by G. Bailey
I pray to the gods to forgive me for taking another life. Three lives.
I pray to anyone that will listen before the first tear falls down my cheek, woven into the running warm water. After letting more than one tear fall, I stand up and clean off the blood and dirt left on my body before washing my hair. I flick the shower off and climb out, pausing at the sight of a second door between the toilet and cabinets.
A door that wasn’t there before. The door itself looks normal, like every oak door in this castle, and the gold handle is similar in style. I remember what Erin said about rooms in the castle moving as I dry myself off and pull on fresh clothes from under the sink. The cream leggings and white crop top are soft as I walk to the new door. My hair drips cold water down my back as I turn the handle, and a brush of dust blows at me. I blink in the dim room, smelling nothing but dust and a hint of soft, gentle rosemary.
“What are you trying to show me, house?” I question out loud, my eyes slowly adjusting to the darkness as I search the wall near me for a switch but only find textured wallpaper. Eventually I follow the wall and find a rope, and I pull on it, letting in a blast of light from outside the massive window. The curtains disturb the dust, particles of it floating around in the air, and I have to blink a few times to take in the room. It’s a dressing room of sorts, with at least ten mannequins dotted around and a pillar in the middle covered in gold coins, sparkling jewels and chains of gold and silver. Chests of more jewels rest at the bottom of a platform, piles of aged leather-bound books next to them.
The books are more precious to me than the jewels. On the mannequins are breathtaking ball gowns in every shade of green and pink imaginable. More line the walls behind, hidden in a closet, and I walk across the thick green carpet, which matches the gold-laced wallpaper designed to look like a forest, gold leaves falling in a whirlwind between the trees.
“Why did you show me this room, then?” I ask the house, walking past the dust-lined window and to the books piled high. I pick up a gold diamond necklace, putting it down and picking up the first book. I turn the page to find it’s a diary, written in gold ink and lined with aged yellow paper, tiny green flowers on the edges, almost painted on but faded over time. Something falls out of the book, and I lean down, picking up the tiny seeds.
Pomegranate seeds. I run them between my fingers before going back to the book. It isn’t in English, but it is a language I can read.
The language of the gods. The symbols change before my eyes, morphing into word after word as I start reading.
It’s been three hundred and two months since I spoke to my mother, and with every frostbitten winter and scorching, burning summer, I miss her. Love has come with a heart-aching price, and I would pay it again and again, even as I watch the humans scream to the gods to save them from the burning world. They can scream all they wish for our help, but we can do nothing to stop her. To stop the gods who have joined her in a war against us.
Gods are not meant to have true love.
And we are always going to be an abomination to them.
I lean back and close the book, knowing exactly who I am reading about, whose story this is, and it feels private, her private life. The apple ring catches my eye, reminding me of the “apple of discord” story Ragnar told me when he gifted it to me. These books are powerful and dangerous for the knowledge they could hold. I put the book down, back where it was, and look away at the walls of the house.
“Thank you for showing me this room, but some secrets should be kept,” I softly say.
I jump as the floor shakes a little under my feet, and a jewel dagger falls off the pile of coins and jewels, clattering at my feet. I raise my eyebrows as I lean down, wrapping my hand around the hilt of the blade, and it lights up, glowing green, shining brightly into my eyes. There are words written on the blade. The handle is made of black leather, and a large green gemstone is encased in gold at the end. The language of the gods is written on the blade, and slowly it changes.
“For the queen of death can touch this blade. Others will perish.”
I breathe out a slow breath of air and keep hold of the dagger. It could have killed me, but the house knew better, and it clearly wants me to have this dagger. I leave the room, taking a second to pat the wall once in thanks, and close the door behind me. The second I close the door, it fades into the plain white panel wall that was there, not a scent of magic or anything to tell me how the castle did that.
I step back a tad, reminding myself the castle clearly doesn’t want to hurt me.
“Are you alright in there?” Ragnar asks, knocking on the door three times. I pull the door open, and his eyes flicker straight to the dagger, his brow creasing.
