Epilogue
A knock at her office door had Ophelia’s head jerking upwards. She glanced at the clock on her desk. This was a little earlier than she’d expected, but it was well past due. “Come in,” she said and the door opened to reveal the power base of Sanctuary. Ophelia leaned back in her chair, hands steepling in front of her as the women filed in. Her daughter was at the head, her green eyes burning just as her father’s had, though now with considerably less good will. Ophelia watched the women take their place, some coming to stand at either side of her desk, some by the door with her daughter and some hovering in the space between. She gauged the numbers and was pleased to see considerably more stood with her.
“We’ve come to talk about the visions,” Kelly said. “You’ve sent Jules and her pack through the gate. To what end? You always assured us that the scattering was coming to an end, that the Volken would be overturned.”
“And they will be.”
“How? How can one girl and six men hope to achieve that?”
“Well,” Ophelia said with a smile, “they have taken an additional nine soldiers.”
“Don’t quibble with me, mother. This was not what was discussed. We all knew the newcomers were going to play a role, but not like this.”
“Like what? Just what did you have in mind, my daughter when I handed down ‘my’ visions? From memory, you told me they were ‘maddeningly devoid of detail.’ Well, you have the detail now. Jules and her pack are but one phase of the process, but without their success…” She blinked for a moment, hearing the echoes of a childish Brandon, reciting the terrible account of what he’d seen through hitching breaths. “If they do not succeed, then we will all need to scatter. Not that I think it will do any good, but it’ll be our only choice.”
At her words the curious calm that had made the office seem like an intimate space, where mother and daughter hashed out their difference was gone. Instead, Ophelia tuned into the ragged symphony of anxiety, frustration, fear that played behind the other women’s words as they discussed her statement rapidly. Ophelia took one breath, then another, staring at the slight shake of her fingers as they clawed at her desk. Kelly would see this as yet another maternal betrayal, something that stabbed at Ophelia’s chest, made her wish for the hundredth time that this was not the path she had to take.
“I thought it would be all of Sanctuary, the returned and the established families, fighting together to try and maintain what our foremothers had built. I thought we’d stand together, side by side, digging in, never surrendering in the face of a common enemy.”
Ophelia watched the fervent shine of her daughter’s eyes and felt a massive wrench of pride. She would be such a good leader, of Sanctuary, of her own pack, Brandon had never been sure of that, his visions myopically focussed on Julie. She allowed herself the luxury of just appreciating her daughter, of the woman she’d become during quite difficult circumstances, of feeling a stab of guilt at what she had done and still had to do.
“And that may still be required, but that will always be minor compared to what Julie and the others must do. She and her seer have the ear of the Great Wolves themselves. You have to see that that is more important.”
“Seer? That jumped up black wolf we kept caged? Never saw the reason for keeping him locked up. Should have been put down like a dog when we first caught him,” one woman spluttered.
“Great wolves?” said others. “Isn’t there only the one?”
But while the other women twittered away, those that counted were silent. Janice remained where she was, in the no man’s land between the two camps, silent as the grave. Nancy, Asher and Rhoda all came to stand directly beside the reigning alpha, staring the girl down. Only Ophelia felt the tremor in Asher, she’d never liked this plan, any of Brandon’s visions or the fact it was a male having them, but her traditionalist perspective meant she stood by her alpha no matter what.
“You knew, about all of this.”
There was a world of pain in Kelly’s words, saying so much more than the mere sounds. Ophelia’s knuckles grew whiter as she gripped the desk but she nodded.
She couldn’t have hurt Kelly more than if she’d gotten up and stabbed her in the chest with a silver letter opener. She’d laid in bed at night cursing the Great Wolf, the female one at least, for the burden she had placed on Ophelia’s shoulders many times over the years, but Brandon’s visions always remained the same. Her child, her only remaining child. Ophelia had been so proud of her baby girl when she’d brought her into the world, seen Kelly take her first faltering steps, one after another until she became the confident woman before her.
“Brandon, son of Janice is our seer. He has been since he was old enough to vocalise his visions. I was alpha because of what he said, I stepped down as well in response to his visions. It is his way forward that we follow, towards survival, towards unity. You’re right, he saw all of this, all of this and more and there is so much more to come.”
Ophelia watched the shifting of the women, eyes darting around the room, then Grace, her beloved daughter-in-law stepped forward.
“OK, let's assume what you say is true. I think now is the time to share the nature of these visions.”
Ophelia nodded, regal as a queen. “Let's go into the conference room. I’ll have some coffee sent up. We’re in for a long night.”