by A. J. Vrana
Sweeping her cloak aside and throwing on the hood, she stormed out the door, no doubt heading for the forest.
“I-I apologize,” Bartha stammered. “Ekaliya has always had a temper.”
“Judgmental little thing,” Velizar said, unfazed. “I would not place my trust in someone so erratic, Bartha.”
“Yes,” the elder bowed his head, “you’re right.”
Velizar rested his hand on Bartha’s shoulder. “I promise to rid you of this beast. It won’t take another life. That is my oath to you.”
The Hollow elder peered up at him in awe. Velizar had been a fool to trust Sendoa, but he was sure this would win him back the Hollow, restore order, and reinstate him as the rightful king.
He was sure because he really meant what he said.
The black wolf was destined to die.
33
KAI
Kai shivered from the biting cold, his heart sinking with burdens from lifetimes he didn’t remember. As the spectres of ancient history finally faded, he resurfaced exactly where he’d gone under: on the islet in the black lake. The Grey Gnarl loomed over him, mocking him.
But the tree wasn’t the only fossil lurking nearby.
“You fucking killed me,” Kai wheezed. “You sicced the villagers on me.”
Your time had come, Velizar responded. To maintain order, I needed to be rid of the monster. Fear had escalated to anger.
“So, you killed me.”
The Hollow would never have trusted me otherwise. I did it because you weren’t doing your job. You began protecting instead of destroying. You aligned yourself with that wench. You cornered me, left me no choice!
“You’re unhinged,” Kai growled. “I made a friend, and you seriously thought it was some scheme to overthrow you, so you killed me.”
You would have been reborn anyway, Velizar dismissed. It was only right, given your betrayal, your sabotage.
“Are you fucking kidding?” Kai dug his fingers into the mossy, wet earth and fought to stand, but his limbs bent like old rubber. He collapsed to his knees, his pulse racing from the strain. He considered using the elm for support but decided against it. He was sure it wanted him dead as much as Rusalka did. “Sounds like I was done playing Big Bad Wolf for you.”
You scorned my creation! Velizar bellowed, rattling the inside of Kai’s skull like a set of iron marbles. I ushered in a halcyon, and you spat on it! You valued your little forest more than my world of men!
“I believe you!” Kai shouted back. “Fuck your world of men, you elitist prick.”
Velizar scoffed. You loved the girl precisely because you knew she was an interloper in my flock. Your affection for her nearly destroyed me. She nearly destroyed me. You left me no choice but to let them have you.
“Love?” Kai spat. “I met her once!”
It was enough.
“You really believe your own bullshit, huh?” Kai choked on a laugh, his breaths ragged. “I didn’t want to be your lackey, and you thought it was a betrayal.”
You were my partner. My brother.
“I was a tool that grew legs and fucked off!” Kai’s voice cracked. His mouth was parched, his throat sore like he’d been screaming for days.
You were an unpredictable variable, Velizar said calmly. And you needed to be eliminated.
“I—”
I’m not yet finished, brother. Restrain yourself.
Paralyzed, Kai fought the takeover to no avail. The air fled his lungs like he’d taken a kick to the gut, and the darkness overcame him. Velizar was older, stronger. He’d waited centuries to tell his story, and no amount of protest would spare Kai from his Lifetime special.
Trapped and desolate, Kai squeezed his eyes shut and waited. His last fading thought as the blackness consumed him was that he missed Miya. God, he missed her more than anything in the world.
He just wanted her to know how sorry he was.
34
KALI
Crisp autumn air spilled over Kali’s face; winter was an icy breath away.
The village was quiet with pungent suspicion. The Hollow had decided—or rather, Velizar had decided—the black wolf would replace the Viyest. All the able-bodied men and women armed themselves for the hunt. Having refused to help locate their prey, venomous stares pierced Kali from every direction. She wrapped herself in her dark cloak and hid amidst the trees near the mouth of the Hollow, watching from the safety of the periphery.
Velizar stood at the town square, drawing the people to him with his otherworldly magnetism. Kali had known from the start that he was something from someplace else. He didn’t belong. In this regard, she supposed they weren’t so different, but that was where the similarities ended.
