by Vella Wolf
Fye was surrounded by an icy flurry, while Ora stood next to her surrounded by her own soft pink glow. Verona was bathed in a violet flame. Esu in an emerald mist. Shadowed tendrils wrapped themselves around Lusin. I looked at Nyx and then to my husband. Nyx shone just like the stars he made, bright and glorious. Raest, however, was covered in darkness. It whirled around him like a storm, eating up any fragment of light that radiated from those around him. Hungry and terrifying.
Coiling my hands to my body, I took a step back, wanting to create some distance between the maelstrom and myself. My movement caught Raest’s eye, and he turned his attention from the eclipse to me. Sorrow and confusion danced across his face as his shadows crawled across moonlight skin.
“Are you afraid?” he whispered to me.
I shook my head frantically, unable to keep my eyes off the void that enveloped him. Quicker than I could realise, Raest grabbed my hand, pulling me closer. I flinched at his touch and held my breath in panic as he forced my fingertips into his darkness. My eyes closed shut as my hand was devoured.
“Relax,” Raest whispered to me, “You don’t need to be afraid of me or my power. Take a deep breath and feel it. Cast out your senses.”
I tried to listen to his words and forced my breathing to still. As commanded, I let my senses wander, and the numbness in my hand faded. The shadows felt cool on my skin, not cold nor bitter, like shade on a spring morning. My ears picked up a gentle zephyr, the sound of his magic as it moved. Willing my eyes to open, I reached out with my other hand to caress his darkness. It ran over my hands as a soft mist, delicate and comforting.
With a voice like silk, Raest continued. “Darkness isn’t evil or malicious or cruel. It merely exists in the places that light cannot. It might look frightening, but it isn’t something to be feared. Fear those that abuse its gift.”
“It’s nothing like I have ever seen before. It is… beautiful in its own way,” I said as I continued to play with his shadows. With a warm smile, his aura began to drift closer to me, wrapping around me in a gentle embrace. Its touch banished the frosty air from around me, and I felt warm for the first time in days.
“Darkness… can even be a comfort, a safety,” he said as he stroked my cheek with the back of his fingertips, my skin tingling at the sensation. Raest was right. At this moment in time, surrounded by his power, I had never felt safer. I brought myself closer to him, pressing my body against his chest.
“Watch the rest of the eclipse with me. Hold my hand,” I whispered to Raest. I could hear him shudder a breath as I wrapped my hand around his. I avoided the gaze of Nyx as we both turned back towards the darkened sky. The rainbow lustre, glittering below it.
All the auras burned brighter and brighter as the ephemeral night reached its peak. I watched as shimmering lily dust drifted before me. I reached out to touch the glimmers, but as they landed onto my hand, my vision began to blur. Like a knife through my chest, pain shot through me, and I crumpled into Raest’s chest.
“Sabyr?!”
My ears rang as my name was sung by those around me. I couldn’t tell exactly who was calling, and my mind began to fog. Pain arched through me again in my head and my hands. I screamed and gasped frantically for breath. Was this death? Had my sickness come to claim me? This agony was unearthly.
Words around me became nothing but murmuring, and the warmth surrounding me began to chill. Fire and ice ripped through me, and I fell further into flesh and fabric. A metal tang filled my nose, blood, it nauseated me like nothing else. I wanted to heave, to spill out my guts but at my next breath, a hunger like no other hit me. Hunger for meat, for blood, the blood I smelt. Agony gripped me once more, and I could no longer withstand it. I was cast into darkness, my vision fading into nothingness as I cried out one last word. Help.
Chapter 34
Through the darkness and shadows, I drifted. Not a word, sound or sight graced my numb body as I floated through the ether. Where was my mother? My father? Anyone? Even with everything I knew, with the gods being gone, I had hoped that I would see my mother when I died. Was this the fate of all our dead, to be lost in the void?
