“Why would they call you like this? What have you done wrong?” This was the only explanation for them summoning her only brother like this, with such short notice. They never did it, unless there was a problem. With this thought, she not only feared for him but she also feared for herself. She couldn’t imagine him being gone. She could not imagine her life without him.
“I am not sure what they want.” He looked to the black mane of the horse, and shrugged hard. He then looked back to her. “I have fulfilled all that they have asked of me, so it should not be for something that I have done.” He bowed his eyes. He knew what she felt. He knew what she thought and what she feared, because with all frankness, he felt it too.
She shook her head as both eyes streaked with tears that waved down her soft and pale cheeks.
“Do not go,” she said this, but after she did, she instantly regretted it. No one goes against the Elders’ wishes. No Wanderer ever had, so just saying it, made her fear what it meant. She feared herself more for saying it.
He heard this and it brought an instant shudder down his spine. It even raced to his knees and it made them shake some under her touch.
“You must watch what you say my sister.” He immediately looked around both of them, and thankfully, he sighed seeing that they were still alone. “One never knows who may be watching, or listening.” He reached down, took her soft face into his left hand and held her eyes up to his. “I love you so much, my dear beloved.” He gave her a smile. “More so for what you fear for me.”
Seeing his smile, it forced her to have one of her own. He always did this to her.
“Just please be careful.” She locked her eyes on to his. “I would not know what to do with my life if you were not in it with me.”
Hearing this, he too felt tears in both of his eyes.
“I promise you that I will never allow that to happen.”
Her smile only grew, whether for the strength she heard in his voice, or for the courage in his eyes, it did help her to calm down. With this, her strength only grew with it.
“I will hold your words to the end Rochie.”
He now nodded and released his grip. Her face stayed strong and her eyes locked on to his, as he looked back ahead. He took a firm grip of the reins, and with a gentle kick to the side of the horse; he was off.
She watched him leave, heading down the path, and only breathed again when he was finally gone.
5
“He must be stopped. This has progressed too far. He has caused too much pain. He has shed too much blood.” Odan paced around Devish’s throne room with an overwhelmingly powerful stride. Every footfall echoed off the stoned walls like the sounds of thunder rolling over the hills. It made him sound huge. It showed his anger, which is what he was. They had been through this already. Now it was growing old. He was growing just as tired of it too. “The Elders have now made their decision. All twelve have now spoken on this matter.” All of them, except one, shared his rage and accepted the agreement to do what they now intended to do.
“He is only doing what he wants Master Odan. This is accepted as all of you have shown on more than one occasion.” Devish, couldn’t get what had been decided out of his head, and because of it, he now stood alone. As for what he said, it was true. They were the masters of the world. They all possessed the same amount of hunger, and they showed it on more than one occasion in the past. As far as he was concerned, this was no different.
Obviously, the others didn’t agree.
“You know this is different Devish.” Gorhan stood strongly to his left side. He watched him closely while Odan paced to his left. Behind him, Adollo stood silently against the wall. He had said everything that he had intended to say, but as for Gorhan, this was his turn to speak his mind. He felt Devish’s hesitation with all of this, and understood his anger, but he also understood the fear for what they were about to do. As far as he was concerned about all of it, Odan was right. “He is too dangerous. He has gone too far.” He also understood that Devish had to accept the truth. He had to accept what the council had decided. “We must stop him.”
Devish shook his head. “You are asking us to do something that has never been accomplished before. You are asking for them to take down my kind—our kind.” His voice roared some within the strength of his words. He meant every part of it too.
Odan finally stopped. “The council has decided this Devish. We have decided it.” He kept his eyes on the floor. In a way, he felt just as sickened by this as Devish had. After all, they were letting their children take the lead in doing something that they should have done for themselves, and with it, things would never be the same again. He feared this. He feared the outcome. He feared the future. He feared them knowing what they could truly do.
Devish scoffed heavily with all of this. He just couldn’t believe what they now intended to do, and he needed them to understand it before it was too late.
“You are asking them, the Wanderers, to strike down one of our own Odan. You are going to command them to take out Satar my father.”
“I am.” Odan did agree with this, so he nodded emphatically. Again, he didn’t have the choice. None of them did anymore. This had to be done.
“You know what this means. You know what the Wanderers are. You know what they can do, and now you are going to ask them to prove it. You are going to ask them to prove it to themselves, maybe even to the world.” Devish hated him, now more than ever, and not just for what they planned to do against his own flesh and blood but for the means of the actions.
Again, Odan nodded. “We have no choice. No Blood Walker can take out another, you know this, but they can. They can stop him before he kills more.” This time, he looked up. He even felt tears in both of his eyes. “We cannot continue to allow him to kill anymore humans than he already has. We are speaking about our future. We are speaking about our very existence.”
Devish saw the tears, understood that Odan felt the same as he had, but at the same time, seeing them made him angrier more than ever.
“You are a fool.” He looked to Gorhan, and felt his eyes burn to his. “I can accept a lot that the council decides, but not this Odan.” He looked back to his once powerful and gracious friend that was no longer one, or so it seemed. “I cannot believe that you have done this. I cannot believe that I would watch you turn against your own kind, against your very own blood line.”
