Chapter Nine WITCHING MOON

Chapter Nine

WITCHING MOON

Week Two, Day Two

Year 3000

The bluff beyond the Phoenix's tower had a glorious view. Even with the Creator's Moon still barely a quarter full, the stars shone bright enough to wash the distant landscape in silver. Zanya could trace the long path they'd taken down the northern side of the Burning Hills during the royal progress, to where the rolling valleys flattened into lush farmland. Moonlight reflected off the distant lakes, tiny pinpricks like distant stars that had fallen to rest upon the earth.

Had it only been a few weeks ago that they'd ridden past those lakes? Zanya had scoffed while relating the childhood story they'd all been taught—that the Betrayer and the Dragon had battled one another across those verdant plains. That the force of their bodies slamming into the earth had created the lakes, and that the Witch had filled them with her tears.

Inga might not have filled the lakes with her tears, but the violence of Ash's fight with the Betrayer truly had torn gashes in the world. At the time, it had been difficult for Zanya to fathom violence on a scale that left craters a furlong wide and deep enough to swallow a palace. Even with her own unusual strength and sturdiness, it had seemed impossible. Surely bodies would break before the earth itself did.

Then again, Elevia had kicked her through a stone wall two handspans thick this afternoon, and Zanya didn't have a mark on her to show for it. Her body had met rock with force enough to turn it to dust, and there were no broken bones, no bruises. Not even a twinge.

But Ash had felt pain when they'd made those lakes. She'd stolen the memory of it from him once, using her affinity for nightmares. She'd felt the shattering of his bones, the rending of his flesh. Whatever war those two had waged had been violence beyond even her fertile imagination.

And the Betrayer wanted to steal Sachi away.

That was reason to train until she dropped. To learn everything she could. Ash had barely survived the last battle against his so-called former brother. Zanya knew he dreaded another confrontation. Not what the fight would do to his body, but what it might do to the world itself.

A simple enough problem to fix. After all, Zanya had spent her life training to assassinate a god. Why not kill one who actually deserved it?

Gravel scraped softly behind her. One crunching footstep, heavy and deliberate, which meant it was Ulric, warning her of his approach. Elevia would have circled wide and come at her from the front. The rest of the party was more comfortable leaving her alone. Zanya tossed a few more branches into her little fire, and it flared as Ulric stopped by her side.

He raised one eyebrow in silent question. Zanya huffed and wrapped her arms around her knees. "Go ahead and sit, if you want."

The Wolf sprawled gracefully next to her, one knee cocked with his foot on the ground, the other leg bent over it. He rested his elbow on that knee and stared out over the bluff. "How are you feeling?"

"Not so bad."

"Tired?"

"Not really. But not restless, either." The anxious energy that had driven her from bed most nights since her transformation had vanished, probably spent during long days under Elevia and Ulric's punishing training routine.

"Good." He picked up a twig and tossed it onto the fire. "Tomorrow will be a long day. We intend to anchor you to as many strategic sites across the Sheltered Lands as we can. The next time we need to get somewhere in a hurry, you can take us there."

Zanya felt her lips twitch into a self-deprecating smile. So much for her grand dreams of assassinating the Betrayer. Her tutors had a far more mundane use in mind for her. "So now I'm transportation? A pack mule?"

"Did you honestly expect Elevia to ignore such an advantage, with war both at our backs and on our doorstep?"

Zanya supposed she hadn't really considered it. The gods did miraculous things every day, and Ash could turn into a giant dragon and fly anywhere he wanted to go. "Is it really so unusual? Has no one ever been able to do this before?"

"Not like this." Ulric's serious tone erased her smile. "There are some, like Dianthe, who can travel physically using the Dream, but they're rare. Most of them use water to do it. Dianthe calls it the heart of the ocean, a place they can travel through that touches every other place water dwells."

"Can she take people with her?"

