The days have dragged on to this single warm morning. The last of a handful before the inevitable howling rage of winter sets in.
I pray Breannin blesses Orlan and Ezra with fortitude and wisdom on this ominous day. I felt the stirring of foreboding in the waning hours of the night, and from that same window, where the assassin fell to down to the cobbles below, the full moon darkened for but a single moment.
A moment I learned as the maids and ladies ready me and my friends for the Arena games, that was seen by the Alpha King's astrologers. A portent of worry, the possibility of woe to be wrought upon this vast kingdom of wolves now that something has obscured their goddess's vain luminous beauty.
It is an intriguing prospect to think. One to keep my mind off the jostling from the carriage rocking as the wheels roll along the city's streets. Amira, Celeste, Aloutte, Ersa, and I managed to be placed in the Luna Queen's carriage together. But not without needing a wolf servant to be placed with us. At first, I dreaded the notion of it, to have a spy within our midst. Watching us with sharp eyes and a loose mouth in need of being sewn shut.
But then I remembered one servant that would raise no suspicion if made to join us. One even the Luna Dowager sees as amicable, quiet, dutiful, and useful. A spy perfect for the needs of her and her loathsome son. If only they knew how much they did not know about her. If only they knew how much one bit of kindness would turn their spy against them.
Watchful eyed Tanith busies herself with heavily detailed stitchery. Threading her needle into the silk held within a plain wooden embroidery hoop. Saying not a word as we humans talk back and forth, hands and fingers moving at a rapid pace. Dispensing information, complaints, and worries. The slight warmth in the air has given all the chance to wear lighter garments. We have as well, in a way, but with such an important occasion I managed to have our Tenebrae cloaks returned.
Sadly, Amira's could not be, and it never would be. It took all my composure and strength not to throttle the female wolf in charge of cleaning our precious robes and cloaks. She all but smiled when she told me a small flame caught hold of Amira's wolf fur cloak. A fire that burned it to ashes.
My dear friend has neither talked nor signed in the last three days since. Not even the stuffy rocking carriage, the jammed puzzle of our legs in the center of the carriage, or the slow growing dull roar of blood thirsty crowd, has pulled her out of that glossy eyed stupor. She is silent, but not unaware. Anger and resentment falls off her in waves.
Even the Axe has been smart to not hold her gaze for long. Both and he and the Hammer all but dragged her and Ersa into their carriage before we left for the Arena. Amira did not try to resist him, did not say a word, but something in the way her eyes gazed into his, made the Axe, who they call Travis, drop her arm and step back in resignation. The Hammer, Ismael, was loath to do the same, but relented when Amira yanked away Ersa and joined us in the carriage.
Glancing out the window, I catch the forms of the newly appointed Lieutenants Drathen and Corus Vidrane. Each on royal brown mares, both garbed in gleaming silver amor and capes of wild forest green. The new distinguished color of the High Luna Queen's Guard. My guard. A guard that swarms the carriage on all sides, keeping away the crowds lining the road. Ones that seem to grow in number as we draw under the shadow of the massive stone Arena.
Under a towering archway the carriage goes, the soldiers falling in to surround us as the driver slows the horses to a stop beneath the archway's shadow. I look out the window, spying the familiar figure of the same priestess from the forest waiting atop a set of of marble stairs across from us. Behind her, more than a dozen soldiers line the steps leading up to single large arched iron door.
We ready ourselves as a solider comes up to the carriage door. Amira fixing her borrowed black cloak, Tanith stowing away her needlework as the twins and Ersa hide away the extra knives they managed to abscond from the training rooms when General Kamir's attention was lax. The young seamstress gives no sign that she saw the blades, still I catch her troubled gaze and place a gentle hand upon her knee covered by the long blue skirt of her dress, giving the boney limb a subtle squeeze of warning as the carriage door opens.
YOU ARE READING
Forest of Lies
WerewolfA thousand years past, the world was run by humankind. But it changed, when countries became embroiled in a war that gave the werewolves the opportunity, to recreate the earth in their own image. Now humans are the lowest on the food chain, little m...
