When he’d walked through the city of his birth, nearly unrecognizable, each unsteady step he took had him shifting from werewolf to man. By the time he’d reached the square, as naked as the day he had come into the world, Zev had drawn two conclusions.
One, he was the only person left in Wild Moor and the surrounding towns.
Two, Oriana hadn’t spared him. She’d created his worst nightmare, bringing to life his greatest fear. He’d felt it after Alarick had left his apartment. The emotion doubled when he’d gone to his father’s home, knowing Io had left with Lita but needing to see for himself. The feeling had ebbed, when the Muracos had appeared in Wild Moor. But the discomforting sensation returned in triplicate, intensifying each time he reached another abandoned suburb.
No pack. No community. Alone.
The worst fate for a werewolf.
May 7, 2243
Steelcross Realm
Steel Haven Medical Center
“I refuse.”
“Yet you’re here.”
“Against my will.”
Oriana swept her gaze over Kalinda. Hair pulled taut in a severe bun, black blouse and slacks crisp to the point of sharpness, and lips painted red but set in a frown, Kalinda appeared nothing short of a disgruntled teacher on her way to the funeral of a student she murdered.
“Against your will? Look who’s being dramatic today. I’m the one in a hospital bed, not you.”
Kalinda’s frown deepened, and she stepped closer to Oriana’s bed, arms crossing over her chest. “I’m here because your healer called me. She said I’m your next of kin, which I damn well know. Then she mentioned something about, if I wasn’t available to assist with the procedure, that you had given her permission to make the request of Lita of Ironmere.”
“No need to spit Lita’s name. She’s my mother-in-law, after all, and I know the city of her birth.”
“You’re not her daughter. You’re mine. She has no place here.”
Fidgeting with the white covers, more to annoy her mother than to arrange them to her liking, Oriana ignored Kalinda, an act of passive-aggressiveness that did nothing to dull Oriana’s anger and hurt.
“Stop that.” Yanking the covers out of Oriana’s hand, Kalinda pulled them up to her waist, the head of her medical bed adjusted to the perfect angle. “You’re not sick. You shouldn’t even be here.”
As usual, her mother was wrong. Oriana felt sick to her soul.
“I’m going to have a blood transfusion.”
“So Dr. Shams informed me. Do not do this. You know what happened to my mother.”
Real pain entered Kalinda’s eyes--the pain of having lost her parents and the pain of possibly losing her daughter. Until a week ago, Oriana would’ve never contemplated using her mother’s love and grief against her—and act of cruel insensitivity unbecoming of a daughter and of a Matriarch.
But one act of cruelty deserved another.
“As you’ve noticed, I’m taking precautions Grandmother did not.” Oriana smiled and clapped her hands, as if they weren’t speaking of a life-and-death procedure. “This room is, more or less, fire resistant. The sprinklers are up to code, so that’s a plus.”
“This isn’t a joking matter.”
“Dr. Shams will be here, which is more than Grandmother had. Then there’s you. The second strongest witch in the realms.”
If Kalinda’s eyebrow arched any higher, it would be in her hairline.
“You’re in rare form. Is today the day?”
“What do you mean?”
Kalinda glanced around, found a chair in the corner of the room and pulled it beside Oriana’s bed. Sitting with legs crossed, she observed Oriana with something akin to a snake sizing up its next meal.
Oriana sat up in bed, swinging her legs over the edge, and returning Kalinda’s assessing glare. “Yes, today is the day.”
“Fine.”
She had no idea what that meant but she dove, headfirst, off the cliff. No net. No magic. Just a free fall that could break every bone in her body, the agony of the landing less excruciating than the broken heart she carried.
“How about this, Mother. I’ll tell you exactly how I’ve chosen to respond to what you’ve done, and you can stop the charade.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking ab—”
“Stop lying to me!” Unbidden, Oriana’s Ravagers of the Lost cannons formed. She jumped from the bed. “No more lies. You know what?” Oriana rounded on Kalinda, who stared up at her with such controlled posturing, a part of her snapped.
