Alpha

The moon had not yet risen when Aatu began to die.

No bell was rung in the mountain palace. The Loup Garou had learnt, during the ninety-first Alpha’s long rule, that a bell could invite grief and grief could become a weapon before breakfast. Servants moved quietly through the stone corridors. They laid fresh cedar beneath the hearth and pretended not to hear the old wolf’s breathing catch in his chest.

Ralphina sat beside the bed with one paw over Aatu’s. His claws had once marked the throat of a rival in the Hall of Moons. Now they were curled around a small, faded lock of gold fur.

“You should rest,” she said.

“I have rested enough to become a story people tell when they want a child to finish supper.” His voice was dry but still amused. “Bring the Betas.”

“They have been waiting since midnight.”

“Then they have already learnt patience. That is more than I expected.”

Through the shuttered window, the last stars trembled above the ridge. Beyond it lay the Vale of Unspoken Shadows, a country of black water and pale trees that Aatu had forbidden even in prayer.

“You mean to send them there,” Ralphina said.

“I mean to send them where the truth is.”

The Hall of Moons had been built to make a ruler feel larger than his body. Stone wolves climbed its columns. The ceiling was a dark mirror in which torchlight became a second, inverted court. At its far end, above the throne, an empty iron bracket waited for the Baroug.

Five Betas stood beneath it.

Fenrisúlfr wore mourning grey despite the fact that Aatu had not died. His smile had the careful warmth of a host who had already decided where everyone would sit. Rannulf leaned against a pillar as if the meeting had interrupted something more entertaining. Lycurgus was rigid with anger, the kind inherited from a father who had failed before him. Ulbrecht had brought a leather case of maps, charms and notes. Rafe stood nearest the door, looking not at the throne but at the hands of every wolf in the room.

Aatu entered without assistance. Ralphina could hear the effort in each step. The five Betas bowed.

“You expect a Dance on the Moon,” Aatu said. “You expect a contest and a victor, because that is how we have pretended power becomes clean.”

Fenrisúlfr lifted his chin. “The Dance has chosen every Alpha since Lycaeon.”

“The Dance has buried a great many wolves.” Aatu stopped beneath the empty bracket. “There will be no crown without the staff.”

The Baroug had been missing for seventeen years. The old songs called it the staff of authority, carved from the heartwood of the first mountain and silver-bound beneath a dead moon. Aatu had once called it something more dangerous: a promise made solid.

“At dawn, you will enter the Vale. You will find the Baroug and bring it home. The one who returns with it will not merely claim my place. They will answer for what they find.”

Lycurgus stepped forward. “The Bruxsa will kill us.”

“Then do not be killed.”

Rannulf’s mouth shifted into the beginning of a smile. Ulbrecht began asking about routes, water and shelter. Fenrisúlfr bowed deeply enough for the court to admire him. Rafe did not move.

“What is the price?” Rafe asked.

Aatu looked at him for so long that even Fenrisúlfr’s smile failed.

“If you return,” Aatu said, “you will know.”

After the court dispersed, Ralphina followed Aatu back to his chamber. The gold fur remained clenched in his paw.

“You are sending them into the place that took Faelan.”

“I am sending them into the place that kept him.”

The words stopped her.

For one breath Aatu looked younger, not because the illness left him but because the old certainty did. Then it was gone.

“That is not an answer,” Ralphina whispered.

“No,” he said. “It is the only one I have left.”

Outside, a howl crossed the valley. It was too distant to be real and too familiar to be ignored. Ralphina looked down at the gold fur, and the red edge of the moon climbed over the ridge.