I closed my eyes, trying to will myself away. Back to life, back home, to anywhere that wasn’t here. A wet chill began to crawl over my toes, and I opened my eyes. The shadows were gone. Instead, there was water and a white horizon in every direction. I stood in the shallow pool, it was almost as cold as ice.
I tried to speak, to call out to anyone, but my voice rang hollow. Not a squeak nor a whisper could pass my lips, and I dropped to my knees in despair. The water rippled before me as tears fell from my cheeks. My reflection mirrored my anguish, taunting me. I clawed at it, trying to wash it away, yet it warped beneath my strikes. Its mouth turned cruel, and I watched in horror as its form changed. This was not my reflection. Her fangs were more prominent, her eyes more feral, her ears… like those of a wolf jutting from the side of her head, in place of where my half-blood ears should be. This woman was monstrous. Thunder sounded and with it came a storm of fury. It screamed and cried out my name, hundreds of voices chiming into one violent cacophony. The monster began to laugh.
“So you’re telling me that you have brought not only a human but a Worg into the family?! Thousands of years of pure Ashmere blood and you’ve managed to ruin that in a month! I bet your mother is rolling around in her grave right now.”
A woman’s voice, angry and bitter. Her hissing stung my ears, and at last, I forced my eyes open. Blurred figures stood before me, at least six, maybe more.
Raest, finally a voice I recognised, growled back at the woman. “Eed this is not the time!”
“She wasn’t happy with your brother attaching himself to that Maeyr, imagine what she’d say about a feral Worg!” Eed continued.
A softer voice pleaded at her, “Please, Eed, this is not our place.” Julis.
The words she was spitting made little sense to me.
“What?” One word I managed to rasp before sending myself into a coughing fit.
“Sabyr!” my name chimed throughout the room, the figures drawing in closer.
Water was brought to my lips, and I drank heavily, soothing my raw throat. My vision began to clear, and the hand that held the cup was no other than Raest. Ophelia was to the left of my bedside, Verona next to her. Nyx sat in a chair at the end of my bed while Esu stood next to him. Eed and Julis stood against the wall in front of me. This room was not my own, it was one of Esu’s infirmary rooms. I moved to sit up better, but my head spun.
“Careful. Let me help you,” Raest said softly as he helped me up, placing another pillow behind me. I noticed Nyx cast a glare at him.
“What, what happened to me? What is Eed talking about?” I asked in a dry voice.
Raest grimaced at me, mouthing sounds before finally spilling out words. “That is… complicated. You should get some rest and then we can talk about it.”
“It’s not that complicated,” Nyx hissed.
Raest shot daggers at him. “There is a time and a place and that time is not now. She is still ill, it can wait.”
Nyx rose from his chair and growled at Raest. “Stop mothering her! You’ve been doing it from the start. She is a grown woman, and your wife, she deserves the truth.”
Confusion and sickness hit me like a wave.
“What is he talking about?!” I managed to cough.
Raest turned to me and paled. “I was always going to tell you, but I had to be sure. I—”
The sound of splitting wood, cut his words short. The door to the room flew off its hinges, landing with a loud thud a few feet from the entry. Hands fell to weapons as a monster trudged through the wreckage, roaring with rage. His body was that of a man, but large black claws jutted from his hands and through the holes in his boots. Black fur covered his arms and parts of his face, matching his wolf-like tail and ears. Fangs, both top and bottom, were long and threatening. His green eyes, feral and maddened. He wore the same jacket as Lusin.
“You son of a bitch! You knew, and you kept her from me! I should sling your guts across the walls!” the monster roared as he charged over to Raest.
Raest didn’t even bat an eye as Nyx sighed and rose from his chair, moving to stand between Lusin and Raest.
“Hold up there, Lusin. As much as I would like to join you, I’m afraid I can’t let you do that.”
Lusin growled and tried to push Nyx out of the way. Like lightning, Nyx held a small dagger at his throat.
“Careful there, it’s sharper than it looks.”
With a heavy breath, Lusin edged closer to Nyx, he was so much taller in this form. Nyx pressed the tip of the dagger into his throat, halting his advance.
