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Lily wasn’t sure if that was any better. Can you tell them I mean no harm?
Speak, and they will understand.
Lily hesitated, not sure she understood Pale One correctly. Mindspeak was one thing, where concepts were passed along as much as words. The times when Lily had doubts that her Woven claimed could understand her all she’d had to do was picture what she wanted and pass the images along, as they did with her. Speaking aloud was different. Language, and the ability to understand it, was different. She hadn’t even attempted speaking aloud with Pale One yet, thinking it might be too complicated for her.
Speak with sounds, Pale One urged. They lose trust for you.
“I come to ask for your help,” Lily said, trying to sound confident. She heard growls as a response.
“Lily, what are you doing?” Rowan asked. “They can’t understand you.”
“We understand the witch,” said a low, raspy voice.
Rowan said something in Cherokee that was no doubt a swear word, and then a different raspy voice said something in Cherokee back to him. Rowan went very still.
I don’t believe it, he whispered inside Lily’s mind.
“Have you always been able to talk?” Lily asked.
She heard something like a bark and a laugh coming from the dark. “Of course,” growled another member of the Pack.
A different voice picked up the dialogue. “We have always had language and the use of tools,” it said.
“Why wouldn’t we?” asked a fourth voice.
“We are more like you than we are like wolves,” purred a fifth.
The Pack was circling them, passing the duty of responding from one member to another as if they were one mind with many voices.
They are a coven, Rowan said, realizing it at the same time Lily did. They’re sharing mindspeak as they talk to you.
They’re toying with us, Lily replied to both Rowan and Pale One, connecting them to each other through her.
Circling closer and closer, Pale One added. Lily felt Rowan startle to hear the Woven in his mind, but he accepted it.
Pale One, watch Lily’s flank, Rowan ordered, taking the defensive lead.
Next thing: one will come inside circle and snap with teeth to show they are Biggers, Pale One said as she followed Rowan’s order.
They may be Biggers, but they aren’t stronger, Lily replied.
“Where is your witch?” Lily demanded, suddenly sick of playing this game for dominance. “Bring me to her.”
“We need no witch,” hissed yet another voice from the dark. Lily felt Rowan count six in his mind.
Many more, Pale One said, disagreeing. Many, many smells.
“You have no fire, witch,” sneered a seventh.
“You are meat,” said yet another.
“I didn’t bring fire because I didn’t come here to fight you,” Lily said. “I came here to ask you to join us. In three days we go to destroy the Hive.”
Yips and barks burst from the Pack. There were dozens of them out there in the dark. Maybe hundreds. Lily felt Rowan slump, knowing they didn’t stand a chance against so many.
“My army is thirty thousand strong,” Lily said proudly, her voice ringing out in the darkness.
“The Hive are millions,” said a softer voice, and all of the other Pack members fell silent at the sound of it. “Thirty thousand is not enough, not even for a witch.”