“I know I’ve been resistant to the Hollow’s traditions,” he began, waiting for more to gather. “But if there’s such a thing as the Viyest, and if there is sincerely a Dreamwalker among you, then is it not the Dreamwalker who has doomed you?” Eyes dancing with malice, he cast his callous gaze on Kali, somehow finding her amid the camouflage. “By refusing her duty to the Hollow, even after the elder’s insistence, has she not betrayed you? Or perhaps there is no duty for her to shirk? Perhaps she is a witch crushing the Hollow under her curse.”
Nods of consensus followed. Some of the hunters scanned the border as though sensing Kali nearby. She retreated further into the maze, biting down the bile as her stomach churned. Bitterness and treachery coalesced into an overpowering wave of nausea. Velizar had turned the village against her. Not that they’d ever needed much convincing. She had never been welcome; Velizar had simply given them the excuse they’d always wanted.
Spite settled in her spine as anger cauterized the hurt, sewing it shut like hot iron on wounded flesh. But beneath it all, she felt an overwhelming urge to escape—to run from those leers that cut her whenever she walked by.
Only when Velizar retreated and the hunters marched into the woods did Kali spot Lana among the scattering mob.
Things were different between them now. Kali was the Hollow’s defected Dreamwalker—a choice Lana would never forgive.
The fortunes of their friendship mirrored the dwindling warmth of summer.
Pain rippled across Kali’s chest as she noticed that Lana’s belly had swelled; her friend was with child after all. Was she wrong to protect the wolf? Had she denied Bartha’s plea out of conceit, or worse, a malevolent desire to see the Hollow consumed by what it hunted?
“Kali!” Lana called when she caught her skulking by a barren pear tree, then sauntered over with a water pail in hand. “What are you doing here?”
“Watching, I suppose. The hunters have all gone.” Kali was surprised by how solemn she sounded.
“Velizar was right to rally them,” said Lana. “I don’t know how he found the black wolf, but I’m glad he did.”
Kali swallowed like she had nettles prickling her tongue. “He’s only speaking the Hollow’s language now to win favour back. He doesn’t care for the Viyest.”
Lana shrugged. “I’d rather have a king who adapts to his people’s needs.”
“He’s not a king, Lana. He’s a man who thinks his piss is wine.”
Lana clutched the pail so hard one of her nails chipped against the craggy wood. “You mock him, Ekaliya, yet you’re the reason the black wolf continues to kill. You refused to succeed Milena.”
Kali raked her fingers through her hair, tugging hard enough to tear out a small tangle. “Velizar has scant faith in the Dreamwalker. He called it superstition.”
“Even so,” Lana’s voice rose, “you were born and raised here. Velizar didn’t believe because he was an outsider. But you…you should know better.” Her next words came quiet but deadly. “He asked us to consider what kind of a person would refuse the duty bestowed by her people.”
“You…agree with him,” Kali realized aloud. “You think he’s right about me.”
Lana placed a hand over her growing belly, her russet eyes seething like embers.
“By helping the wolf, you’re only making the Hollow a more dangerous place.”
Kali shook her head. “Refusing to be the Hollow’s puppet doesn’t make me responsible for every bad thing that happens. You’re acting as if I conjured the damn beast.”
“That’s certainly what Velizar thinks.”
“You can’t really believe that,” Kali’s voice broke. “How do you know it wasn’t Velizar’s doing? All of this started right before he arrived!”
Lana hesitated, then said, “You’ve always hated the Hollow. Even though you mask it with cold criticism, your contempt bleeds right through. Decebal and Milena are dead because of the wolf, and you’ll be to blame for all those who’ll die in this hunt.”
“How can you—”
“You’re the Dreamwalker,” Lana hissed. Where the title was once revered, it suddenly sounded like a slur. “You’re the only person who can guide the hunters to the Viyest. Those who perish will do so because you refused to lead them!”
“The black wolf is not the Viyest,” Kali insisted.