“The dagger of Persephone. Morganis,” he breathes out, reaching out, but it glows brighter, like it’s fending him off, and he lowers his hand.
“The dagger has a name?” I question, looking at its green glow.
“Fucking hell, she is holding that dagger from the legends,” Fox mutters from over Ragnar’s shoulder. Ragnar steps back so I can go into the room, and suddenly I have a room full of eyes on me.
“Morganis...,” Valentine says, rubbing the back of his neck, his eyes on the green glow radiating off the dagger. “I thought it was a legend.”
“So did we all,” Silas dryly comments, his lips tilting up. “Only you could go into a bathroom and come out with one of the seven deadliest weapons ever to have existed, thought to be lost or destroyed by the gods due to its power.”
“How did you find it?” Phim asks, and it seems like Breelyn, Callahan and I are the only ones in the room not shocked by my discovery. Callahan lowers his eyes, watching closely, but Breelyn looks perplexed.
“The castle made a door and—” I pause for a second. “Well, this was in there.”
I leave out the part about the diaries, something telling me this isn’t the time to share that information. “Now, can someone tell me why this dagger, Morganis, is so deadly?”
I lift it as I speak, and the alphas jump back, Fox nearly falling off the bed in his escape. Scaredy cats.
Or wolves in this case.
Henderson clears his throat. “Morganis was once a person, one of seven virgin sacrifices given to the gods. Morganis was given to Hades, who didn’t want her, not when he had Persephone. Persephone took her in as a maid of sorts, and one night, Persephone was attacked. No one knew who attacked her, or our records don’t say, and Morganis threw herself in the way and was dying. Persephone took Morganis’s body to Hades, and he offered her to the eternal river of souls in the underworld. She disappeared under the red water, and this dagger rose in her place.”
Silas carries on. “Persephone realised quickly how the dagger has unique and strong powers of its own. It can see evil and absorb power, giving it to the bearer. The other gods tried to steal it, only to find it wouldn’t let anyone but Persephone touch it. So they threw the other six women into the river of souls, and each came out as a powerful weapon. All of them lost over time...”
“Until now,” I finish, holding the weapon up. “Morganis is in this dagger. It’s a soul?”
“Yes,” Henderson answers. “Well, according to the legends and books in this city.”
I walk over to my bedside table and place it down, the green hue disappearing the second I let it go. No one else makes a move to touch it.
“The rite should be easy for you now,” Phim says with a smile. “Thanks, castle.”
“No,” I reply, shaking my head. “I won’t use it. I already have an advantage over them with my powers, and this would make it so much worse. I will win this rite fairly. Or as fair as I can.”
“Every time you say something honourable, it is also stupid,” Phim replies with a tad bit of a smile. “Now that you’re good, I’m getting some food. Coming, Breelyn?”
“Can’t you hear that?” she asks instead, her eyes fixed on the dagger.
“Hear what?” I ask.
Breelyn furrows h
er brow, staring harder at the dagger before she snaps out of it. “Nothing, I thought I heard...well, it doesn’t matter.” She looks to Phim. “I’d love to eat.”
“You hungry?” Phim asks me, and I shake my head. They both leave, Fox leaving next with a nod to me, and Callahan stays by the door.
“Can I get you anything?” Callahan asks, and behind him I can see his new guard shadows in the corridor.
“No, I’m good. Thank you for being here,” I tell him.
He nods. “I’m glad to see you are awake and well, Mai.”
Callahan leaves, and Valentine reaches for my hand. “Want to head into the city and do something normal? Fewer gods, magic and deadly fucking tests in a moving room castle way?”
I laugh, holding my stomach. “Gods, yes. Let’s go.”
“We have a meeting,” Henderson says with a sigh. “But we will go and make an excuse up for you, brother.”
“We will?” Ragnar replies.
“Yes,” Silas growls at him. “Stop being a dick, like always since we got home, and move.”
Ragnar growls back at him, and Henderson gives me a tired smile. “Have fun, I will come back to see you later today.”
Silas looks at Valentine. “Look after our girl.”