"Not unless they can breathe underwater. She tried it with Ash once, just after I met them ..." He trailed off, and when Zanya glanced at him, his eyes glowed a soft gold in the firelight. "I've never seen the Siren so scared. She thought she'd killed him."

The Wolf's usually hard face had softened with the memory, a shared moment over three thousand years old. And, for a heartbeat, envy squeezed Zanya's chest tight. How she wished she'd known the High Court when they were young and untried. When they were testing their powers and sometimes failing catastrophically. Maybe then it wouldn't be so hard to imagine herself as one of them. "I'd like to have known Ash before the Betrayer. He must have been different."

Ulric smiled, small and sad. "It's true. The war took something out of him. He feels the world in ways the rest of us don't, and we almost shattered it. He feels responsible for letting the Betrayer go too far."

Everything in Zanya rejected that. "It can't have been his fault."

"No," Ulric agreed. Then, after a pause and a wary look at her, he amended, "Mostly not."

"Mostly?"

She hadn't realized how much protective anger she'd packed into one word until he lifted a placating hand. "It's complicated, Zanya."

"Then explain it."

"He always let the Betrayer disrespect him." Ulric grimaced. "The Builder cared about progress above all else. Taming the wild places, advancing our technology. Digging into the earth to find what treasures it could yield and using them, even when what we already had was good enough. He had no respect for those who couldn't embrace his vision. Like me—the wild places have always been mine to protect. But my power didn't threaten him the way Ash's did."

Because Ash had power over the earth itself. There was nothing the Builder could have created that Ash couldn't have torn down. Fire was threat enough, but Ash could part the earth and ask it to swallow anything—building or village or city—whole.

No, Zanya could not imagine he would have cared for such a threat. Which reminded her of something else. "Inga told me that the Betrayer called me an abomination. That he thought you all should kill me."

Even in the firelight, Zanya could see his sudden flush. "Did she tell you that I considered the same?"

"No." Inga had likely been too protective of Ulric to break such confidences. Anyway, she hadn't needed to. The pain of his clear mistrust had cut deep in those first days, but Zanya covered it with a smile. "You weren't subtle about it, though. I don't think you lie any better than I do."

A noise rumbled up out of him, but whether it was a laugh or a growl she couldn't say. "No. I do not."

He turned to face her, and Zanya tensed. The firelight flickering over his tanned skin and golden eyes reminded her of the first time she'd met him, at the feast to celebrate Sachi and Ash's bonding. She remembered the dark temptation of all this dangerous magic, the way her inner predator had risen, hungry to test herself against him. It wasn't the same sexual heat she felt when Ash touched her, but there was a sensuality beneath it that she couldn't deny.

She could remember dancing with him that night. The spark she'd felt, awakening parts of her she'd thought long buried. Sachi had been her only safe outlet for affection of any kind, and she'd come close to hating the Wolf that night for reminding her just how small her world was.

All of it was still there as he reached out to brush a wayward lock of hair back from her eyes. His own glowed that gentle, molten gold—the gold of the Wolf. "My nature, at its heart, is pure survival," he murmured. "And it had been several thousand years since I was last forced to face my own mortality so squarely in the face. I was unfair to you, little sister. I won't make that mistake again."

Zanya's heart pounded. Tears stung her eyes. She watched him raise one arm in silent invitation, and any sexual awareness shattered under the sudden overwhelming longing for what he offered her—that tantalizing promise that had almost destroyed her during the consort's progress.

Acceptance. Acceptance of all of her, even the deadliest parts. And not just impersonal tolerance, but the friendship that tied these ancient gods together. The camaraderie and belonging she'd craved so deeply that it had become an ache inside her worse than any heartbreak.

He was offering her family.

Zanya edged closer, leaning into him. His arm came down around her shoulders, his big hand resting lightly on her arm, as if he didn't want her to feel trapped. She expected it to be awkward, but it wasn't. They fit together, both creatures born of survival and honed into weapons. Monsters who belonged to the wild places. No wonder she'd loved the Midnight Forest so much. It sheltered the same darkness that thrived at the heart of her, a darkness that held its own impossible beauty.

