She looked down at the letter in my hands. I looked up and saw the realization on her face. “Where’d you get that?” she asked.
“I–” but Aunt Teetee snatched for it and I slid away, standing from the seat. “What is this?” I said, keeping my distance.
“It doesn’t matter,” Aunt Teetee edged along. “It’s better you don’t know.”
“Don’t know what?” I demanded.I knew this shape in the wax…
Aunt Teetee was circling around, edging me away from the door. I noticed and darted off, not giving her the chance to lock the backdoor.
“Feyra!” she called. “Don’t run!”
But I did. I ran with the letter and its paw shaped wax in one hand, and my paw shaped pendant in the other. The pendant Iknewthat had been used to create the seal.
I ran through Aunt Teetee’s garden, jumped over the rear fence, and sprinted down the run behind the houses. I was sure of what the embossed edges were on the pendant now.
My parents’ locket was—my heart slammed into my chest and I stopped.My locket was my parents’ seal.I brought shaking hands together and fit the pendant into the wax seal.
It fit perfectly.
Aunt Teetee’s calling brought me back to reality. I snapped out of it and continued running.
The streets of Outer Lassig passed quickly as I headed for the outer wall, dodging the carts, men, and horses, the clanging of the blacksmiths tolling like bells of fate. The horses whinnied at me as I ran.
The cobbles ended and the dirt streets began, yet I didn’t stop. I ran with the spirit of something stronger in me. Something feeding me power. I pushed on until the view of the wall began climbing in front of me.
Then I cut into the rows of corn growing, slithered through a diagonal strip for watering and came out in the shadow of the giant wall itself. I squeezed between the wooden rails and began climbing the stairs to the guards walk. I moved sideways through the fissure in the wall and climbed up the hidden trail. Within moments I was in my hiding place.
I was heaving with breaths that had nothing to do with the running. I looked back at the view of Lassig, with its waterfall falling out of the cliff shining in the sun. The great castle Lady Skol had stolen shone in the foreground of it all. Then I turned and looked out at the Warlands.
I pressed the paw into the wax seal one last time. I didn’t give myself time to hesitate, I ripped the letter open.
Feyra, my daughter…
I fell to my knees.
Chapter 2
DION
It would be me to kill her.The Pools of Prophecy glowed their ephemeral blues, lasting no longer than mere seconds as the water pulsed with energy. It was a beating heart of the earth out here in the Warlands. No one knew how they glowed, or what it was in the water that was alive, only thatwhateverwas in there avoided people.
Unless you held prophecy.
The lighter colors washed up against me and then away. It was cool. It soothed my muscles. It made me feel alive. My wolf howled.
But it did nothing for my prophecy.
“Good. So the waters haven’t rejected you.” I turned to my father, his face set and arms folded. He was six foot six of pure werewolf. Built hard like the cliffs that the pools were carved into. I met him eye to eye when I was out. “But time does not wait,” he finished.
I nodded again. I nodded a lot with my father.
“Time is not part of the prophecy, Marcus,” Roman said. “Unity is.” My uncle stood with folded arms, leaning against the wall. The two of them would’ve been identical had they been dressed the same. Their faces were sharp, jaws square, and their muscles were the first thing you noticed about them.
But other than that, Roman looked the poor guide that we had the world believe we were, and my father looked like the powerful Alpha that he was.
“And yet unity hasn’t come.” He was angry again. The meetings were becoming more like this.
“I’m trying my hardest,” I said. “We’re traveling non-stop, never staying more than one night in any town, and I talk to every person I can. The Warlands is a big place.”