“Even so! That wolf is a harbinger of death, a destroyer. And you—our conduit to the other realms—won’t lift a finger to stop it! You are responsible!”
Kali folded her hands in front of her to keep them from trembling. Her pulse hammered in her ears and her throat worked, half-formed words stumbling from her lips. How did it get like this?
Lana set her jaw, her reservations gone. “You’re not like us, Ekaliya. You never have been. Velizar is different too, but at least he’s trying to better us. You want nothing less than our suffering—maybe even our downfall. That’s why you care for this wolf. You want him to hurt us. To punish us. You have a grudge, and it’s poisoned our home.”
The itch to flee beat against Kali’s ribs until she thought her insides might splinter. Whirling in confusion, she bolted into the woods—anything to escape the Hollow. This warren, lost in a sea of dark green, had become her prison.
With her cloak covering her from head to toe, she blended in like a shadow at dusk. Yet no matter how far she went, she couldn’t outrun her fear that Lana was right: Kali favoured her grudge over her best friend. The wolf had slain Lana’s husband and brought their people to the brink of famine. Why did Kali continue to defend the killer? Maybe she did want to punish the village for what they’d done to her family.
Kali’s foot clipped a winding root that slithered above ground. The sharp pain sent her colliding into a nearby tree, branches nicking her cheek. Reaching up, she felt the thin cut well with blood.
No, a voice rebuked inside her. The Hollow’s cruelty is not a thing of the past. They marked you from birth, so you’d never be their equal. They’ve given you no reason to help them.
But Lana had sacrificed for her. Why couldn’t Kali sacrifice in turn?
Because, the voice replied, Lana is wrong. You can’t save the Hollow from the wolf. No one can.
Indeed, the wolf wasn’t the problem; Kali knew this in her bones. Velizar had done more to harm the Hollow than Kali ever could, yet she was being blamed.
The sound of heavy footfalls and shouting severed Kali from her turmoil. Realizing the hunters were nearby, she scrambled into the shrubs until the voices faded. Brittle autumn leaves caught on her wool cloak as she crumpled to the ground, dizzy with relief. She didn’t want to be seen anywhere near the hunt.
Between tattered breaths, Kali caught the whine of an animal from somewhere nearby. She stilled, holding the air in her lungs until the cry cut through her senses a second time. Kali perused her surroundings but didn’t recognize a thing, so she wandered in the direction of the plea, her limbs igniting with excitement. Trapped in a labyrinth made of twisted roots and arching spurs, she had no inkling of how to find her way back. Finally, she was lost.
Kali moseyed on into thickening underbrush and weaved through a grove of crooked oaks. As she traversed the verdant maze, the treetops blotted out the apricot sky. She ducked under a far-reaching bough and stepped into a dimly lit glade streaked with the cinders of a waning sun.
The grand willow awaited her, and beneath its emerald shade, she glimpsed a dark mass bundled against the trunk.
Kali swept aside the swaying stems and fell into the shadows.
A black wolf lay under the canopy. The earth was painted rusty red as blood pooled around him, matting his thick fur. He’d been pierced by a hunter’s blade, his chest rising and falling so slowly that Kali could hear her own heart pounding between each breath.
The black wolf was dying.
As the life seeped out of him, despair poured into all the hidden places Kali had kept shielded from her hatred of the Hollow—the corners of her heart where the darkness didn’t reach, where she’d hoped something good would write itself onto that blank space.
Would she allow the Hollow to steal everything from her? She was the Dreamwalker; the hunters were supposed to depend on her, not the other way around. If she was as powerful as they claimed, if she could truly conjure stygian beasts and wreak havoc with little more than the will to say no, what chaos could she rain with the spite to say yes…
…Yes, the black wolf was dying, but he wasn’t dead yet.
35
MIYA
Miya felt the wolf’s coarse black fur tickling her palm. It was like she was right there with him, sharing in his final moments. She remembered now—getting lost in the woods and finding the wolf. She’d dreamt it in this life and lived it in so many others.