She didn't know how long they sat there in comfortable silence, gazing out into the star-swept night, but the fire had burned low by the time quiet footsteps approached.

"I hate to interrupt," Elevia murmured, "but it's time to get back to work."

Zanya sighed, but she didn't protest. As soon as Ulric's arm dropped away, she rose and kicked dirt over the embers of the fire. "Are we traveling again?"

"No. We need to talk about your Terrors."

It was a struggle not to flinch back. "I said I'm not doing that. I don't want to summon them."

"I understand that," Elevia replied evenly. "But they're part of you—"

"They are not ," Zanya interrupted, shoving away the words as if she could also push back the shame that lingered deep inside her. "It's only happened a few times. Complete accidents."

"Which is exactly why you have to develop a measure of control." She took a single step closer. "You need to be the one to decide when or even if they appear. You , Zanya."

"You don't know what you're asking!" Memories that Zanya had spent a lifetime avoiding crashed over her, fueled by that shame. She buried them in words. "I've seen the scar on Ash's arm. None of you heal from wounds inflicted by Terrors. What if I accidentally summon not one Terror but an army , and then I can't control them? You could die. Everyone could die." She turned to Ulric, appealing to the survival instincts that she knew ran deep in him. "Do you want to face an army of Terrors?"

"No." It was the Wolf who spoke, those eyes glowing gold in the darkness. "But Elevia is right. You can't run from a part of yourself. And we trust you. You won't let them hurt us."

As if it were that simple in the chaos of a Terror attack. Terrors were nightmares given form, spawned from the very earth. Some were embodied by pure Void magic. Others took on the twisted form of whatever debris and detritus could be cobbled together. She'd seen bones and sticks, rocks and discarded weapons—the materials didn't matter. Only the power holding the nightmare together.

Void magic. Her magic. The only thing that could mortally wound a god touched by the Dream.

The only thing inside her terrible enough to horrify Sachi.

"I'm not doing it," she rasped, turning away. "It isn't worth the risk. Maybe I can try sometime when I'm alone, but not here. Not like this."

"Zanya—"

But Elevia got no further. She and Ulric both stiffened and fell silent as they looked at one another. Then Elevia took off at a run.

"What is it?" Zanya asked.

"Horses, coming in fast."

A reprieve. For a moment, Zanya felt the sweet flood of relief. Guilt followed swiftly as Ulric took off, and she realized the implication.

Riders crashing into their camp at night meant trouble.

Zanya ran after Ulric as he loped to where Elevia had intercepted a trio of riders. Even from a dozen paces Zanya could tell that their horses were lathered from an impossibly long run—and that the riders reeked of smoke and blood.

Her stomach churned. At Elevia's side, one of her lieutenants sounded the whistle that meant form up . The Huntress whirled as Zanya reached her side. "Can you carry us back to the town where they tried to burn the healer?"

The Huntress's guardsmen formed a loose circle around her. It would take effort, but she could do it. "As many as can touch me. Though I can't bring the horses, obviously."

"That's fine." Elevia numbered off several to remain with the mounts. The rest gathered close, murmuring apologies as they pressed in all around her. Zanya extended her arms to either side, grasping Ulric's shoulder on one side and Elevia's on the other, waiting until everyone had found a way to touch her. "Are we ready?"

"Go," Elevia ordered.

Blessing their rigid training, Zanya closed her eyes and summoned the shadows. They swirled up at her feet, eager and caressing. Taking a deep breath, she called more, letting them swirl wider—down her arms, past her fingertips. They grew to encompass a dozen of Elevia's hardened fighters in swirls of pure midnight. When Zanya could feel the weight of every last one of them, she stepped into the Void.

And out into a nightmare.