Oriana drew her weapons upward, pointing both at her mother. She had never seen a star die but she imagined the astrological phenomenon looked very much like Kalinda’s eyes—the fuel of her core running out, her star contracting, the layers expanding, ejecting critical messages sent to her brain, turning them over into a white dwarf of disbelief then finally into a black dwarf of stunned silence.
A dying star. A mother’s shattered world.
Oriana had prepared for this confrontation, including what she’d say and how she’d react when Kalinda pretended, lied, and outright dismissed her accusations. She’d rehearsed everything, but not this. Not the soul-stealing, heart-wrenching anger that had come over her when Kalinda did exactly what Oriana knew she would.
Not only anger but a bone-deep disappointment. After all they’d been through and after all Kalinda had done, she still couldn’t look Oriana in the face and speak the truth. So, there Oriana stood, weapons she’d used to kill criminals pointed at the last person she’d ever want to hurt but who had brought pain to so many.
“Matriarch Kalinda of Irongarde City, you have been found guilty of aiding and abetting in the escape of one thousand three hundred forty-five Muraco, of the murder of Bhavari of Cooper Vale, and of the willful destruction of Janus Nether—all acts punishable by death. As Matriarch of Steelcross, I hereby sentence you to death by my hand.”
Said hands threatened to tremble, but Oriana held them steady. No matter how much her words felt like flesh dipped in scalding oil, or how the sight of her mother’s eyes flooding with tears and shoulders that had only ever been erect, slumped, Oriana would not back down. Not this time. The sun and moon above, not this time.
“You’d kill me? The woman who gave you life? Raised you? Loved and cared for you? You would take my life?”
“It’s the law. You forgot to add that you taught me to follow and uphold the law. As Matriarch and Crimson Hunter, I’m charged with doing both.”
Oriana also cried. Cried for the little girl who thought her mother could do no wrong and cried for the young woman who refused to accept, too late, when she had. Who was the greater criminal then? The Matriarch whose schemes ended lives or the Matriarch whose gullibility made her a pawn?
With a quick movement, Oriana jerked her left cannon away from Kalinda’s chest and raised it to her own head.
“Noooo, Oriana. Don’t. Don’t.”
“We’re both guilty. I didn’t see, although I should’ve. I let you point me in any direction, and I went. I followed orders, like a good little witch. I trusted you more than I trusted myself.” Oriana’s chest seized with pain, with guilt, and with a shame sharper than a werewolf’s fangs. “I’ve killed witches and werewolves in your name, as Crimson Hunter of Earth Rift. I claimed their lives with a righteous arrogance.”
“They broke realm law.”
“So did you,” Oriana yelled, pressing the barrel of the right cannon to Kalinda’s chest. “So. Did. You,” she repeated, her tone a soft contrast to her outburst of a second ago. “You may continue to lie to me and to everyone else, but you know the truth. You know you’re guilty of breaking realm laws, although you feel justified in your actions. You always do. But how does it feel, Mother, to have the Crimson Hunter’s chosen weapon pointed at you? To know I am within my legal right to end your life? Your judge and executioner. How does it feel?”
Oriana pushed magic through both cannons. This wasn’t what she’d planned
, wasn’t how she wanted to die. Keira didn’t deserve to grow up knowing her mother killed her grandmother and herself. She wouldn’t understand, regardless of her age.
Kalinda wept, shoulders shaking and lips quivering. Her mother was a beautiful woman but an ugly crier. Perhaps that explained why she’d never seen her cry before. More likely, Kalinda removed her mask only when she was alone, ensconced in her suite where no one could witness the vulnerable witch who resided inside the hard as iron Matriarch.
“I love you, Oriana.”
“I know, and it’s an awful, brutal love that stifles and deceives. You also love Earth Rift but to the point of violent adherence to a matriarchal system that enslaves us all. I honestly don’t think you believe you did anything wrong. You wanted me to co-rule, but you had no idea what that would look like in reality, especially when my ideas diverged from yours.”
Oriana powered-down her cannons, letting her arms fall and shifting back to normal. Despite Kalinda’s crimes, Oriana couldn’t kill her mother. She wasn’t above scaring the shit of her, though, or . . .
“You have a month to put your affairs in order.”
“W-what do you mean?”
