Denisius stared with pity and horror into the advocates' well. He had not been witness to any of Carala's transformations since the first one in the Curate's Tower, nor had he asked Ammas for details of the ones he had seen, but he did not think this look of ecstasy could have been on her face for any of them. Whatever hold Andreth had over her was a strong one, and even the cursewright's stilling charm might not have been enough to overcome it.

As he watched, even that recognizable expression of pleasure was lost, swallowed up in the onyx fur that sprouted from her face; by the muzzle that her mouth became, lips skinning back in a hungry snarl. Her clothes stretched and warped over her shifting body, and as they began to tear Andreth knelt by her side and peeled them away entirely. He did it gently, as a midwife would wipe a mother's blood from a newborn babe.

"Rise up, dear Princess," Andreth crooned, tilting her snout up to his face with a single finger.

Carala-the-wolf gazed up at his request, her sides heaving. As Denisius and the others watched on in mingled fear and shock (Silenio struggled so violently that two more wolves still clad in human shape had to restrain him, paying no heed to his screaming threats), so did the Swiftfoot gaze on Carala in rapture. The various peculiar things Syerre had said when Swiftfoot had attacked them in Vilais struck Denisius as the ravings of a madwoman, but here in the austere splendor of the Grand Curia, scores of the wolves staring so fixedly at Carala, the atmosphere was identical to services he had attended in Talinara's Cathedrl of the Graces. Whether the divine presence of the white moon was a real thing or not, there was no doubt their belief was sincere.

"Milord," Vos muttered to him, "we should not let Silenio's men stay so unprotected. A single force of seven can defend itself far better than a broken cluster of three and four."

"They'll never let us move," Denisius hissed, still staring at the she-wolf as she rose to her full height, amber eyes blazing hotly. "The second we put a toe out of line -- "

" -- then you die," Andreth laughed. Whether it was due to the Curia's acoustics or his own extraordinary hearing, Andreth was aware of every whisper uttered in his presence. "But that's a given, Lord Marhollow. Isn't it, Carala?"

The she-wolf snarled softly, sinking to all fours and pawing at the ground.

"Yes," Andreth murmured. "I think it best that it ends this way. Your pet magician's leash is gone, my Princess. There is no need to restrain yourself. No need to deny yourself. Every wolf of the white moon has tasted flesh. It is a sin you should go so long without. And an even greater sin was trying to force this creature on you as a husband. Not the gravest of your father's sins, was it? But this one can be cleansed."

Carala-the-wolf turned her amber gaze on Denisius. Vos sidled closer to his master, sword at the ready, knowing full well how pointless such a gesture was in the face of a force this size. He might successfully strike Carala down before she could claim Denisius's life, but even Vos didn't think that qualified as a victory.

"Now, Carala," Andreth murmured, running one thick hand between her twitching ears, caressing her as fondly as any hunting dog. "Show him his place."

"Cara," Denisius whispered. "Don't."

Carala snarled . . . reared back . . . and leapt.

Andreth shrieked in surprise when her fangs sank into the side of his head, the sound astonishingly womanish. He tumbled under her weight like a sack of flour, Carala's paws raking furiously at his clothing, tearing it away to score his flesh. Silenio's lips curled into a vicious smile, broad enough to expose the gaps Barthim had left in his teeth. Denisius stared in numb shock, his expression mirrored on Vos's face. Barthim's grin had never been bigger.

"What are you doing?" Andreth howled, batting at her form, rolling to the side, attempting to throw her off, all to no avail. She clung to him, Denisius thought amazed, like a terrier at a rat.

Blood flew across the advocates' well in a bright spray, sheeting Andreth's face. Carala released her fangs from him long enough for their eyes to meet again -- then darted savagely against him. Only a second's reaction saved Andreth's throat from her jaws, her fangs instead closing on his ear. As Denisius watched, unsure whether to be heartened or appalled, she tore that ear from his head in a thick gout of blood, and spat it onto his chest.

Still snarling, Carala reared back, rising to her full height once more, as Andreth cowered on the floor before her, one hand pressed to his head and uselessly trying to stanch the flow of blood.

"Not yours," she growled, and leapt away, driving through the horrified Swiftfoot wolves, knocking them aside until she disappeared through the wicket gate. None of them dared touch her. None of them seemed to know what to do at all.

Though no less surprised by this turn than the Swiftfoot themselves, Vos was determined not to waste their lapse in attention as they stared uselessly at either Carala's escape or the sight of their leader writhing in agony on the ground. Lightly he touched Denisius's elbow, and Lord Marhollow nodded. The two of them advanced closer and closer to Prince Silenio's men, Vos meeting Sergeant Morell's gaze. Moving with an eerie silence, Barthim clambered over the High Bench to join them.

