Wolf Who Rules

Wolf had watched his domi retreat with concern. He expected her to be gnawing at the prince's ankles instead of breaking down into tears. He felt guilty for chiding her as he had. The oni must have affected her more deeply than he originally thought. He felt badly too that he had been pleased that she hadn't bedded Little Horse while they were prisoners together; he wanted her to himself as long as possible. Perhaps, if she had slept with Little Horse, she would have fared better.

At least she had turned to her beholden when she lost control of her emotions. As much as Wolf wished he could have taken her back to the enclave and comfort her, all of his people and the humans of Pittsburgh needed him to stay and deal with Prince True Flame.

Is this how the humans lived all their life? Having things that they desperately wanted to do - comfort their love ones, teach them what they needed to know-but with no time to do it? No wonder they seemed to rail at life so.

True Flame sat watching him, expression carefully neutral.

"Being the pivot-" Wolf sighed and shook his head. "It has subjected her to extraordinarily difficult choices. She's only had hours to recover her center."

"This is recovered?"

"No, and it worries me."

True Flame glanced away, as if embarrassed by what he saw on Wolf's face. "Forgiveness, Wolf. We get along because we both have no need for empty politeness - but I remember now that politeness can render much needed gentleness to the soul. I will keep my sword sheathed from now on."

"Thank you."

"There will be nothing that I can do when the Stone Clan arrives except to remind them that she is under my sister's protection. She will have to interact with them, and they will take advantage of her."

Wolf nodded unhappily. "It will be like trying to keep wargs from the lambs at this point. I wish there was some way I could keep her safe until she has had time to heal from whatever the oni has done to her."

True Flame shook his head. "They'll arrive tomorrow with my troops. I can delay the aumani a day, on the pretense of giving them time to settle in."

"Thank you." In their current situation, a day was most he could have hoped for. "Who have they sent?"

"Earth Son, Jewel Tear, and Forest Moss."

Wolf breathed out; the threesome was tailored for hostile opposition to him. He knew nothing of Forest Moss and thus could not foresee what danger lay there. Judging by the others, there was a good possibility, however, that this was an ancient member of the Stone Clan, to offset Wolf's youth. Earth Son's father was one of the three children of King Ashfall used to ally the strongest of the clans to the crown via marriage. Obviously Earth Son's inclusion was to eliminate Wolf's advantage with True Flame - at least in theory.

The Stone Clan had always misunderstood the nature of the alliance, and considered it a failure. The alliance had only produced Earth Son. While he showed his father's gene type in his height, his eyes, and his temper, his gene expression did not include attunement to the spell stones. Earth Son could not use the fire esva. When Earth Son came to court, he treated his Fire Clan cousins as strangers, and was regarded as such by them.

In comparison, Wolf's parents produced ten children, half of which inherited their mother's genome and pledged to the Fire Clan. Wolf grew up seeing the royal family an extension of his own and when he went to court, he fell under his older brothers and sister's protection. Earth Son seemed to fail to understand the slight differences in their position. He only saw the younger elf being rewarded with favor he thought he was due, and held it against Wolf.

The Stone Clan could barely find a delegate more ill-suited to deal with Wolf - but they had managed. Wolf spent a decade at summer court, thinking he and Jewel Tear were soulmates, the other half of each other, and all the other lyrical nonsense you thought while blindly in love. A hundred years and meeting Tinker had taught him that he'd been wrong about the entire nature of love. He and Jewel Tear had drifted apart soon after he came of age and his ambitions took him to the wilderness of the Westernlands. That the Stone Clan included her in the delegation probably meant he misjudged their relationship.

So these three were coming to his holdings and dealing with his people?

True Flame looked out at the sod covered clearing and the dense forest of tower ironwoods beyond. "What the god's name were you thinking of, leaving everything behind for this wilderness?"

"I was thinking of leaving everything behind for this wilderness."

"I've never understood why you're wasting yourself here."

"What would I be doing at court? Nothing has changed there since we last interacted with humans. We had completely stagnated. We had the same base of technology as the humans, and yet we didn't develop the car, or the computer, the telephone or the camera."

"We have no need of them."