“Always,” he replies. Ragnar storms out, Silas and Henderson following after him. I quickly slide my shoes on before taking Valentine’s hand and walking with him down the corridor to the courtyard. We climb into one of the carriages, sitting side by side, and I rest my head on his shoulder after he speaks quickly to the driver.
“Has Ragnar been strange to you since we got here?” I ask.
Valentine hums. “Yes. He is stressed, and we all feel lost without our bond to ground us. I suspect he is taking it harder than the rest of us. Our home comes with much political pressure, and the rite doesn’t help. Neither does the Levi attack.”
“Maybe that’s it,” I say, running the ring around my finger.
Valentine’s hand rests on my hip, nudging me a little closer to him, my body pressed against his. In the small carriage, I look up to find his emerald green eyes watching me, his eyes that remind me of the forest outside my foster home, the hues of the deepest green leaf in the heat of summer. I used to think there was nothing more beautiful than that colour, not the colours of the sunsets that fell every night and never made a night better or the brightness of stars above as they look down, untouchable like the gods. No, the rich green that reminded me of my own eyes, but they were always so much paler.
“Tell me a story about us, when we were younger, Val,” I softly ask. Every story they tell me is like coming home, like a part of an unknown puzzle, and I crave them.
He rests back, squeezing my hip once. “Your mother, Baia, was a brave fighter. Not just in her wolf form, but in hand-to-hand combat. She fought with daggers and blades. Once a year, on the blue moon, our pack used to honour the gods by battling each other. Females were not allowed to partake in this, but Baia walked right up to the alpha and told him she was entering whether he liked it or not.”
“She sounds amazing,” I whisper.
He nods. “Baia was a second mother to us, me included. The alpha was an old, stubborn wolf, but for some reason, he allowed Baia to enter. And of course, Reine was her biggest supporter. You held my hand as we watched her fight a wolf twice her size and pin him to the ground with daggers within three minutes. I remember you whispering, ‘I want to be my mama when I’m older.’”
He pauses as I feel a mixture of pride and sadness. “That day, your mother came third in the contest, which was phenomenal to see, and females were allowed to enter the fights the next year. Reine was the first to sign up, after hugging Baia.”
“Gods, I wish she was here,” I whisper a plea. “That I could see her one more time and tell her how much I love her.”
“I believe our loved ones stay with us through our lives, like guides sent from the gods,” he tells me. “She wouldn’t be far from you, Mai. She loved you so much.”
“I know, I loved her too,” I say, pressing my hand to my chest. “I can feel it.”
He kisses the side of my head before the carriage comes to a stop. Valentine climbs out first, and I take his hand as I step out after him into a busy street. At least ten people stop dead in their tracks to stare or bow their heads. But Valentine’s eyes stay on me as he links our fingers. Keeping me close to his side, he leads us through the crowd, the scents of so many people overwhelming me, along with their stares.
“Which plaza is this?” I ask Valentine as we pause to wait for the people in front to move.
“Ina Plaza,” Valentine tells me, quietly guiding me through the crowds. We come to a townhouse with a long alleyway down the right side, littered with pots of green plants and hanging lights on a string. The ground is cracked in places as we walk down the alleyway, which opens up to a snug area with a wood canopy hanging over a circle of chairs and tables, all facing a large piano. Some of the seats have couples sitting together, and I meet the eyes of an older woman in a green dress. She bows her head, and I incline my head back at her as Valentine leads me to the piano.
“Can you play?” I question, and he grins, patting the seat after he sits down. I sit next to him as he opens up the cover of the piano to reveal the keys.
“Not often,” he softly replies before he touches a key, the sound vibrating from the piano, echoing around the space. Valentine breaks into a song, effortlessly moving his hands across the piano, his eyes fixed on the keys. A shiver breaks down my spine at the haunting tune, the melodic twang to every note, and the way he never misses a beat, never a single key out of place. I stare at Valentine, almost like I’ve never seen him. His imposing form towers over everything nearby, his dark, chocolate brown hair messy in locks that fall down on his forehead, his eyes sparkling underneath them. I trace his high cheekbones, his strong jawline and his thick neck to his large chest, hidden under his black shirt.
