiery blast. With a growl, Ash ripped the master stone free of his neck and threw it against the far wall.

Over the past few days, he’d been watching Moss, learning about her through his spies. Her devotion to solving the seamstress’ murder was inspiring. All the werebears worked their cases to the best of their abilities, but Moss had a single-minded focus which often pushed the others to work even harder. Their alpha had been established long before their arrival in Breeze Tower when their strength and ferocity in battle was most important, but now they were detectives, and Moss was the alpha for that particular skill set.

Allowing her to die seemed such a waste. No, that was the excuse he had given Krachnis. At his core, a jumbled mass of emotions all competed to scream the same thing at him–he didn’t want her to die because he cared about her.

Able to do nothing more than sit beside Moss as the life slowly left her body, Ash took her hand into his own. There were still no sounds of alarm. Only moments had passed since he’d entered the shop, but it felt too short a time for the failures he’d accumulated in the seamstress’ bedroom.

Why do you not flee? Krachnis asked. The ursinel have your scent already, and this place stinks of you. There’ll be no more wasting time with that old hob. They’re going to come looking for you. You’ve failed miserably.

You’re right, Ash thought.

He’d never known failure. Conquering the Ashen Lands had been all too easy with Sineck’s blade and the master stone. Krachnis’ magic had allowed him passage to the Radiance, avoiding Ostelan with hardly a concern for their dangerous appetites and trap-strewn mountain passes. He’d lost the game against Knock and been denied Westerbrook, but that had been a setback, not a true failure. He’d struggled against the hob until the end and adjusted his plans accordingly in the aftermath of that defeat.

He’d never given up. Until now.

And in that moment of surrender, a different magic welled from within him. Cool and vibrant, it flowed through him in a flash. The magic passed into Moss, a single bolt of lighting, come and gone before his senses could truly measure and understand it.

The change to Moss’ wounds was subtle. They didn’t close completely as he might have hoped. Bits of flesh knit back together, lessening the size of the greatest hurts. Moist scabs formed, new and tender but enough to cease the otherwise unstaunched flow of blood.

Impossible, Krachnis said. He’d never heard the entity shocked. It spoke that single word and nothing more. Ash could feel the entity expanding, applying pressure as it rifled through his mind.

Knowing he had already pressed his luck far enough, Ash stood and retrieved the master stone. There were still no sounds of alarm from the street, only the constant patter of rain. Ash spared a final glance for Moss. For all intents and purposes, she appeared to be sleeping on the floor after having fallen off the bed. Against his better judgment, Ash spread the blanket over her, then retrieved her cloak from the outer room and laid that across her as well.

Satisfied he had done all he could, Ash transmuted into a cloud of black smoke. A crack in the floor, not even wide enough for a roach to squeeze through, allowed him out into the dark rainy day.

IX.

Moss bobbed on an ocean of fatigue. Her eyes refused to open. Even those smallest of muscles were beyond her body’s control. Her nose interpreted the air with shallow breaths. An unfamiliar strain laced each of the pack member’s scents. Their worry buzzed high in her nose between her eyes. Their anger, like a stagecoach pulled across uneven terrain by panicked horses, crashed into her head and traveled down to her throat where a growl came out as a weak purr.

“Was it really that bad?” Claws asked.

“Yes.” Whisper’s voice, but wrong. In all their years together, Moss had never heard a single word infused with such a mix of emotions--concern, love, confusion, and barely controlled rage.

“Should we go after Chains?” Mountain asked. Even his deep baritone rumbled with promises of retribution.

“No.” Again Whisper’s voice came from far away, from deep within a part of her, a part they all kept locked up tight.

“Whatever harm she suffered, the cats brought that Mender,” Drinks said, always the mediator and voice of reason. “She’ll recover.”

“We can’t leave Chains on his own,” Claws said. “The shock of Moss’s injuries, the guilt of not being with her--he’s too young. We’ll lose him. He’ll go feral, and we’ll all suffer for it.”

“We’re with you, always,” Mountain said. “Tell us what to do.”

So many voices, building in strength and conviction while an ocean of fatigue swelled, threatening to pull Moss under.

“Whisper of wind around the rock…” she croaked in a voice not quite her own. It dripped with injury and exhaustion she had never known.

A flash of alarm like the electric buzz warning of a lightning strike, then her mate was beside her, followed by the rest of the pack.

“...behind the tree then at your side,” Whisper finished. Moss smiled inwardly at the slight change to her mate’s name, a heart name used only by them. She flexed her fingers but couldn’t tell if they had moved until Whisper took them into her hands.

“How many did I kill?” Moss asked.

The pack laughed. Whisper practically howled.

“A true warrior’s heart. We’ll have to lengthen your name. Moss in the early morning set upon by a single bee and watered by the blood of gravelings.”

“No thanks,” Moss croaked.

They promised retribution and plumbed her for information about her attackers. She merely shook her head, a slight shift to one side then back to center. Night would fall, and with it, she would sink beneath the waves. In the dream, they could hunt, and she would share what she knew.