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Chapter One
Trace
“They can’t all be dead.” Everything in me insisted it was impossible. My friends, my family…my pack. Gone, all gone.
Finton made yet another circuit of the village, disappearing into each small home as he searched for any living person. Anyone who might be too sick to respond to our calls.
We’d already checked, of course. Here and in the outlying homes. Some were empty, their inhabitants now residents of the new mounds in the cemetery. Headstones were not our tradition, nor any marking of who lay in each mound. We sought to return to the earth without marking her more than necessary. The names of those who died were added to the memories of the bards of each generation, to be recited every Samhain at the bonfire.
They were not trained, these bards, or rather not taught the tales they imparted. Most did have some lessons in elocution, in singing, and of course in playing instruments. But the actual information, the lists of names of those gone before, the heroic tales, the tragedies of generations past—they knew that from birth. Or at least from when they were old enough to speak, to shift, to take their place in the pack.
But Finton had found the remains of the old bard in his first circuit of the village, and the young one, just more than a teen as well, in the cabin he shared with his mentor. They must have died near the same, or one would have seen the other buried.
Finton returned to where I stood, near the mounds, and I didn’t have to ask my husband what he’d discovered. Nothing had changed since the last time we looked. Nothing could.
“They’re all gone.” His voice cracked. “What happens now?”
“I don’t know.” I dropped to my knees. Was my mother under this mound? One of the others? For the first time, I wished for markers of some kind so I’d know where to let my tears fall.
“Is it possible anyone escaped?” His voice cracked with pain. “Someone else could have been away.”
“I don’t know, but for now, we’ve found the alpha, the bards, the healer…and others. There are not enough mounds for all, but if they were dying rapidly, if those remaining were also sickening, they would have likely buried couples or families, maybe even those who died around the same time in joint graves. We can search, but whatever killed them was unlike anything I’ve ever seen before.” They’d died in pools of their own vomit, excrement, skin covered with pustules. “If it was poison, we may be safe, although I’ve never heard of any poison that did this to its victims.”
“Not that we’re experts,” he reminded me.
“No, of course not.” We were not healers or herbalists. Not even cooks or gatherers who would recognize a deadly mushroom. “But what if it’s a disease?”
“It doesn’t matter,” he said, dropping to his knees and lifting a handful of loose soil. “We have to bury the rest no matter the contagion or contamination. It’s our duty.”
“Quite a way to celebrate our return from our honeymoon trip, isn’t it?” I reached for him, needing the comfort of his embrace. “The last time we saw all of our friends, our family, our pack, they were celebrating our mating. And now…”
His tears soaked my shirt, and mine streaked my cheeks, but I sniffed the rest back. We could not leave our beloved dead to rot in their homes. I hugged him tight for a long moment then tipped his chin up and kissed him, appreciating his warmth, his love, his wolf’s connection with mine.
Please, Lady, do not let him sicken and leave me behind. If it is your will that he catches this evil disease, let me live only long enough to care for him before joining him in your lands.
