by Kate Keir
“Why do you have to kill me? Okay, I’m still new to this. But from what I’ve been told, you’re basically king down here. Is that not enough for you? Do you have to have more?”
“Oh, Flora. You’ve so much to learn, and sadly, I think you will probably perish before you get the chance to learn it. My souls—the ones you reject—can only stay with me for nine years. After that they cease to exist, forever.
“Because you and all of the other Soul Keeper’s who’ve come before you are so good at what you do, it’s only a matter of time before you weed out all of the evil souls in the world and send them to the Endwood.”
Sluag walked to a tall tree stump and melodramatically threw himself down into a sitting position. “After nine years pass by, what do you think will happen then, Flora Bast?”
“The last rogue soul will die.”
He frowned at me. “It won’t die, it’s already dead. But you’re close enough. It will end, as will the Endwood and without the Endwood, there is nowhere for me to be, so I will also cease to exist.”
I wasn’t sure if I could argue with his logic, but I sure as hell wasn’t going to accept it either. “So, you’re basically going to ruin the whole world so you don’t stop existing? How long have you been around for, Sluag?”
He seemed surprised at my conversational use of his name. But he answered me nonetheless. “I have existed since humanity began. Once the blight of humans was unleashed on the Earth, there had to be someone willing to take on the less desirable elements of your pathetic race. I find it strange that you accuse me of wanting to ruin a world that your ancestors and peers have already done a superb job of tearing apart by themselves.”
“But it’s our world, not yours. Yes, we get things wrong, and some of us are really bad people; that’s why they end up here in hell with you. But most of them are good people, and they don’t deserve what you want to unleash on them.”
He threw back his head and laughed at my impassioned speech. “If you think you’re going to persuade me to change my mind, little Soul Keeper, then you’re going to be disappointed. As much as I’ve enjoyed our little chat, I didn’t bring you here to receive a lecture. I brought you here to get the measure of you. I wanted to know how easy it would be to kill you.”
“Trust me, it won’t be easy. All I have to do is avoid the Endwood, and I’ll be fine. If you kill me outside the Endwood, it doesn’t open the floodgates for your hell. Nothing will ever make me go there, and eventually you and your gang of freaks” —I swept my arms in a circular gesture at the watching Draugur— “will all be gone. Forever.” I sounded a lot braver than I felt.
He paused, his demeanour changing completely in one brief instant. He seemed to become taller and even more menacing, if that was at all possible. With narrowed eyes, he leaned down toward me and spoke.
“You might not think it now, Flora. But there are ways to persuade you. Your Dion might exist to protect you, but they can also be used against you, little dreamer. One day, in the not too distant future, you and I will stand face to face again and I will kill you.”
Chapter Nine
I lay in bed, watching the sun rise through the arched windows. It was five thirty, and I hadn’t been back to sleep since I woke from my dream of the Endwood, four hours ago. Instead, I had tossed and turned whilst wide awake, imagining my own death and wondering what Sluag would do to my Dion. He had threatened to use them against me, and I needed to warn them.
It was pointless trying to sleep now. I was meeting Lyall at seven, so I climbed out of bed and headed into my private bathroom for a shower. The hot water made me feel slightly more human, but I groaned when I looked into the mirror and took in the black rings under my eyes.
I quickly applied some highlighter, which brightened up my eyes, and after studying my skin, I added a quick brush of bronzing powder to each cheek. Being auburn-haired meant I had naturally pale skin, but this morning, I almost looked as sickly as one of the Draugur, so I figured my complexion could do with a little help.
I tied my hair back into a high pony-tail and plundered the wardrobe for a pair of black jeans, a black vest and my usual pair of tan boots. I checked myself out in the mirror and was satisfied with my appearance. I wasn’t sure I’d win Britain’s Next Top Model, but I didn’t look as shocking as I had when I got into the shower.
