Marsheila Rockwell - Legacy of the Wolves

When he could breathe again, he moved over to the girl’s body and bent to close her eyes, murmuring a prayer for her soul. As he touched her skin, he realized she was still warm.

That meant the killer could still be nearby, on this floor.

He knew he should go find the guards and raise the alarm, but if whoever had done this was still here, then people- his parents -were in danger.

Is that why his father’s sword had been lying discarded on the floor? Had the pyromancer faced the killer? Had he been overpowered and forced to flee? Or had Alestair stumbled across the girl’s body himself and realized that Andri’s mother could be next?

No, Andri couldn’t wait. He had to find his parents. Now .

Bloody footprints led from the serving girl’s body down the hall. Though the tracks were smudged and indistinct, Andri thought he could make out what looked like claws.

He wasn’t looking for a human, then. For some reason, that made him feel better.

Hurrying down the corridor, he followed the crimson trail past several closed doors, until he found an open one. Another body lay just inside the doorway-a man who, like the girl, had had his throat torn out. He’d probably been on his way to Mass, if the prayer books scattered on the floor were any indication, though the service didn’t start for another quarter bell. The man’s piety had likely gotten him killed.

Andri didn’t bother to stop, merely mumbled a quick prayer for the man as he picked up his pace until he was almost jogging. The closer he got to his parents’ quarters, the more his fear grew.

He rounded a corner and almost tripped over a third body, but he didn’t even pause to look to see if this victim was male or female. His parents lived at the end of this hall.

And their door was open.

Andri resisted the urge to call out. If the killer was in there, he wanted to take him-no, it -by surprise. He paused at the doorway to wipe sweaty palms on his pants and make the sign of the Flame. Then, with a wordless prayer, he entered his parents’ apartments, cautiously stepping over the threshold.

The foyer and living room were empty, with everything in its proper place and no sign of any struggle. The tell-tale red prints led across the rich Aerenal rug towards the bedrooms and his father’s study. As Andri followed, he could only think how angry his mother was going to be when she saw the mess-the rug had been a wedding present from her childhood friend, Lavira Tagor, who was now the Keeper of the Silver Flame. He remembered the one time he had tracked mud across the fine weave-his mother had threatened to take him to the Keeper, to make him explain to the head of the Church why he had so little respect for her incredibly generous gift. Andri, who even then had known he was called to serve the Flame, had begged his mother not reveal his sin to the Keeper, and spent three nights on his hands and knees scrubbing the stains out of the rug himself. He’d never set foot on it again, and even now he skirted the edge as he trailed the killer.

The tracks bypassed his father’s study, and Andri felt the fear he had been fighting back take an iron hold on his heart as he realized where the killer was headed. His mother’s rooms.

Chardice Aeyliros was a powerful priestess of the Flame, and normally Andri would have confidence in her ability to hold her own against any would-be murderer, but she had been ill for some time now, and neither the Jorasco healers nor her fellow clerics had been able to determine why. She spent most of her time in bed, rising only to attend evening Mass, walking slowly and leaning heavily on her husband’s arm, or Andri’s when he was free from his studies. She was in no condition to fend off a chattering maid, let alone a feral creature that had already left three corpses in its wake.

The door to his mother’s rooms was ajar, and Andri pushed it open slowly, tightening his grip on the hilt of his father’s sword. The sitting room was empty, but a fire burned low in the hearth, destroying Andri’s one hope that his mother might somehow not be home.

He heard a sound from her bedroom-not a scream. His mother was too well-trained for that. More like an exclamation of surprise.

The need for stealth had passed. There was no other exit from his mother’s rooms. He had her assailant trapped.

Andri rushed across the sitting room and into his mother’s bedroom, where a nightmare awaited him.

His mother lay disheveled on her bed in a long, silvery nightgown, her heavy brocaded quilts tossed haphazardly on the floor. Leaning over her in some obscene parody of intimacy was a creature covered in dark blood-spattered fur, bushy tail wagging like a dog’s, its long canine snout hovering mere inches from his mother’s open mouth.

For a split second, Andri thought it was a shifter-her friend, Renato? But wasn’t he in the Reaches, visiting family?

Then, as the pale lavender light from Dravago’s newly-full face streamed in through the window, Andri realized the awful truth.

The thing bending over his mother, looking for all the world as if it wanted simply to lick her face like a happy puppy, was not one of the weretouched.

It was one of the moontouched .

A werewolf.

A startled gasp escaped him, and the werewolf and his mother turned their heads to look at him. The lycanthrope’s tongue lolled out, and it seemed to smile. Then it turned back to his mother and, head darting forward with blinding speed, locked its powerful jaws around her throat and began to tear.

Chardice’s eyes never left those of her son. Her gaze captivated him, held him rooted to the spot, even as the werewolf tore bloody chunks of flesh from her neck.

The priestess did not look horrified, or even frightened, just … sad. Resigned. And perhaps even … expectant?

Andri shook off his trance with an inarticulate cry and threw himself across the room, certain even as he did so that he was too late. His brief moment of inaction had cost his mother her life.

The werewolf turned at the last instant, just as Andri reached the bedside and was preparing to bring his father’s blade down in a powerful arc. With a nonchalance bordering on arrogance, the creature stepped past his guard and backhanded him across the face so hard that Andri felt his jawbone break. The force of the blow sent Andri stumbling backward. His feet tangled in his mother’s cast-off blankets, and he went down.

Surprisingly, the lycanthrope did not take the opportunity to attack, instead turning its bloody muzzle back toward Chardice, who raised her arms up, as if in welcome.

But that was insane. She was so ill, so weak from blood loss, she must be trying to defend herself, and just didn’t have the strength to do more than gesture feebly.

Surely she wasn’t, couldn’t be … encouraging the foul beast?

Andri clambered back to his feet, kicking the quilts aside as he approached the werewolf again, more cautiously this time.

“Get off my mother, you Flame-cursed abomination!”

That seemed to get the creature’s attention. It snarled at him and stepped away from the bed, shaking scarlet drops of Chardice’s blood from its snout as it did so. The werewolf set itself in a ready stance, knees bent slightly as it prepared for Andri’s next charge. It raised its clawed hands up in what Andri at first assumed was a defensive gesture, but he soon realized that it was the beginning of an arcane pass, one that seemed strangely familiar.

The werewolf was trying to cast a spell on him!

As it thrust one palm out toward him, Andri dove to one side, rolling and coming up on his heels a few feet away. He expected to feel the tingle of magic passing over him as he tumbled out of the way, but there was nothing. Standing, he saw that the werewolf was staring at his hand with an oddly canine expression of frustration and disbelief.