“Now. I’m going to need you to put your primal back in his box before we continue this conversation,” Nyx said with an unearthly calm.
The two held their glare for several moments before Lusin took a step back. He closed his eyes, and within seconds his claws began to retract, the extra fur vanished, and he returned to his normal form.
Nyx gave a mocking smile. “Much better,” and he strapped the dagger back onto his belt.
Lusin turned to snarl at Raest again. “You knew! Didn’t you? It’s why you tried to keep me from the wedding!”
“No. I had my suspicions, but that was all. It was only in the past week that I had evidence to support them,” Raest answered.
“You lie! You knew Rogan better than anyone, you can’t expect me to believe he wouldn’t have told you about his child?” Lusin roared.
Raest was beginning to lose his usual calm. He snapped back at Lusin. “I don’t think he even knew of her. Do you really think he would have left her in the hands of humans if he did?”
Their argument paused as Lusin mulled over Raest’s words.
“Regardless. You had your suspicions, and you still chose to violate a blood bound agreement between my people,” Lusin spat.
Raest made a face of disgust. “She was raised as a human. You have no claim to her!”
The two continued to argue as everyone else just watched. I couldn’t understand anything they were saying, and they kept speaking over my questions. I gripped my chest as a familiar pain began to well up inside me. My stomach churned, and I could hear my heartbeat in my ears. This needed to stop.
“Enough!” I managed to scream as loud as I could. “Someone explain to me what’s going on. I swear I’m not sick enough not to get out of this bed and smack the lot of you!”
Lusin’s eyes flashed to me with a frightening intensity. “You are a Worg and not just any Worg. You are Sabyr Bloodmane, daughter of Rogan Bloodmane, the previous Alpha of the Valan Worgs. And you are my betrothed.”
I sat utterly stunned.
“What? How?” I spluttered.
“Your father failed to find a mate, so your grandmother, the Alpha before your father, made a blood pact with my family. The pact dictated our two clans would be joined and our bloodlines merged. Your father married my older sister, but they failed to produce children before death. Therefore, the pact falls to you. The last Bloodmane.”
Panic filled me as my world came crashing down. I wasn’t who I thought I was. My father had died before I was even able to know him. While my mother had never uttered a word about my other half and the crushing weight it bore. My veins began to burn, and I cried out in pain, gripping the sheets.
Soft hands clasped my arm as a timid voice sounded from my side. Esu gripped me, gently stroking my arm to soothe me. “Please. This situation needs to be defused. Anything too stimulating could trigger her again.”
“Everyone out. Except Esu,” Raest commanded. He turned to Lusin. “We will talk later.”
Lusin bared his teeth at Raest, “Damn right we will, Ashmere.”
“I’ll get someone to fix the door,” Eed said as she and Julis exited, followed by Verona. Ophelia waved a gentle goodbye before mouthing the words, I’m sorry.
Nyx lingered at the end of my bed. “If you need anything or want me to stay, I will,” he said, Raest giving him daggers. I almost wanted him to, but his presence threatened the clarity I needed from Raest.
“No, come see me later.”
With a sad nod, Nyx walked out. I stared vacantly at the white wall before me, trying to figure out what to say, the first thing to ask. I wanted to scream.
I turned to Raest. “Let’s start with last night. What happened?”
“Your primal form awakened under the eclipse. You turned… violent. We managed to pacify you quickly and brought you back home,” he said.
“How did this happen?” I asked.
“The pure darkness, it's empowering for us. It brought forth your Worg side.”
“I don’t understand. Why don’t I remember anything?! Why hasn’t this happened before?” I spat.
Esu rubbed the back of one of his ears, nervously. “Perhaps I can explain?”
Raest beckoned him to continue.
“Where you grew up, Seranel, it is no place for an Illyd. Your human side would have thrived while the Worg in you withered. Now that you dwell here, the shadows have made her strong. It was why you became so sick, your body was struggling to cope with the dramatic change. Last night the Worg in you took control, while the human part was left to slumber. That is why you don’t remember and why you couldn’t control yourself.”