My alpha. My cheeks burn when I think of his lips pressed against mine. How he tastes, how he feels. Holding back with any of them seems impossible when I’m so in love with them.
I’m in love with Valentine, the broken alpha wolf who was lost in a bottle of whiskey when we met. Lost in grief. Now he is so much more, and he might have always been. Perhaps it was just hard for him to be who he is when the past was controlling his present. We might have grown up together, and we have that, but what we have built over the last six months is so much deeper and more profound.
It’s addictive to be in love, a feeling I never thought I’d be lucky enough to have with one person, let alone four.
The song ends, and Valentine looks at me, searching my eyes. I grin at him as I clap and hear my clapping echoed with many others. I turn to see there is quite the crowd now, all of them cheering and clapping for Valentine’s song. He smiles at them before looking back at me.
“I’m going to see if I can find a drink from that stall I saw outside the alleyway. Do you want one?” I ask. “Oh, I didn’t bring—”
“Here,” he replies, offering me a little drawstring bag from his pocket, full of coins. “We trade gold coins in the city, and what is mine is yours.”
“Are you sure?” I ask.
“Yes,” he replies with a nod. “Stay close, Mai, and don’t wander, please.”
“Play for them, Valentine,” I whisper back, sliding off the seat. He does as I ask, playing another song effortlessly, even though it looks so hard to play. I walk through the crowd to the alleyway and to the stall next door, asking for a glass bottle of water from them. I pay with one gold coin, gold shaped into a circle with a wolf on it, and head back to Valentine when a man steps in front of the alleyway, blocking my view.
Something about him is familiar as he bows his head, his hands shaking slightly as I get an overwhelming scent of booze in the air, stuck to his clothes. The man has deep, chestnut brown hair and a short beard, with bright brown eyes and a slightly large nose. He is wearing a rip
ped shirt that’s tucked into brown pants. “Te—ll him to talk to m—e. I beg ya.”
“Who?” I ask, as he stumbles closer to me.
“Va—lee—n,” he almost whispers, his blood-shot eyes fixed on me. “Ma cou—sin.”
“Valen? Do you mean Valentine?” I ask, and I’m shocked enough that I don’t move when he rushes to me, grabbing my throat and slamming me into the wall.
“Whore! I asked you to—”
With a scream, he is thrown off me, and I suck in a choked breath as Valentine lands on his cousin and starts punching him again and again. Blood marks his knuckles as I watch in a trance, unable to move until I snap out of it. I rush to Valentine, and with my powers, I throw him off his cousin, making him roll onto the floor. Valentine stands, his eyes burning red, and I let my hands glow with my power as I step over his cousin, who is still but breathing, and to him. I cup his cheek, the green glow of my hand mixing with the red darkness spreading from his body.
“I’m okay,” I whisper softly. “I’m not hurt, and you don’t want to kill him. Let’s walk away, run away, I don’t care, but we are leaving together, Val.”
“Princess,” he growls, and I growl back at him. He steps away from me and shifts, and I shift next before running after his wolf, the crowds parting for us. No one stands in our way as we run through the city, and I follow Valentine until we come to a garden park, and he leaps over a black gate. I jump next, landing on soft grass and heading through the bushes where I hear the river. The grass bank ends at the river, little pink and yellow flowers dotted around. Two pillars stretch up and meet above us, casting a deep shadow, and thick trees line the edges of the clearing.
I scent no one else here as I focus on my alpha, who shifts back on the edge of the river. I watch, captivated by his muscular back and his corded muscles on his arms as he walks into the river and sinks underneath it.
Being braver than I usually am, I shift back and walk to the river. Valentine breaks free of the water, facing away from me, his wet hair dropping down his back. The water of the river is ice cold as I walk in, and every instinct in me wants to get out, but I don’t stop until my body is completely under the water. I swim in front of Valentine, and my heart cracks when I see tears falling silently down his cheeks.