Wolf Song (Wolf Singer Prophecies Book 1)

sure that whoever passed the ward was Human.
At the market, only the person who manned the fruit stand asked about my dad, and even then, it was for the sake of small talk and nothing more. At least not yet.
Dad had only been gone a week. But he'd be expected before too long. He'd always had timely arrivals, right before Reapers would roll in for harvest or before a pack of monsters sniffed around. It was like he had a sense of those things, like swelling joints before a thunderstorm.
Dad always had the wards strengthened in time to preach away any Hellfire. What would happen to the town if he didn’t come back, though?
I buried that stray thought, not willing to acknowledge it or allow it to become words.
I was ready to leave, proud to have proved to myself that I wasn’t afraid to leave my home, when there was a commotion at the town gates. The bells rang out signaling the gates be opened.
Two teams of men ran to each door, pulling them apart just as men—field hands by the look of them—ran in sweaty and out of breath. “Close the gates!” one of them yelled. “Quick!”
There was nothing quick about those gates, but the gate team shifted direction easily enough, pushing the gates together with a satisfying thud as the hefty deadbolt latched into place.
The field hands hadn’t stopped and now I could see that they hauled a man on top of a makeshift stretcher. No wonder they were desperate for help. The whites in their eyes were large and luminous, and their skin gleamed from their exertions, sweat soaking every bit of their clothes.
One of the younger men—Kirby, the mayor’s son, recognizable with his shock of curly hair haloing his head—rushed down from a building and immediately saw me in the crowd. He called to me. "Soli? Soli!"
His father, Mayor Gabriel St. Clair, also rushed out from wherever he had been. Most likely from his perch on the second floor of the trading post. Whatever they saw from their vantage point scared them.
The mayor instilled order among the fray. "What happened? You! And you!” He pointed among the gaping crowd of onlookers. “Get over there and help them bring the preacher to the church."
At Gabriel’s words—the preacher—I froze. It was like there was a bubble of still air and all sound was cut off. All I could do was look on as the newly appointed pair of men joined the group hoofing it to the church, who adjusted to the added help of hauling the weight between them.
The man on the makeshift stretcher, the man who looked like he had flown past death's door and kept on flying, was the town’s preacher and word mage.
My dad.
Everyone involved was so wrapped up in their own panic that they didn’t notice me standing there, questions screaming from my eyes.
The rest of the townsfolk, though, they saw. They knew what I was silently screaming, but they had just as much information as I did, which was none, and they were equally as helpless.
I followed after the men once my feet decided to obey my head.
When I slipped inside the church and into the sanctuary, I saw that my dad had been laid out on the stage where the preacher’s podium traditionally stood overlooking the altar of sacrifice. I tried not to look too deeply at the symbolism that imagery sparked, and thought instead of what was practical.
The stage made for an easy makeshift examination table big enough to support my dad. He was a big man, not fat, mind you, just big. Tall and weighty with substance that made you think that he could hitch up a plow and drag it across a field himself.
I was surprised that four men were able to carry him so far from wherever he had been. The more hands that had helped carry from the town gates to the church at least helped the exhausted men who were now in a heap, sweating pools from their skin and gasping for air.
I tried to care about them, flopping there like fish out of water gasping for breath, but I couldn't. My concern lay with my dad and him alone.
Even now, my brain tried to reconcile the burly man he was with the one lying prone on an elevated dais. He didn't do that, didn’t lie down in the middle of the day when there was still so much work to be done.
I tiptoed to him as if he were merely napping and needed quiet.
His eyes were open, though. Dead open. And I was afraid to go closer and examine the fear etched onto his face.
Mayor St. Clair strode through the sanctuary doors and down the main aisle toward the stage. He was lean, strong, and baled hay quicker than most farmhands. "Eli, talk." He was also terse, exactly opposite of how my dad described politicians from Before, which was likely why he was voted on as the leader of the town.
Dad respected Gabriel for his demeanor and straight talking attitude, regardless of the fact that he was pale-skinned and reminded him of the Reapers.
Eli stood to address Gabriel. "Mayor, it was lunacy! One minute we was out in the fields making sure the cattle was safe from them wolves, you know."
Wolves? I tuned in to what they were saying. What wolves were they talking about?
The mayor just waved his hand. "They already received their portion of tithes. The wolves don’t concern me."
Tithes? I kept my gaze focused on my dad, but all this discussion of wolves and tithes…as if the wolves were talking. Could they possibly mean shifters? No, either option was impossible. Dad said that they were gone, animal and shifter alike, hunted down to extinction before the Hellfire that created the After…
But if these men were talking about tithes and agreements with wolves, then either my dad was ignorant, exaggerating for effect, lying, or all of the above. None of those