I looked at him bewildered. “You told me the tests didn’t come up with anything.”
“Nothing conclusive. It showed signs of change and adaptation, but I needed to follow through with further testing to confirm anything,” Esu replied.
I gritted my teeth as I faced Raest again. “You knew exactly what was going on didn’t you? And you didn’t tell me?”
Guilt marred his face. “I didn’t want to frighten you.”
“That wouldn’t have frightened me! What frightens me is being married to a man who lies to me!” I spat at him.
Raest looked away from me, he couldn’t meet my eye. Fucking coward.
I continued my barrage. “Raest. You told me you didn’t know my father!”
“I couldn’t be sure that I did Sabyr!” he protested.
I snarled at him furiously. “But you suspected! Tell me. From what moment did you suspect that this Rogan was my father?!”
He bowed his head in shame. “From the moment I saw you. You had his eyes, his hair, even his skin. Rogan was my friend, once my only friend. I would have done anything to protect him and to protect you. I was going to leave you alone, ensure that you would stay in the human lands where Lusin could never get his claws on you. But I... I fell in love with you. You were so beautiful, so strong, burning like the brightest of flames. You were and are everything I ever wanted, the queen I needed. I had to have you, you had to be mine. So I kept this from you to keep you safe. I didn’t know this would happen. I just wanted to protect you.”
Speechless. I was utterly speechless. Raest said he loved me. The first time he had ever said it. I thought I had purely been chosen for the strengths I had shown in comparison to my sisters. Not this. I certainly didn’t return the sentiment.
I eyed him coldly, “I don’t need protecting. I need the truth.”
Pain filled his eyes, and his lips parted to speak, but not a single word was ushered.
“Did everyone see? Does all of Naedis know that you’ve taken a monster for a queen?” I asked him.
“You're not a monster!” Raest protested.
“That isn’t answering my question!”
“No. Well. We contained it as best we could. Esu shrouded the stage with a mist as soon as he realised something was off.” His jaw tightened. “Unfortunately, a few of the nobles saw… everything. But they’ve been sworn to secrecy.”
I rolled my eyes. “Well, that’s good to know. I’m sure they will take that secret to the grave. It’s not like nobles live for gossip or anything.” I sighed and pinched the bridge of my nose. “What about everyone else? That mist must have been alarming to the p
opulous.”
Esu scratched his head nervously. “We informed everyone that there was an alcohol-fuelled brawl between some of the nobility.”
I blinked at him in disbelief. Ancient beings and they can’t come up with a better excuse than that?!
“Brilliant! You’ve clearly covered everything!” I spat, rubbing my brow as my irritation simmered. “Esu. Will this keep happening?”
He looked at me with such sorrow and pity. I didn’t need his pity.
“I’m sorry Lady Nightsong, but yes,” he began. “Once a primal form has awakened, there is no going back. Normally a Worg would have gone through this change by their sixteenth year and would have had the training to master their form. You, however, are significantly late. It is why your first change was so violent. You must be careful with your emotions, or a shift can be brought on at any time. We will organise an appropriate teacher for you.”
I laughed. “Lusin then?”
“Never,” Raest growled.
I chuckled lightly at his reaction, he deserved a little torment.
“This blood pact?” I frowned.
“Think no more of it. You are my wife. Lusin will never be able to garner support for it,” he said with confidence grazing on the side of arrogance. Somehow it made me feel angrier.
“Is there anything else you’re not telling me?”
“No. Nothing and I promise, I won’t ever hold anything back again,” he affirmed.
“This can never work if you keep secrets from me. Do you understand that?”
He reached over and clasped my hand. I almost cringed.
“Yes, Sabyr. I am sorry. My love.”
I didn’t expect the apology, and I didn’t want him to call me that. Last night there had been progress. It had almost felt like it was just us standing together under the eclipse. But now there was all this, so many secrets and lies. My resentment was stronger than ever, and the distance between the two of us, immense.