Chapter 239: Up! Everybody up!

Content Warning: Graphic violence, blood and gore, death, and child endangerment.

“What did you do?”

Azren’s voice was so quiet that Veyra wished he had shouted.

Shouting would have been easier.

Anger she understood.

This?

This was the Crown Prince who had stopped smiling.

Tharek’s enormous hand was still locked around Veyra’s shoulder. The Ground-Hoof male did not squeeze, but he did not need to. His weight behind her made escape impossible without openly attacking him.

Veyra’s six wings drew closer to her back.

“I did nothing.”

Azren took one step forward.

Veyra took one back.

His pale-violet eyes dropped briefly to the blood on the ground, to the shifted anchor stone, then to Brea.

Veyra saw it.

Saw where his attention was going.

Fear shot through her.

“It was her.”

Brea’s head snapped up.

“What?”

Veyra pointed through the boundary.

“She told me the land recognizes those born here. She told me blood mattered. She told me…”

“No!”

Brea tried to stand.

Her injured ankle folded beneath her.

She crashed back down with a broken cry.

Blood still poured from her torn scalp, running into one eye. Her side was already swelling where the Warder had nearly crushed her ribs. One hyena ear was slick with blood.

But terror gave her strength.

“No, no, no, no!”

She crawled backward on her palms.

“I did not tell you that!”

Azren looked at her.

Brea immediately began shaking.

She knew exactly what he had almost done to her before.

And she knew how he looked at Swanly.

If he believed Brea had helped someone endanger Swanly and her children?

She was dead.

“I swear!”

Her voice cracked.

“I told her the land knew the people who lived here! I said I didn’t know how it worked!”

Veyra snapped, “You said newborns were recognized.”

“I said they belonged here!”

“That is what I…”

“You misunderstood!”

Brea’s hyena laugh broke from her throat, but there was nothing amused in it. It came out sharp and hysterical.

“I never told you anybody could open it! I never told you blood could invite someone in! I never said anything!”

Azren’s wings spread.

Veyra flinched.

Vida’s mate suddenly staggered forward.

“I moved the stone.”

Everyone turned.

His face was gray.

Blood soaked the hide around his calf from where one of the hands had grabbed him earlier, but he barely seemed to notice.

“I did it.”

The stone tool slipped from his fingers.

Clack.

“I loosened it.”

His eyes went to Veyra.

“She said if the anchor weakened, maybe one healer could get through.”

Veyra’s face changed.

“I said it might…”

“You said my baby might die while we waited!”

“You asked me for another way.”

“I ASKED YOU TO HELP HIM!”

His voice tore apart.

Inside Ironwood, another scream ripped through the night.

Azren’s eyes moved toward the settlement.

Veyra took advantage of that single heartbeat.

“I did not open the boundary.”

A voice came from behind the blood-marked stones.

“No.”

Everyone stilled.

Something massive moved through the darkness inside Ironwood.

White scales.

Black blood.

A body thick enough to crush a man without effort.

Soren’s giant snake form slid into view.

Several Ironwood warriors backed away automatically as his enormous head rose above them.

His silver eyes settled on Veyra.

Cold.

Unblinking.

Then scales shifted.

His massive form contracted.

White hair spilled down his back as he returned to his humanoid shape, black Warder fluid streaked along one shoulder and across his ribs.

He walked directly to the disturbed anchor.

Touched it.

Closed his eyes.

Nothing moved for several seconds.

Then:

“The boundary never opened.”

Silence.

Veyra stared.

“But…”

Soren opened his eyes.

“It never yielded.”

“I saw it move.”

“The stone moved.”

Veyra went still.

Soren stood.

His pale tail slid behind him, tense and slow.

“I made the Blood Pact with this land.”

His hand rested briefly against the blood-marked stone.

“I am its gatekeeper.”

He looked at Vida’s mate.

“Not him.”

Then Brea.

“Not her.”