I jogged down the stairs at five to seven. My intention was to meet Lyall and tell him I had to talk to Pen before we started training. I didn’t want to tell anyone else about the dream yet, mainly because I didn’t fully understand it. I suspected Pen was exactly whom I needed to speak to for my answers.
Lyall was already waiting at the gate when I arrived. He looked as delicious as always when he flashed me a huge smile, but I was too distracted by thoughts of my dream to do more than offer him a weak smile in return.
“Ouch. Way to hurt a guy’s feelings, love,” he joked.
“Sorry, Lyall. I really need to talk to Pen before we train today. Do you know if she’s awake yet?”
“She’s definitely awake. She left at daybreak with Finlay to go to Edinburgh. There’s a library there that houses all of the literature about the Soul Keeper and the Dion. She’s been trying to find the next prophecy.”
My disappointment was temporarily replaced with curiosity. “Prophecy? What do you mean?”
Lyall shifted from foot to foot impatiently. It was obvious he wanted to start training me to shape-shift. But he answered my question. “The first ever Dion wrote a ton of prophecies. Many of them tell us who the next Soul Keeper will be; that’s how Pen found out about you. Others warn us of danger, like if Sluag is planning anything.”
“Oh. So why did she decide to go and check on the prophecies now? Does she know something’s going to happen?” I was starting to panic over my dream again.
“I have to be honest, Flora. I don’t tend to check up on Pen’s motives for doing things. She probably wants to see if there’s anything relating to you, now that you know what you are.” He gave me a look that said. Are we ready to go now?
I shrugged off my worry. I couldn’t talk to Pen until she got back. Yes, I could call her, but I wasn’t sure my dream would translate properly over the phone. It would be crazy to waste the opportunity to learn a new skill today. I started walking along the path next to Lyall. “Okay, okay. I’m ready. Let’s do this.”
Lyall led me through the gardens until we reached the edge of Loch Ness. The day was not quite as hot as yesterday, but it was still comfortably warm enough to be outdoors in my sleeveless vest.
Lyall stopped walking once he reached the flat ground at the bottom of the slope which led to the waterside. “Here’s as good a place as any.” He watched me as I walked the rest of the way down the slope and I could feel the heat from his eyes on me.
I stood before him and stretched both arms out and away from my sides. “All right, I’m ready. What do I do?”
“It’s not that simple, Flora. You can’t just shift in the same way you jump to the Everwood. You’re supposed to be able to move between the two worlds, but the prophecies suggest that the Soul Keeper wasn’t given the ability to take another form until quite recently. You’re going to be a novice at this, at least to start off with anyway.”
I frowned. I hadn’t realised I’d gotten so used to being quite good at this stuff over the last few days. I also missed Finlay’s way of making me feel awesome about the things I did. Lyall was demanding rather than encouraging.
“So, where do we begin?” I asked, nervously.
“Well, usually I’d start with understanding the animal you’re going to become. It’s easier to take on a form if you know what that form is. But your name isn’t giving any clues away.”
The Dions’ names made even more sense to me now. “So, you all knew what you would become. Artair is an eagle, Finlay is a cat, and you’re a wolf. But, what about Mara and Freya?”
“Freya’s role of escorting souls means she will always be
a raven, no matter her name; so we knew what she would become. Mara is more complex. She is Mother Earth. She is every animal, and all of nature, which means she can become any of the creatures whose souls she cares for.”
“Wow, Mara’s pretty lucky, huh?” I couldn’t imagine how amazing it must be to be able to change into any animal in the world.
“She is. Unfortunately, you’re not. I guess you could say you’re still in the trial stages for a Soul Keeper to work out her spirit animal.” Lyall pointed at the floor as he spoke, indicating I should sit, which I did.
“So how do we find out which animal I’ll become?” I looked up at him, sheltering my eyes from the sun with one hand.