Hearing this, Odan had enough. “I am doing this for our kind Devish.” He moved to his young friend and stood fast before him. His hateful eyes now blared with a fire-reddened blaze. With his bright white hair and pale skin, the red color sparkled as bright as the sun. “I am doing what I must do to set this right.”
Devish felt the challenge. All Walkers knew the color of their eyes, and what it meant when they showed them to another one of their kin, but like always before, he bowed his eyes. No Blood Walker had ever challenged another, especially when one was older than he was. Age meant power, so age was powerful.
“Good.” Seeing the bow, Odan blinked and let his eyes fade back to gray. The challenge had been won.
Thankfully, for the others there, Malana, Devish’s senior apprentice and a trusted one at that, came into the room behind Odan. She was there for a reason, and she announced it the moment she came into the room, “Master, the Wanderers have begun to arrive.”
Odan heard her, smelled her heavy musty scent, the scent of a Moonwalker, strong and true to the wolf they are, and turned.
“Good.” He looked back to Devish. “This argument is finished.” He turned and walked to Malana and gave her a nod. “Bring them in my dear when they have all arrived.”
Collectively, the entire room breathed.
Odan heard it and just bowed his head.
“It is time to change the world my friends.” And they turned and waited for that change to come through the door.
6
Sharlia made her way south in only a matter of hours. Being a Nightwalker gave her many
advantages but the greatest of these had always been speed. She was fast—faster than any living creature that had ever existed before her. All Nightwalkers were strong, maybe ten times that of a human, but the speed is what set them apart from the others. Nothing could match them. They were even faster than the wind.
Within a few more hours, she reached the shore of the caves of Golan. The caves were nothing more than just large holes in the side of a hundred foot tall limestone cliff the buttressed the northern shore of the island of Golan. The caves, ten, maybe more, pot marked the cliff making it look like a honeycomb made by a very large colony of massive bees. It all looked imposing. I felt more than that for here was the home of the great Seer; a Wanderer with a gift like no one had ever had before her. Some said that she could see the future, while others believed that she simply read one’s aura and used it to push them to their destiny. Either way, Sharlia was neither convinced of any of it. As far as she was concerned, she was just a Wanderer with the knack of storytelling. As far as she knew it, one made their own destiny, and no seer, no smooth teller, could ever tell her otherwise. Now there was just the matter of finding the right cave. Thankfully it was still night. She could see what looked like a fire burning in the center cave, just near the bottom of the cliff. She went to it without another thought.
The cave was also large, probably the largest of all of them, with a mouth that opened to an even larger cavern inside it. The fire that she saw from the shore was in the center of the floor, and with the white limestone around it, it lit up the entire room. At the far end of the flames sat an empty chair made out of what looked like wood. There was nothing else in the room.
Sharlia didn’t like seeing any of this. It made her feel uneasy. It made her feel alone.
“Can I help you my lady?” A soft, solemn voice came from the brightness just to her left.
She turned to the sound and found what looked like another opening towards the back wall. A Young looking woman with what looked like bright red hair stood there with a look that matched the sounds of her voice.
“I am Sharlia of the Southern Continent. I have come a long way to see the Seer of Golan.” She forced her voice to a sound like that of a relaxed contentment. She had never seen the Seer before and wasn’t sure if this was who she was looking for or not. The need to stay calm was because of the way she felt. She felt afraid, and really didn’t know why. She wasn’t about to let this woman see her fear. No Walker would ever do such a thing.
“You have found her my lady Sharlia of the Southern Continent.” The young woman stepped to the opposite side of the flames, towards the chair, but stopped directly in front of it and turned back to her.
Seeing the Seer for the first time, seeing how young she truly looked, it made her relax even more. She felt thankful for that.
“Do you know why I have come?” It was time to get to the matter at hand. It was also time to see how good this seer really was. A test seemed to be in order.
The Seer smiled. “You have come in search of answers to many questions.” The Seer stood firmly. She stood confidently.
Sharlia admired her strength. She also didn’t think the woman’s answer gave her a damn thing.
“Do you know what those answers are?” She wanted more. She was there for so much more than that.
“You wish to test me?” The Seer kept her smile. She kept herself firm.
Sharlia heard this and instantly bowed her head. “You tell me.”
“You have many questions. You have so many more than why you came here.” The Seer now laughed some. It sounded as soft as her voice ever sounded.
“Why have I come?” Sharlia moved to her right. She moved closer to the chair and stopped just feet away from it, with her keeping the fire on her left.
“You believe that you have come to find the Walker from the North, but this is not why you have come to see me.” The Seer watched her closely. She didn’t move.
“Then why have I come?” Standing closer now, she saw the young woman’s eyes as they shined like diamonds. They were as white as the cliffs around her. She felt mesmerized by them. They almost seemed hypnotic, almost like the gems she thought they were.
“You have a great destiny Lady Sharlia of the Southern Continent. You have a calling that one day you will find.”