His gaze passed over the other Ironwood residents gathering nearby.

“Not anyone merely because the land knows their scent.”

Finally, he looked at Veyra.

“And certainly not you.”

Veyra’s wings trembled.

“But the newborn…”

“Belongs here.”

“The boundary responded.”

“Recognition.”

Soren’s expression did not change.

“Not authority.”

Something in Veyra’s face collapsed.

Azren understood at the same moment.

His eyes dropped to the displaced stone.

Then to Veyra.

“You didn’t trick the boundary.”

She said nothing.

Azren’s voice turned almost conversational.

“You moved a rock.”

Veyra looked like he had slapped her.

Then Swanly’s scream carried from somewhere deeper inside Ironwood.

“MORE ASH!”

Every face changed.

Soren turned immediately.

The political argument died.

People were still dying.

He looked once at Azren.

“Keep her outside.”

Azren’s mouth became thin.

“She is not going anywhere.”

Veyra swallowed.

Soren transformed before he had taken three steps.

His enormous white body surged down the path toward the screaming.

Azren remained outside the seal.

Watching him disappear.

Then he looked back at Veyra.

For the first time since she had known him, she wished he would make a stupid joke.

He did not.

Inside Ironwood, the old foundation answered Veyra’s mistake with blood.

The disturbed anchor stones had never opened the territorial boundary.

They had done something much more physical.

Much older.

They had loosened part of what had been buried beneath it.

And the things sleeping there had awakened angry.

The floor of a family shelter split from one end to the other.

A male had enough time to shove his youngest cub toward his mate.

Then two pale hands caught his legs.

“No!”

His mate grabbed both his arms.

The hands pulled.

The male screamed.

“DON’T LET GO!”

“I WON’T!”

His fingers locked around hers.

One Warder jerked left.

The other jerked right.

His hips twisted.

There was a wet crack.

Then something tore.

The scream that came out of him no longer sounded like speech.

Blood flooded the cracked earth.

His mate lost her grip.

One of his legs disappeared below the floor.

She stared at what remained.

Then screamed until her voice broke.

Three shelters away, a female tried snatching her cub from beside a wall.

A Warder burst through the dirt and wrapped its fingers around her wrist instead.

She screamed.

The cub screamed.

“MAMA!”

The Warder pulled.

Mora hit the female from behind.

The bear beastwoman wrapped both thick arms around her waist.

“Raku!”

“I SEE IT!”

Raku charged.

His crocodile tail struck one support post hard enough to splinter it.

He caught the pale arm with both clawed hands.

The Warder twisted.

The female’s wrist bent.

She shrieked.

“PULL ME!”

Mora planted both feet.

“You’re going to lose the hand!”

“I DON’T CARE!”

Raku’s jaw tightened.

“Neither do I.”

His reptilian pupils narrowed.

Then he twisted.

The old crocodile instinct took over.

His whole body turned.

The Warder’s arm tore apart at the elbow.

Black fluid sprayed over all three of them.

The female fell backward against Mora, sobbing.

Her wrist dangled uselessly.

Raku spat black liquid from his lips.

“Get her to Nahla.”

Mora hooked the injured female beneath one arm.

Then noticed Raku looking at her.

“What?”

“You’re bleeding.”

“So are you.”

“It isn’t mine.”

“Neither is mine.”

Raku’s tail flicked.

They stared at each other for half a second.

Then another scream sounded.

Mora shoved the wounded woman toward a helper.

“Later.”

Raku nodded.

“Later.”

They ran opposite directions.

Tilla had Tavi strapped so tightly against her back that the mink child’s face was buried against her neck.

Tavi had stopped screaming.

That frightened Tilla more.

“Baby?”

Tiny arms tightened around her.

“Mama…”

“I’m here.”

Tilla carried another cub under each arm.

A rabbit child clung to the back of her hide wrap.

Her mink tail had puffed nearly twice its normal size.

“Up! Everybody up!”