The elfin stood hastily to his feet, sand falling in a filthy haze from his cloak. He crossed the beach in lengthy strides to where she crouched like a hunted animal with no place to hide. With the others, he used his magic, but with her, he used his hands.
“What did you do with the Tether?” he shouted as his fingers wrapped around her throat. She opened her mouth to defend herself, but the elfin thrust his thumb into her hyoid bone, closing her airway so she couldn’t speak. “You are a snake just like your father. Do you have any idea what you’ve done?”
Just when she thought her lungs would shrivel from lack of air, a blur of stormy grey fur broke them apart. Ailsa fell into the sand, watching as Ivor attacked the elfin, biting his shoulder until a crimson gradient spilled across green velvet.
“Ivor, stop!” she shouted at the beast, terrified he would kill her wolf. The elfin cried out as her teeth ripped through his shoulder joint, twisting and shaking her giant head.
With a savage sound, the elfin threw her to the side with an unseen force. Ivor shrieked as she hit the ground. He eyed the wolf where he threw her some feet away, his fingers assessing the damage she created while his face twisted in pain.
“Well, this night just keeps getting more interesting,” he grunted as he sat up, still cradling his shoulder and the arm that hung loosely out of socket. “Animal teeth cannot penetrate elfin skin, nor a metal from your realm. But perhaps this isn’t just a wolf,” he shot her a murderous look, “like that wasn’t simply a ring.”
“What are you talking about?” Ailsa asked in a whisper.
Ivor crouched, already back on her feet with her fur raised, and teeth bared at the elfin in a discernible warning. The male pursed his lips and blew a breath that strengthened into a gust, brushing against the wolf and shimmering her fur with silver starlight. Ailsa watched as the wolf whimpered, slowly retreating as the glimmer became blinding, until everyone still conscious on the beach had to shield their eyes from the light.
When the glimmer dimmed, Ailsa looked upon her wolfhound once more and found a woman instead.
“Just as I thought.” The elfin struggled to his feet, his upper lip curled back. “A wolven.”
“Ivor?” Ailsa could hardly speak. There was too much going on at once—Erik still incapacitated, the chieftains swallowed by the earth, her hound was now a woman, and a fae wanted to kill her with his bare hands. She looked desperately at Rollo, Lattimer, and Gunnar, but they regarded her like she was something to be feared—or caged.
The naked woman was curled into a ball, rousing slightly as if she were just waking up from a long sleep. Ailsa ripped off Erik’s cloak as he remained unconscious, forgetting the elfin as she staggered towards her and covered her exposed body with its heavy weight.
“Ivor,” she repeated, shaking her dark skin until her eyes fluttered open. Confusion struck her brow, and she peered up at Ailsa with the same frosted gaze that stole Ailsa’s heart all those years ago in the wood.
It was her—Ivor. Somehow the beast had shifted into a person, and a beautiful one at that. Her hair was a gradient of black and grey like the wolf’s hide, her skin a rich umber like the clans in the west. She wiped a hand across her face, each finger lined with a black nail that was sharpened like claws—and shrieked when she realized she was in her true form.
“It’s okay, Ivor,” she said, smoothing a hand down her silken hair. Ivor relaxed, but the fear in her eyes remained.
“I’m… sorry.” Ivor managed to use her voice for the first time. Ailsa, too stunned to hear her speak, could only nod in solace.
A hissing sound prompted her to turn around from where she hovered over the wolven. The elfin male was attempting to put his arm back in place with little success and growing more annoyed by the second. His hair was disheveled, sand coated the right side of his cheek and dusted the elegant coat she admired. For the first time since he arrived on her shores, he appeared uncertain.
But this offered Ailsa no comfort, for she knew a frightened, injured animal was more dangerous when it was desperate. She stood and approached him, holding the ring with both quivering hands.
“You said if I gave this to you, you would leave. So, take it and be done with us!” she said. The elfin ran a hand through his wavy hair, combing it back out of his face. His features appeared even more striking, more lethal.
“That was before you rendered the ring useless,” he said in a voice wrenched with bitterness.
“What are you talking about?”
“You, Ailsa, are the Tether.” He stepped towards her, tentative. Every stride was calculated and methodical, one she mirrored to maintain the distance.
“That’s impossible. I have no idea what that means—”
His chest rose and fell, steeping his anger. “It means the darkness that was bound to that artifact, the magic that has the power to shape the past and the future, raise the dead to life again, to start wars between gods, the power that has been fought over for centuries, has leashed itself to you.”
Ailsa felt her heart drop somewhere in her toes. She shook her head so vigorously the braids against her scalp came loose. “No, that’s notpossible.I’m not even a shieldmage! Why would it bind itself to me?”
The fae stopped in his tracks, his eyes running over her like he was trying to figure out the same thing. “I do not know, but the poweracceptedyou as it’s home, and it cannot be undone. Not by me, anyway.” He reached out and snatched her with his good arm. His hand cold through the fabric of her sleeve. “So, I guess I’ll have to take you instead.”
Ailsa laughed, but it was an empty sound. “I’m not going anywhere with you.”
“We made a deal—bring me the Tether and I would leave your village alone. Youarethe Tether now. I have over a hundred men on that ship in your harbor. Imagine what a hundred of me can do to this quiet littleskidehole you call home. I can either drag you with me through the flames or you can walk away willingly and keep your people safe. Make your choice.”
Ailsa glanced at Erik, who was starting to groan awake, then the chieftains who had nearly dug themselves out of their ensnarement. She then looked back at her village, knowing the lives of hundreds were locked behind closed doors, waiting for her sentencing. They were the future of the Riverlands, and the future was hers to write or erase.
“Fine,” she whispered.