Wen Spencer - Wolf Who Rules

"Why is it a bad thing that other clans are going to help fight the oni? Isn't this everyone's problem?"

"We hold only what we can protect." Windwolf squeezed her hand; she wasn't sure if it was to comfort her or to seek comfort for himself. "By admitting that we need help, we have put our monopoly on Pittsburgh at risk. The other clans might want part of the city for services rendered in fixing this problem. The humans will fall under someone else's rule."

"You've got to be kidding! Why?"

"Because we can not protect all of Pittsburgh from the oni. The Crown will mediate a compromise."

"Couldn't your father-as head of the Wind clan - have sent us help?"

"He has. He sent domana to Aum Renau and the other East Coast settlements. It is a great comfort to me to know that they are protected. The domana aren't that numerous, and the clans that can help are limited to those who have spell stones within range of Pittsburgh."

"This is all my fault," Tinker whispered.

"Hush, this battle is part of a war that started before even I was born."

She snuggled against him, logic failing to squash the guilty feeling inside of her. She was distracted, however, by something very hard under her. "Do you have something in your pocket? Or are you just happy to see me?"

"What? Oh, yes." Windwolf pulled a small fabric bundle out of his pants pocket. "This is for you."

"What's this?" Tinker eyed it tentatively. Accepting a similar package from Windwolf had indicated her acceptance of his marriage proposal - when she didn't realize the significance of his gift. She still had mixed feelings about being married to Windwolf. As a lover, Windwolf was all that she would want-warm, gentle, and caring wrapped in a sexy body - and she loved him deeply.

It was the whole marriage thing - having someone else's will and future joined to hers. They were building 'their home' for 'their people' and someday, maybe, 'their children.' Being the Viceroy's wife, too, came with more responsibilities than she wanted; people were entrusting her with their lives. So far, the good outweighed the bad - but with elves "till death do us part" meant a very long time.

"Before the Queen summoned me from Pittsburgh, I ordered clothes and jewelry to be made for you. I know that they are not of the style you might pick for yourself. It is important, though, that you look your best in front of the crown and the other clans."

"Okay." She pulled loose the bow and unwrapped the fabric. Inside were four small velvet pouches with drawstring pulls. She opened the first to the glitter of gems. "Oh!"

She gasped as she poured diamonds out into her palm. Over a foot of necklace studded with pea-sized diamonds. "Oh my! They're gorgeous!"

As she lifted them up, the afternoon sun prismed into a million tiny rainbows.

"They will look lovely against your skin." Windwolf dropped a kiss on her throat.

The second bag spilled rubies into her hand like fire, but as she lifted up the strand, it reminded her of the red ribbon in her dream. The third bag held a matching bracelet.

"They're beautiful," she said truthfully, but still put them away.

The fourth bag held a pearl necklace. She couldn't keep the dismay off her face.

"You don't like them?"

"I had a bad dream after the beast knocked me out. I was looking for something in a forest with this woman. She had a long red ribbon tied around her eyes and on the other end of it, was a pearl necklace."

She'd wanted him to say "it was just a dream," but instead he said, "Tell me all of your dream."

"Why?"

"Sometimes dreams are warnings. It is not wise to ignore them."

So she said, "It was just a dream." How could he rebuke her so easily with just his eyes? "I'm still me. I'm still mostly human - not elf. I would know by now if I had the ability to see the future."

"In elves it is carried by the female line; being that humans and elves can interbreed with fertile results, we must be very similar." He put away the pearl necklace. "It is the nature of magic to splinter things down to possibilities. Even humans without magic can see where the splintering will happen, and the possible outcomes. Humans call it an 'educated guess.' In the past, where magic would leak through natural gates from Elfhome to Earth, there were often temples with oracles predicting the future."

"So it doesn't matter if I'm mostly human or partly elf?"

"Tell me your dream." Windwolf ran the back of his hand lightly down her cheek.

So she described what she could remember. "Both women are someone I know but not really. Movie stars or something like that - I've only seen pictures of them."

"Both women wore blindfolds? The intanyei seyosa wears one when she's predicting. It helps block out things that would distract her from her visions, but also it is a badge of her office."

Tinker remembered then her one encounter with the Queen's intanyei seyosa, Pure Radiance. The oracle had worn a white dress and red blindfold.

"So I'm dreaming that they're dreaming? That's very Escher-esque."

Windwolf looked confused.

"Escher is a human artist that my grandfather liked; his pictures are all tricks of perspective."

"I see."

"Well, I don't. What does it mean?" She prodded the bags with a finger. "That you were going to give me jewelry? What is so dangerous about the necklaces?"

"Dreams are rarely straightforward. Most likely the necklaces represent something else."

"Like what?"

"I do not know, but it might be wise to find out."

Wolf spotted Wraith at the fringe of the Ghostlands when he flew back to Turtle Creek. He'd left his domi in the care of his household at Poppymeadow's enclave and returned to help deal with the beast that attacked her. He dropped down to land beside his First.

"I don't know what Storm Horse was thinking." Wraith growled in greeting. "How did he end up with all the babies?"

Little Horse had chosen the five youngest sekasha to make up the Hand that accompanied Tinker into Turtle Creek; not one of them was over two hundred. True, any death would have been grievous, but to lose the five youngest would have been a blow to the close-knit band of warriors.

"They are the ones my domi is most comfortable with." Wolf knew that Wraith was truly rattled if he was using the nickname, as some of the "babies" were in truth older than Wolf. His First Hand didn't like to remind him that he was impossibly young for his level of responsibilities.

"Oni, they could have handled," Wraith allowed and then handed a sheet of paper to Wolf. "But not an oni dragon. I'm amazed any of them are still alive."

Wolf recognized Rainlily's fluid hand in the drawing. The low slung creature looked like a cross between a ferret and a snake. "An oni dragon? Are you sure?"

Wraith clicked his tongue. "It's much smaller than the one we fought when we closed the gate between Earth and Onihida, and the coloring is different. It might be just a less dangerous cousin, like we have the wyvern cousins to our dragons, or perhaps a hatchling. It would explain how they survived."

The battle had been shortly before Wolf was born. A Stone Clan trading expedition had discovered the way from Earth to Onihida by accident. When the survivors managed to return to Elfhome with their tale of capture and torture, the clans united to send a force to Earth to stop the oni spreading from Onihida to Earth, and then, possibly to Elfhome. Wraith Arrow and others of Wolf's First Hand had been part of the oni war.

"Are oni dragons that dangerous?" Wolf folded the paper and tucked it away. He would have to let the Earth Interdimensional Agency know of this new threat if they couldn't kill the beast quickly. The EIA could best spread warnings through the humans.