“I think we’ll have to start by teaching you the basics, the parts of shape-shifting that apply to every form, no matter what. The only other info I have to go by is that the last Soul Keeper was able to become a tiger, and the one before him was a bird of prey. So, we can rule those out for you, I think.”
“If the last Soul Keeper was a tiger, and it didn’t work out, I’m not sure what better options are left for me,” I said worriedly.
“Let’s not get too hung up on the end result, okay?” Lyall sat down next to me, sending a jolt of electricity through me when his leg brushed lightly against mine.
“We’re going to keep it really simple to start with. Let’s go over all of the basic stuff. I’ll tell you what to expect and the place I go to in my mind when I want to shift. Then I’ll show you what happens when I do shift. As I become a wolf, I want you to watch every tiny thing that happens. I want you to be able to expect the stuff that your body will go through when you eventually change. Okay?”
I nodded. “Will it hurt me, Lyall?”
“A little bit probably, to start with at least. It’s nothing you won’t be able to handle, though, love.” The smile he gave me simultaneously melted my insides and reassured me I would be okay.
Lyall was nothing if not thorough in his instructions. The sun moved across the sky, reached its zenith, and was well on its downward slide into late afternoon before he finished telling me everything I needed to know about what would happen to my body when I shifted, how it would feel, and the place I needed to take my mind to be able to get there.
The only part that remained unclear was when he told me he envisioned the black wolf he would become inside his mind, just before he changed. I was unable to imagine my animal until I actually managed to become it for the first time. It worried me that this could end up a vicious circle of failure, and I told Lyall so.
“You’re not going to fail. You won’t shift today, Flora. You might not shift in the next month, even if you try every single day. But you will shift at some point.”
He jumped to his feet and grinned down at me. “In the meantime, do you want to see how it’s done?”
“Hell, yeah,” I nodded.
“I’m going to try and slow the whole process down so that you can see it in detail. But once I get to a certain point, I won’t be able to hold it back, and it’ll be over in the blink of an eye. Pay attention, Flora.”
I nodded. I had started to feel a little nervous. Firstly, because I was going to watch Lyall change into an animal in anticipation of being able to do it myself one day, and secondly, because I was going to end up alone out here with a wolf.
Lyall had reassured me we retained all of our own personality when we shifted. We didn’t mentally turn into wild animals and could still think and rationalise like humans. But I’d never even seen a real wolf, so I was more than a little unsettled.
Lyall took a few paces away from me, pulling his black T-shirt over his head as he walked and throwing it to the ground. Then he bent down and pulled off his boots, placing them on the grass one by one. Next, he turned his back to me and pulled off his cargo pants.
I lowered my gaze to the floor, embarrassed. Then I remembered I needed to pay attention, so I lifted my eyes and focused them on a point on his back, directly between his pale shoulder blades.
“Pay attention, love,” he called back over his shoulder.
Before I had a chance to reply, I was startled to see the skin of Lyall’s back start to ripple and darken in colour. My eyes didn’t dare wander any lower, but suddenly I was staring at the back of his head instead of his shoulders. He was losing his height.
He turned toward me, and a soft growl pulled my attention to his face, but already it wasn’t Lyall’s face anymore. Instead of a human nose, he had an elongated and fur-covered snout. In the next second he dropped to all fours and somehow became fully and completely a wolf–tail included.
I breathed in deeply as I took in the majestic animal before me. The only thing that hadn’t changed about Lyall was his eyes; they burned with the exact same amber fire now as they did when he was a man.
“I missed so much of that. One minute you were you and then…” I trailed off as he started to pad on giant black paws slowly toward where I sat.
Don’t be afraid, Flora. I won’t hurt you.
“Lyall, did you just talk to me inside my head?”
The wet nose was only inches from my face now. The wolf drew back its lips in what looked like a grin.
What big eyes you have when you’re scared, love.
“I’m not bloody Red Riding Hood, Lyall. Stop it.” I was laughing now, despite the ferocity of the eyes that burned into my own.
