The Waking (The Upturned Hourglass) (38 page)

“No more talking!”

Valie jumped at the sentry’s command. She hadn’t known he was directly behind them.

Jack wished the dialogue to continue, however, both for information as well as making Valie more at ease. 

“May I ask a question, sir?”

The guard sighed audibly.

“What is it?” he groaned.

“Who do we have the pleasure of dealing with on this lovely night?”

The man laughed. “Are you really trying to be sweet-tongued?”

A snigger escaped Valie’s lips. She moved quickly to silence herself, but the sound unexpectedly lightened the thus rigid atmosphere.

“I’ve never heard it put quite that way before,” Jack continued, pressing advantage. “But I do try to have a way with words when need be.”

“And there be need?”

Jack shrugged. “I’m not quite certain. Better safe, than sorry, I suppose.”

There was a pause. Only the marching and shuffling of feet through the underbrush could be heard.

“My name is Daniel,” the man behind them finally replied.

Jack smiled. “I would like to say ‘it’s nice to meet you,’ Daniel, but I’m afraid that would be a hard one to sell.”

Daniel’s tone lost its affable note and grew solemn. “Your wanted words would not apply.”

Jack nodded to himself. “I see. Well, then. I am Jack and I’m sorry to meet you under such circumstances.”

The sentry held his tongue. They marched on.

“You do know why we’ve been sent to bring you to the Elders?” Daniel hissed behind Jack unexpectedly.

“Not precisely. No.”

“It’s because of her.” Jack could feel Daniel’s eyes on Valie and was forced to quell the rising defensiveness as it roiled inside him.

“You know what? I’m truly beginning to feel special,” Valie muttered, her silent apprehension having dissipated with her energy. At first, Jack felt an intrusion on his feelings, but he realized she’d no idea of his thoughts. He was well concealed.

“We did know that much, Daniel. Is there anything more? How did they learn about her?”

“They haven’t yet. We only discovered her true nature when we overheard his conversation with her in his hideout. We were charged with his capture for other reasons.”

“You’re telling me this has nothing to do with Valie?” Jack asked incredulously. He hushed his voice as much as possible. “Then, please, take Isaac and let us leave. Let us get out of this place before the Council finds out about her parentage. We’ll take her far away where no one will suspect."

“From what I know of you, Jack Haden, you were once part of the Guard, which means you know full well I can do no such thing.”

Jack fell into silence as they walked. He heard Valie stifle a quiet sob a few minutes later and he wished there were words to reassure her, but his mind drew a blank. He had no idea what, if anything, he would be able to accomplish at the meeting. And he still wondered who was unbound that might be able to offer aid. For now, all they could do was to wait and see.

After another half an hour of the guards chafing at the prisoners’ slow pace, the party reached an open glen, a wide break in the boundary of the forest.

“We’ll rest here for a few minutes before completing the last mile.”

A nearby soldier groaned. “Come now, Danny. We’re almost there. We should keep moving!”

“The captives need rest, Byron.”

“The fear of the Elders will keep them alert,” the harsh and rasping man continued. “You’re too soft for your own good.”

Daniel rose to a higher stature, placing his body within Byron’s personal space. He towered over the stout, older man and even in the moon-less dark, he was menacing. The rest of Daniel’s company watched in silence.

“It’s ‘sir’ to you, Byron McCallahan,” Daniel growled. “And if I hear one more complaint or grumbling come out of your mouth I’ll have the Elders’ warlock sew it closed with more than just his magick. Understood?”

The older man glared up at his superior. “Yes, sir.”

“Well. Go see if the rest of the captives need water. We resume the march in ten minutes.” The officer ordered to silence
disappeared to grumble out of ear shot. Daniel turned back to the couple he guarded.

“I may officially say it is nice to have met you, Daniel,” Jack commended as he took a seat on a damp rock.

The long-haired soldier chuckled. “Byron’s right. It’s a poor decision to keep the Council waiting, but I figured she could use all the strength she can get.” He motioned toward the girl, leaning heavily against the rock next to Jack.

Jack nodded his silent thanks. Valie stared off into the distance her thoughts indecipherable.

“Where exactly is the Council meeting being held?”

“It is your pack that picked the location. . .”

“We’ve been a little busy of late.”

“It is on the other side of that hill there. It used to be a church, but it’s just four walls and an old bell tower now. There are no accessible roads nearby; they’ve all eroded with time. The area’s been abandoned for decades with only the occasional hiker to explore its terrain.”

“That explains the lack of additional transportation,” Valie quipped.

Daniel nodded. “It can only be reached on foot.”

“The Elders must be fit for their age.”

Daniel smiled for the first time. The expression made him look younger, more relaxed. He glanced behind him at the rest of the party. Their respite was over.

They took up their pace once again, each stride bringing the prisoners closer to their fate. Now, they would face the commanders of Fate itself, the Elders of the Lycanthrope race.

Now, they would face the Interlunar Council.

PART TWO

REPENTANCE

Valie stood there on the podium in the center of the main room, the echoing barrenness of the shadowed church-place surrounding her and the company behind. The memory of the last fortnight had just cascaded out of her mouth and Jack’s to reach the prophetic ears of the five Elders. She was thankful for Jack’s reassuring hand, though his voice had become formal, detached. Only his warm touch and occasional squeeze of the hand kept her composed throughout the discourse.

