“I…I just can’t believe—”
“You don’t want to believe it,” Siri accuses with a roar. “Things are easier for you if the Wolf is a good man, aren’t they? That way, you’ve not placed your affections with someone unworthy. You don’t have to admit you were wrong!”
“It’s not just that,” I grumble, leaning back and trailing my hands in the clouds that cover our passage. “Cyrus has always been my enemy, and Cane has always come to my rescue. Cut and dried, Siri. I like it when things are clear. But now, my thoughts are muddy. Suddenly I’m supposed to force these men to trade places? Can’t you understand how difficult that is?”
“Truth is never easy,” Siri mutters under her breath. “Sit up, Cadogan, and we shall soon see what your precious Wolf has done.”
Smoke and ashes flutter in the wind as the House of Piranhas looms closer. As I wonder what’s burning on the breeze, four Ddraigs screech and plummet toward the ground. Within minutes, another three follow them, barely managing to stop their freefalls to the earth. “What’s happening? Were we attacked?” I demand, searching the ground for any signs of danger.
“Their Cadogans are dead, Iris. They can smell their lost ones on the air. The memories of the dead have returned to them, and they are grieving,” Siri whispers, tears welling like liquid glass over her silvery eyes.
Seven Cadogans all at once? It’s so much worse than I ever imagined. Terror burns in my lungs as though I am drowning and sucking water in an effort to breathe. “Suryc? Cyrus?”
“Still fine as far as I can tell,” Siri answers, her jaw clenching as she watches the mourning Ddraigs keep flying, heads bowed in sorrow. Four more cry out and flutter, panic filling their eyes.
“She’s hurt! I can feel her agony!” One of the Ddraigs cries, her tail whipping the clouds behind her. “I can’t give her my strength! She hasn’t bonded with me! Oh, someone save her! Someone please—” She shrieks, her wings freezing mid-flight as she feels the passing of her Cadogan.
“Get us down there! We have to stop this!” I wail, tears freezing on my cheeks as we reach the House of Piranhas. I can smell the funeral pyre burning. The smoke of it clings to my hair and clothes, my eyes bleed their sorrows with the pungent ashes. “Cane?” I mutter as I observe the bodies being tossed into the pit. Three new victims are quickly tied to wooden poles in front of the pit, their pleadings reaching my ears despite the distance between us.
“What are you waiting for? Fire!” He shouts over the sobbing prisoners’ cries. Archers stand with arrows pointed at the prisoners’ hearts, and on the command of their leader, they fire. Quickly they yank more shots from their quivers, preparing to strike again.
“What’s he thinking? Take me down to speak to him immediately!” I demand as understanding makes the food in my stomach turn sour. Cane, my savior so many times before, is purposefully killing those people…in my name. “Does he really think this is what I wanted from him? Surely there has to be another way to gain allegiance than at the point of an arrow.” My heart breaks under the weight of the guilt crashing down on me. I caused this! I sent him here! All this pain, all this loss! Their blood is on my hands, all because of my own foolishness!
“No surrender? No begging for a second try? You care so little for your own lives?” Cane howls at the bound men, women, and children. Children, I recognize, heaving until bile coats my tongue with its bitter regret. “Ready, archers!” Cane howls, his hand raised high.
“No!” I scream as I writhe on Siri’s back. How many more Cadogans are down there about to die? “Wolf! Stop this madness now!”
My voice carries far enough to stay his firing order. His eyes snap to the skies then, searching until he finds us spiraling down to his side. The gentle smiling face I’ve grown to care for is not there. Instead, a cold, calculating grimace observes us as we drop to the ground. He’s not the Cane that I knew at all, is he? That horrible Wolf carcass and all its ruthlessness has bored its way into his soul.
He’s always been the Wolf, Iris. The gentle man you try to remember in him is the real disguise he’s worn, Siri whimpers, and I can feel her empathy brushing over me. It shames me; I do not deserve her kindness. She should ridicule my foolishness and punish me for my blindness. Each one of the grieving Ddraigs beside me should demand that I be beaten, exiled, or killed outright for my stupid choices. Yet each set of Ddraig eyes that lands on me is full of pity, as if their suffering is not a direct result of my decisions.
“Mynah. I wondered when you would finally deign to join us,” Wolf calls, waving his hand to me, allowing me to approach his throne.
My body shivers with rage as I try not to scream. “What are you doing?” It’s a silly question, but I cannot form another for the shock I feel stirring in my bones. The ground is slick with bloody mud. My boots slide in gore as I trudge up to Wolf’s platform, my hands itching to grab my knife. I can almost hear the blade singing in its holster, begging me to slide it across this madman’s throat.
“You wanted unity for all of the houses. This is part of the price,” Wolf replies, holding a hand out to help me up to his side. He sighs as his eyes scan my face, drinking
