The Fifth Howl

Chapter 6 War Beacons

The war beacons weren't supposed to light anymore.

Professor Hargrove told us in History of Packs that the last time the capital lit them was when the Northern Packs tried to secede, eighty years ago. My mother - my real mother, whoever she was - would have been a pup then.

Now all six beacons over the mountains were burning black and violet.

Darius stopped laughing. He stared out the Tower window at the smoke, and for the first time I saw real fear on the face of the man who raised me.

"You stupid girl," he hissed at me, but it wasn't angry. It was terrified. "You have no idea what you've called."

Thorne grabbed Darius by the collar and threw him toward the Enforcers. "Take Alpha Vane into custody. And his daughter. The Council will question him about the Violet Eclipse ritual and the illegal vessel creation. Chain him in silver."

"You can't chain an Alpha without a trial!" Seraphina screamed, suddenly awake again. Convenient.

"I am the trial," Thorne said, and his old voice shook the bookshelves.

The Enforcers moved. They were efficient. Silver cuffs - the kind that burn a wolf's skin and keep them human - clicked around Darius's wrists. He didn't fight. He just kept staring at me, his eyes burning.

"Seraphina, don't watch," he said quietly.

"Daddy?"

"Elara, listen to me," he said, and he said my name like he actually cared for the first time in nineteen years. "If you ever considered yourself my daughter, you will run. Now. You will let the Quads take you into the Wildlands and you will not look back. Do not let them take you to the capital."

"Don't listen to him!" Margot snapped. "He is trying to-"

"She is not safe in the capital!" Darius roared, lunging against the silver chains, skin smoking. "None of you understand! The priests who did the ritual, they didn't die! They became the Council!"

The Tower doors slammed shut on their own. The violet runes flared so bright we all had to shield our eyes.

Lyra was furious.

Liars. Murderers. They wear white but they bathed in my blood.

I clutched my head. Her anger was my anger, but bigger. My claws shot out, my eyes burned.

"Make them stop!" I gasped to Silas. "Make it stop, it's too loud!"

Silas didn't hesitate. He stepped into the light with me, took my face in his cold hands, and pressed his forehead to mine.

It was the first time anyone had ever touched me like that.

The second our skin touched, the noise stopped. Not because Lyra left. Because Silas shared it. I felt his mind open - a vast, quiet, silver ocean - and he took half my storm into it.

He gasped, his silver eyes flashing violet. A trickle of blood ran from his nose.

"Better?" he whispered.

I nodded, unable to speak. His hands were still on my face.

Behind us, Jaxon made a low, jealous noise. "Okay, okay, forehead touch is hot but maybe don't steal our girl, Soul-boy."

"She is not 'our girl'," Kade said automatically, but his voice was strained. He was watching Silas's hands on me like he wanted to rip them off and replace them with his own.

Rhys stepped between me and the Enforcers, who were still holding Darius.

"Elder Thorne," Rhys said, his perfect diplomat voice back on, but his hands were in fists. "With respect. You cannot take her to the capital tonight. She is in surge. A two-day carriage ride in silver cuffs will kill a newly manifested god. She will stay in the Tower. Warded. Under our guard. You can post Enforcers outside."

Thorne looked at the four of us. At Kade's shadows wrapped around my ankles. At Jaxon's fire still violet-tipped. At Silas's bleeding nose. At Rhys, who was already thinking three steps ahead.

He saw what everyone else was starting to see.

A tether.

Margot saw it too. "Oh, Goddess," she whispered. "It's already happened. The Fifth Tether. The prophecy said-"

"Don't quote prophecy at me, Margot," Thorne growled. But he was looking at me differently. Not as an anomaly. As a weapon that had just chosen its wielders.

He made a decision.

"Ebon Pack Alpha Darius Vane is under arrest for illegal ritual, conspiracy, and treason. His daughter Seraphina Vane is detained as witness." He turned to me. "Elara Vane... no. Lyra. You will remain in the Observatory Tower under Quad guard until the High Council arrives. You will not leave campus. You will not manifest outside warded walls. Do you understand?"

I swallowed. My throat was raw from Lyra's voice. "And if I say no?"

Thorne smiled, and it was the first genuine smile I'd seen from him.

"Then these four idiots will start a war with the Council for you, child. And they might just win."

He turned to leave, Enforcers dragging a smoking, cursing Darius. Seraphina was dragged too, screaming that I was a freak and this was all my fault.

At the door, Thorne paused.

"And for what it's worth... I knew your mother. If you are her daughter, then you have her eyes when you are angry."

Then he was gone. The Tower doors boomed shut, the ward snapping back into place, but this time it glowed violet, not gold.

Silence.

Five of us. One couch. One girl who five hours ago was mopping floors.

Jaxon was the first to break it.

"So," he said, flopping onto the couch next to me, way too close, throwing an arm over the back. "Our girlfriend is a literal god. Cool. Cool cool cool. Do gods get hungry? Because I'm starving."

"She is not our girlfriend," Kade and Rhys said in unison.

"Goddess, sorry, our goddess," Jaxon corrected, winking at me. "Do goddesses get hungry?"

Despite everything - beacons, arrest, Council, Darius's warning - I laughed. A real, snort-laugh that made my claws retract.

"I... I think so."

Kade walked to the kitchen, muttering about needing control, but he came back with a steaming bowl of noodles. The instant kind from the counter. He thrust it at me.

"Eat. Surge burns calories. You will crash if you don't."

It was the nicest thing anyone had ever done for me.

I took it. Our fingers brushed. His shadows jumped to my wrist and stayed there, warm.

Silas sat on the floor at my feet, wiping the blood from his nose, looking up at me like I was the moon.

Rhys watched us all, his blue eyes unreadable.

"Tomorrow," he said quietly, "the entire continent will know your name, Elara. Or Lyra. Whatever you want to be called. There is no going back to being invisible."

I looked down at the bowl in my hands. At the four boys who yesterday thought I was air.

Lyra purred, sleepy now after all the fire.

Invisible was lonely. Let's be seen.

I looked up.

"Call me Elara," I said. "Lyra is who I was. Elara is who I am."

Outside, the war beacons kept burning.