As silence once again reigned in the oppressive room, each Elder looked from one set of nearby silvery eyes to the next. Mortimus’ eyes, though, remained on Valie as she glanced around at the guards surrounding her stand to the others they had conveyed to the meeting. As had been revealed upon their arrival, the other three captured had been Terrence, Shane, and Isaac. Shane, wrapped in one of the sentry’s cloaks, looked uncomfortable standing between the two men, the betrayed amongst the betrayers.

Valie wondered what had happened to Noah or Eliza. Had they been injured during the seizure? Had they hidden from the wrath of the Council that surely awaited them if they revealed themselves? If the latter were true, were they together? That would have proved to be a tense partnership to say the least.

Isaac, with the sentry, Daniel, standing hard by, caught Valie’s eye.

The girl stiffened as the living wraith smiled sedately, perfectly at ease in the knowledge that his fate was intertwined with hers. She trembled, as she became conscious of the fact that when he looked at her, he didn’t see a daughter, but a power to warp to his purpose.

Jack, feeling her tension, wrapped a comforting arm around Valie’s waist. She pressed into the werewolf’s side, but was unable to take her eyes off of her father. Jack followed her apprehensive gaze. A guttural snarl began to build in his chest as he came to understand her posture. Valie tore away from her father’s observance to look up at her protector, his locked jaw, his lip curling in disgust, his anger and trepidation burning in his stormy eyes. She placed a restraining hand near Jack’s heart, waiting for the vibrations inside his chest to die down. When they did and the Lycan boy breathed more calmly, she removed it, though the ghost of his heartbeat seemed to remain, pulsing in her fingertips.

“What an interesting circumstance,” Mortimus’ world-weary voice sounded, low and unexpected. Valie turned, surprised. All whispering had ceased. “And to think, Isaac, we had you dragged here merely for consorting with Vampyres known to have threatened the safety of our race.” The Elder arched his brow and looked at the Fated he addressed with disdain.

She looked to the Lycanthrope seated centrally, to his gloom-filled face, its skin weathered, sagging and yellowy in the dim light of the lamp-lit room. Though he retained his air of authority, and his eyes remained shrewd, something in Mortimus’ posture had moderated in the last hour. His gaze held acknowledgement rather than its previous dismissal of her presence.

“The Council recognizes the deposition of the accused and her attendant. As Primary of this Cycle, I hold that a verdict concerning the half-blood’s fate must be reached by first light. With the dawning of a new day, comes an end to the old.” The Elder’s words hung, portentous, in the atmosphere. Valie’s heart quickened, but all feeling began to numb as she imagined the Council’s judgment. “However,” Mortimus continued. “By the half-blood’s testimony, we have been given reason to believe that a greater concern looms.” He looked from his fellow Council-members to the gallery. Valie, too confused to shift her gaze, held her breath. The entire room seemed to follow suit. “Isaac Quinn, progenitor of the half-blood, Valentine Quinn, take the stand.”

The crowd—which included many of Isaac’s own
pack—began to murmur. Valie opened her mouth to correct the use of Isaac’s name in connection with her own, but she held her tongue. Its use was to identify her origin. As much as she despised any connection she had with the man, in the eyes of the Council that was all she was, the progeny of Isaac Quinn, Fated, father, and fanatic.

A nearby, red-headed guard motioned for Valie and Jack to descend the steps of the three-sided podium. They did so, joining the apprehensive Shane and enduring the furious glare of Terrence as he pulled at his wrist restraints and the surrounding sentries’ hold, trying to get at Jack. Apparently the soldiered Lycanthropes did not trust the imposing accomplice to follow his fellow captives’ compliant example.

“What has him so riled up?” Jack laughed quietly to Shane, Valie at his side.

Shane looked appalled at the boy’s lightness of humor, mirroring Valie’s sentiments exactly.

“He thinks Eliza was injured, maybe beyond help, and that’s why she’s not with us. He thinks they left her to die,” she replied uncertainly, her eyes wary. The light-eyed she-wolf sounded graver than Valie had ever heard before; the girl felt a pang of guilt. “You’re worrying me, Jack. What do you have up your sleeve?”

Jack shrugged.
“Nothing at all. I’m just happy to have made it off of that podium.” The girls looked at him skeptically, but inquired no further.

Mortimus’ voice drenched in solemnity brought attention back to the proceedings.

“Isaac Eleazar Quinn. You are charged with criminal misconduct not befitting any member of the Lycanthrope nation, much less one of the Fated. Such misbehavior includes having relations with a human woman, experimenting with half-blooded genetics and ultimately fathering a half-blood child. All these acts are in direct defiance of Lycanthrope law and, by that same law, punishable by death. What have you to say for yourself as to these allegations?”

Isaac, having mounted the stand, his unbound hands hanging comfortably behind his back, nodded dismissively while Mortimus spoke. His attitude exuded patience bordering on condescension. Before Isaac even spoke, the Council sat up straighter with righteous indignation, unappreciative of the offender’s demeanor.

“I must say,” he began as if countering in a polite conversational debate. “That the sight of this Council is very near-reaching, indeed, if they believe I have acted in any way not befitting my rank as one of the Fated of this race. All of my acts have been in the best interest of the Lycanthrope people—including those present. What I have done has not been to undermine the power of the Council, but to bypass ancient canons inhibiting the progress we as Lycans could make.”