She now shook her head. “I do not understand.” The test now felt over, if it had ever started that is. She wasn’t even sure if it had or had not. Whatever the truth, it was time to get to the matter hand. She felt like she was running out of time. “I need to know if you have seen Lord Satar. I need to know where and what he is looking for, if you have.”
The Seer bowed her head. “He was here. He did come to visit me.” She looked back up. Her eyes were no longer white but now flared to a deep color of blue.
Sharlia saw this and instantly grew afraid. Wanderers allow their blue eyes out the same way she lets out her red eyes. It was bringing their inner light out. It was bringing out her power. It meant to her that this Wanderer was now doing this, and because of it, she had to be ready for anything.
“He came here looking for what you will one day look for yourself, Sharlia of the Southern Continent. He came here searching for the very same answers to the questions that are within you.”
“What?” She blinked hard with hearing this. She understood nothing.
The Seer’s eyes went back to the white sparkling diamonds.
“Satar is searching for the one thing that he is missing. He is searching for the one thing that he had. He is searching for her.”
Sharlia blinked again and faster too. Inside her, the feelings of longing came again. She had not felt it like this for so long that it nearly astounded her. When her mother died, the woman that turned her into what she now was had passed, she felt the loss like nothing she had ever felt before in her life. It was like losing one’s own soul. It was like losing a part of you that you could never live without. Feeling that same thing now, she had to hold her breaths.
The Seer smiled. “Yes. That is it.”
“You know what I think? Do you know what I feel?” Sharlia stared into her sparkling eyes, as hers filled with a thousand tears.
The Seer left the chair and closed the distance between them until it was down to only two feet or less.
“Loss is devastating to one who had it. It takes our breaths away.”
“It is.” She barely saw her now. The tears were too much for her to see anything clearly.
“You seek what he does.”
Instantly she did understand something, but at the same time, she didn’t. None of this made any sense to her, but then something did. “He is trying to find Permona?” Permona was his mate. She was his love and life. She was what he lost when the great dying took her away from him.
“He is.” The Seer closed the distance between them, and now standing only a single foot in front of her, she reached up and caressed her left cheek with the back of her hand.
Sharlia felt the touch and with it, all of her tears dried up almost instantly. So much so, she couldn’t believe that they were even there. She also couldn’t believe anything she just heard.
“I do not understand. How could he be looking for her? She passed. She died during the great dying after giving birth to their only son.”
“Not all death is the end. You as a Walker should know this.” The Seer dropped her arm back to her side.
Sharlia now shuddered with the loss of the young woman’s touch. She even felt somewhat empty by its loss too. In its place, questions flooded her mind, “Are you saying that Walkers can pass on? Are you saying that we have a soul?”
The Seer laughed. “No Walker carries such things. Only a Wanderer has the ability to pass on their lives. Only humans pass their souls onto the great beyond. Walkers have only death.”
“Then what are you saying?”
“Life is full of death. It is also full of life.” The Seer turned serious all too fast.
Why does
she have to be so cryptic?
“I still do not know what you mean. What is it that Satar is seeking then?” She also began to grow impatient, and it made her voice crack. “I need to know.”
The Seer sensed this in her. Her visions were never clear. She spoke how she did only because she saw it that way.
“I do not mean to sound—well—odd. I feel your impatience. I feel your needs Lady Sharlia of the Southern Continent. But I can only speak what I see.” She even smiled.
Sharlia sighed, before thinking of a different way to ask what she needed to know. “What did you tell him? What did you tell Satar?” This sounded right. If she could only speak with riddles, and if she spoke them to Satar, then it made sense that he would follow it, just as cryptically.
“I told him the same thing as I have said to you.” The Seer turned to her chair, walked to it briefly, but stopped just in front of it. She turned back around. “He wants his beloved Permona back. He believes that he can find her again. He refused to listen.” She bowed her eyes. “Because of this, because of his choice to find her, he will forever change the world.”
Sharlia swallowed hard with hearing this. It also made her cringe some. “What does that mean?” She wasn’t sure if she wanted to know, but felt that she did. She felt like she didn’t have the choice.
“One will come. A Trinity will come to this world and they will unite it in peace. This person will be of the three.” The Seer looked up. Her eyes were burning blue again. Her powers flowed through her.
Sharlia saw the eyes. She heard the words, and both made her shudder again. “The three?” she asked without thinking. She spoke without knowing her own voice. What that meant, she didn’t know. One day she hoped to understand it, but now it was not. It was not the time.
“The Walker, the Wanderer will combine with the human world. The Trinity will be a child of all three.”
Sharlia now bowed her head, thinking. She couldn’t believe what she just heard, and it made her heart race some behind her breasts. Is what she saying true? Could it be—could she be right? She looked back up, trying to refocus her thoughts. Whatever she was feeling, whatever she might think, she still had a job to do. She had to keep to it, so she cleared her thoughts. She took a deep breath and started over again.
A Werewolf's Saga, The Beginning (A Werewolf's Saga Boxed Sets Book 3) Page 3