“Gavran,” she spoke the boy’s name with more certainty now, then gazed up at the ancient redwood. “The Red Knot is your home. It’s close to the Emerald Shade, where I found the wolf.”
“Yes,” he nodded, something sad and lonely colouring the grooves of his face. “You always find the black wolf.”
Miya twined her fingers together. They felt cold, but more like her own. The fog had thinned, specs of rose-coloured light streaming through from the distance. “The wolf was the king’s brother.”
Gavran blinked. “You remember?”
“The wolf told me after I healed him,” she recalled. “When he led me home.”
“You were so lost,” Gavran cackled. “Like a carpenter in a quarry.”
Miya reached out as though tracing the wolf’s invisible silhouette. “He helped me find my way back. To thank me.” She frowned then, the pieces mismatched. “But he was dying. How did I heal him?”
“You’re the Dreamwalker,” Gavran reminded her. “All you needed was the spite to say yes.”
Miya didn’t understand, but she figured she didn’t have to…not yet, anyway.
The boy grinned ear to ear. “He was so angry when he realized his brother had sent the hunters to butcher him as a prize.”
“He was hurt.”
“Anger is nothing more than hurt with teeth.” Gavran’s jaw sliced open, eyes wide like perfectly round pools of ink.
Miya settled back against the Red Knot. “I want to remember more.” With each tale the boy told her, the fear that’d been wax on her skin peeled away.
“And you will.” Gavran nestled into his feathery robe, his eyes suddenly distant. “You will.”
36
KALI
As Kali fumbled towards the Hollow, the woods at her back, every inch of her screamed to stop, to return to the wolf. When she couldn’t bear it any longer, she glanced over her shoulder to see him standing on the precipice of their two worlds—the peripheral row of trees a barrier between his realm and Velizar’s. Ears erect and tail stiff, he watched her with uncanny attention. Was he making sure to fulfill his promise and safely deliver the Dreamwalker home? Or was he considering his next move—plotting revenge against the people who’d nearly killed him?
Kali now knew a truth she’d suspected all along: The Hollow’s beliefs had the substance of mud. There was no Viyest, and Velizar was no king. The black wolf that terrorized the Hollow was a god of destruction and Velizar, his brother, a god of creation. The creator was conniving and c
ruel, and the destroyer capable of gratitude and compassion.
How upside-down the world was.
Kali ripped herself free from the wolf’s gaze and stared at Bartha’s lodge up ahead. She could hear laughter booming from inside. The villagers were no doubt celebrating, believing their tormenter to be slain.
Kali slunk into her parents’ ramshackle like a wisp, the door creaking loudly as she scuttled inside. Peeping through the cracks in the shutters, she found the world outside wholly still save for the smoke rising from Bartha’s chimney and the cheer roaring from inside his longhouse.
Kali retreated from the window and crawled into her hay bed. Wrapping herself in a purple blanket she’d knitted from goat’s wool and dyed in blackberry mash, her eyelids drifted shut. Her feet ached, and her muscles were sore; it felt like she’d been in those woods for days. As exhaustion settled into her bones, the late autumn chill subsided, and Kali felt the pull of slumber drag her down, deep into the dream.
In the sliver between waking and sleep, Kali heard the wind sing. Or so she thought. The bellowing gale transformed into something else, something living.
A wolf howled—mournful, harrowing. At first, it was far away, beckoning from another world. Then it was closer, louder, until the cries reverberated within the walls of Kali’s home.
She awoke with a gasp. Sweat slicked her skin, and damp hair clung to her neck. She expected quiet after her restless visions, but the howls suddenly resumed.
Bolting upright, Kali clambered out of bed. Through the shutters, she glimpsed firelight peppering the darkness. Several figures rushed by as shouting ensued, but the howls continued, drowning out the clamour.
Kali threw on her cloak and burst outside. Cressets flickered from the shallows of the forest, and commotion collected around Bartha’s longhouse. A crowd had amassed, and as Kali approached, she saw women weeping. Their fear-stricken expressions were trained on something at their feet. Throwing on her hood and lowering her head, Kali pushed past them.