By the time Andreth had recovered enough to take notice of what they were doing, the rage and pain had begun drawing the wolf from him, thick tufts of gray fur sprouting from his cheeks and the backs of his hands. The exposed and raggedly torn muscles of the side of his head and severed ear pulsed and twitched in a thoroughly unpleasant fashion.

"This is the cursewright's work," he panted. "He's done something to her, doused the wolf's blood -- " His eyes lit on the advancing trio, lips skinning back in a furious snarl as he saw they had almost made contact with Silenio's beleaguered men. "Fine. Give him a pile of corpses to weep over." One hand still clutched to side of his head -- that hand slowly and smoothly becoming a paw -- he staggered to his feet, roaring, "Feast on them! Tear them apart!"

The Swiftfoot fell on them, and they met the wolves with slashing blades and desperate blows. The enraged wolfish howls mingled with Barthim's laughter, and soon both human and wolf blood began to spatter across the advocates' well.

*

Ammas and Senrich sat in silence for a long while, Ammas having nearly forgotten what he was doing in the Grand Curia, and Senrich having forgotten two decades of torment. The shock of his father's survival was greater than the shock of knowing who had been the subject of this loathsome ritual, but it was a near thing. A thousand questions, a thousand things he wished to tell his father, were trapped behind his lips, for nothing seemed profound enough to be worth breaking this silence. And he knew their parting would come too soon. He could not leave his friends alone in the Curia, not in this city full of wolves.

Senrich knew it too. But Senrich also knew something Ammas had so far refused to admit to himself. "There were stiff penalties for stealing cursewright lore. Even stiffer ones for using it the way I allowed it to be used."

Ammas looked away.

Senrich watched him with bright eyes that had recovered a measure of sanity. "I can't do it myself, Am. I suppose I could try to choke myself on the next bowl of soup they bring me -- "

"Papa, don't," Ammas said hoarsely.

"If you came here seeking a ritual wolf, you came looking for its creator, too."

"Yes," Ammas said in a small voice.

"And not just to interrogate him, either."

Ammas nodded, still not looking at Senrich. "Othma Sulivar charged me just as you say."

"Othma is still alive? Good." Senrich chuckled. "I'm sure she had some choice words for you if you swore yourself to a Deyn Princess."

Ammas nodded again, not smiling.

Senrich pressed on, as relentless as if administering the First Tribunal. "And what did she charge you to do, Ammas?"

"No."

"Was her sentence just, Ammas?"

"Papa -- "

"Does anyone deserve to have such a ritual inflicted on them, whatever the Emperor wants?"

"Papa, I can't -- "

"Unwillingly, I'd add. The screams. Thray told the Emperor to stop it, that this could not continue, but he just laughed. 'So you will remain of use to me and to the Throne,' is what he said."

"I don't care!" Ammas cried, turning on his father, his gray eyes glittering hotly. "Maybe someday I'll pronounce a sentence on the Emperor, or Thray, but -- but you -- "

"I want it, Ammas. I deserve it, perhaps. But whether I deserve it or not I want it." His voice turned cracked and ancient. "Do you think I want to live this way? Do you think I wouldn't have found a way to end it if I wasn't hoping to see you one more time? I want to see your mother again. And Gratham, and Hyrsith, and Jan. Look at me, Ammas. Look at what he did to me. Are you going to leave me in his service like this? You can't get me out of here. Not many know I'm still alive, I don't think, but more than enough to stop you, cursewright or not."

Ammas forced himself to look at the scarred stumps of his father's arms; at the sunken place in the sheets where his legs should have been. Senrich regarded him with the icy demeanor he had adopted when pronouncing sentence from the High Bench until Ammas, after what felt like an eternity, nodded, one hand going to his forehead, clasping tightly over his eyes.

"Good," Senrich said more gently.

Ammas rose up and braced one knee on the edge of the bed, curling his hand behind Senrich's neck, gingerly lifting up the diminished body until his chest was arched out.

"It will be quick," he whispered to his father.

"I trust you, Ammas."

"Do you -- do you want to pray first?"

Senrich laughed. "The gods stopped listening to our kind long ago. I pray to your mother when I pray at all, and I already know she is waiting."

Ammas pressed his forehead to his father's and told him one last time he loved him. Senrich repeated the words, I love you, Ammas, now do it, and Ammas drew his skymetal blade and thrust it into his father's heart, and Senrich gasped once, blood trickling from his mouth, and Ammas held tightly onto the hilt of his dagger until he felt his father's heartbeat flutter and cease, and gently he laid Senrich back down, still and lifeless and blood seeping from the wound on his chest, and Ammas drew the dagger from his father's body and dropped it before he could clean it, and fell to the floor, curled on his side, weeping uncontrollably, and he remained that way until he heard the howl of wolves, and remembered where he was needed, that the world did not have time for his grief, that he still had a duty to fulfill and he could not shirk it if his father's love was to mean anything at all.

*