He pushed forward suddenly, closing the small distance between us and running his pink tongue up from my chin to my hair line. It smelled of dog.
“Eww, you’re disgusting.” I pushed my hands into the thick black fur and pushed him away, still giggling.
Before I could blink, he bounded over me and sped behind a nearby tree. I figured he wanted to protect his modesty while he changed back into a human. Giving him a moment to himself, I wandered down to the edge of the loch and dabbled the tip of my boot into the clear water.
I turned as I heard the sound of footsteps approaching. He only stopped when we were almost toe to toe, and I had to crane my head back to look up at his face.
“How did you talk to me inside my head?” I asked.
“We can all do it, but only when we’re in animal form. It lets us communicate with each other when we can’t talk out loud. Sorry, did it freak you out?”
“Yeah, a wee bit. A heads up would have been nice.” I scowled jokingly.
“Sorry, I’ll keep you informed next time.” He lifted his hand up to press the back of his fingers gently against my cheek.
“Sorry about the lick too.” He grinned wickedly.
A cough made us both jump back from each other guiltily. Finlay was standing at the bottom of the hill, watching us, and he looked angry.
“Flora, Pen wants to see you in the great hall, right now.” It was all he said before turning away to walk back up the hill.
Chapter Ten
I felt a twinge of guilt for saying a quick thank you and simply abandoning Lyall after we had spent the entire afternoon working so hard together. I jogged up the hill in the direction Finlay had, hoping to catch up with him and ask him if everything was okay. I knew he’d seen how close Lyall and I had been, and I could sense he wasn’t very happy about it.
By the time I got to the top of the hill Finlay had already reached the castle gate and was stepping inside. I groaned in frustration but kept up my pace in an attempt to catch up with him before he reached Pen, and I lost my chance to talk with him alone.
It was a pointless endeavour. By the time I made my way into the great hall, I was flushed and out of breath, but Finlay was nowhere to be seen. Only Pen was seated at the gigantic wooden table. The long silver strands of her hair were pulled tightly back into a knot at the base of her neck, and she was dressed casually in trousers rather than her usual long robes. I supposed she would have looked a little out of place walking through Edinburgh in her Dion clothing.
She looked up and smiled warmly at me when I entered the hall, gesturing for me to sit in the chai
r nearest to her. I walked along the length of the table. The echo of my footsteps on the stone floor highlighted the silence in the room. I felt a heavy sense of dread in the pit of my stomach. I suddenly didn’t want to tell Pen about my dream anymore.
“How went your day with Lyall today, Flora?” She asked as I sat.
“Good. I didn’t shift, but Lyall says I won’t be able to for a while yet. He really helped me to understand the basics behind it, and he let me watch him shift too.”
“Lyall is right. It takes time, especially for someone who doesn’t know how they’re going to turn out when they change. Lyall is an exceptionally talented shape-shifter, and it took him several weeks before he managed his first successful change.” Pen was absently tracing her fingers over the grain marks in the wood of the table as she spoke.
“We’ll keep working on it.” I hesitated a moment as I tried to work out what I was going to say next. Pen arched an eyebrow at me as though she knew I had something important to tell her, but she waited patiently for me to start talking again.
“Pen, something happened last night. I was going to tell you this morning, but you’d already left for Edinburgh, and something told me not to tell any of the others until I’d spoken with you first.”
“Sluag summoned you in your dreams.” It wasn’t a question.
“H—how did you know?” I couldn’t hide my surprise.
Pen sighed heavily when I confirmed her suspicion. “This is one of Sluag’s favourite tactics. He has a fondness for the theatrical, and if he can get inside your head and make you doubt yourself, and us along the way, then all the better.”
“I didn’t know how to stop him. I didn’t even know what was happening until I realised I was in the Endwood, being herded by the Draugur.” I frowned.
“Can you tell me everything that happened and all that was said, right up until you woke, Flora?”