Snatching a tissue from a box on the table beside her bed, Oriana wiped her face before returning to the bed. She was exhausted, and she hadn’t even gone through with the blood transfusion.
“I could have you imprisoned for the rest of your life.”
“You wouldn’t dare. I’m Matriarch of—”
“One month to get your affairs in order. That’s how long you have to make the transition from Matriarch Kalinda to simply Kalinda of Irongarde.”
Kalinda shot from the chair, tumbling it backward. “You can’t. You can’t. I’m Matriarch.”
Settling under the covers, Oriana pulled them to her waist. “No, you’re a criminal I’ve decided to pardon. You don’t deserve my kindness. You’ve never appreciated it before, perhaps you will now. Even if you don’t, I won’t have the former Matriarch of Irongarde carted off to prison like the common criminal she is.”
“Oriana, you cannot do this to me.”
“It’s already done. You will step down from the Matriarchy. Spin whatever tale you wish. I don’t care, as long as you remove yourself from the government.”
Oriana waited for Kalinda’s melancholic visage to morph into sharp lines of fury. But it didn’t. She simply stared at Oriana, awaiting the rest of her fate.
She didn’t keep her waiting.
“You’ll also remove yourself from Iron Spire.”
That had Kalinda stumbling backward, hand going to her chest and over her heart.
Oriana hated every bit of this. Speaking the words in front of her mirror, she hadn’t felt the magnitude of their weight. But, once spoken to Kalinda, the full impact was knife wounds to Kalinda’s heart. Her mother’s punishment, like Zev’s, had been chosen well.
Oriana had taken no more pleasure in torturing her brother-in-law than she did in ripping everything away from Kalinda that she valued and loved.
“Iron Spire is my home. You can’t. Where will I go?”
“Janus Nether was the black werewolves’ home, but you didn’t hesitate to take it away from them.” Oriana steeled herself for the truly hard part of her sentence. “Kalinda of Irongarde City, as of one month from today, you are expelled from Irongarde Realm and excluded from residing in or visiting Steelcross Realm.”
Unable to watch her mother’s mental disintegration, Oriana closed her eyes, crying along with Kalinda.
Kalinda had lived her entire sixty years in Iron Spire and Irongarde Realm. She’d spent the last few decades as Matriarch of Irongarde. So much of her identity stemmed from being a Matriarch descended from the first Matriarch of Earth Rift. If Oriana’s punishment had ended there, Kalinda would’ve licked her wounds, settled into retirement and moved on with her life, privileged and unrepentant.
As Crimson Hunter, Oriana had blood on her hands that could never be washed away. She’d have to live with each life she’d taken, even though laws of Earth Rift had supported each mortal punishment. But no law on this planet or any other would compel Oriana to claim her mother’s life, feeding Kalinda’s doomed soul to her Ravagers of the Lost cannons.
Kalinda’s crimes meant she’d forfeited her life, but there was more than one way, other than physical death, to kill someone.
Oriana opened her eyes at the sound of a body hitting the floor. Every instinct told her to run to her mother’s side, to help her to her feet and into the chair. Her muscles ached from forcing them not to move. Oriana’s mind railed against doing nothing, of impassively watching a proud witch brought low by her machinations.
But she couldn’t go to her, couldn’t offer her mother comfort. Her last decree, the removal of Kalinda from Irongarde Realm and her exclusion from Steelcross had, effectively, taken away what mattered most to Kalinda—her family.
It hurt, not just Kalinda but Oriana. Whether Kalinda understood or not, her sentence was also Oriana’s punishment. She loved her mother. Oriana always would. But she couldn’t trust her. Not with Earth Rift, and certainly not with Keira.
Grandmother, mother, daughter, three generations of Blood of the Sun witches—a crimson legacy born of fear, misunderstandings, and metal. Witches and werewolves had feasted too long on all three, nearly destroying themselves. It was time to introduce something new into the equation—hope.
Oriana slid from the bed and onto the floor, cradling her weeping mother in her arms. Kalinda clung to Oriana, and she held her just as fiercely.
They stayed intertwined, for long minutes, Oriana no more ready to end their bond than Kalinda.
“I love you.”
“I know, and I love you, Mother.”
Kalinda’s hand moved to Oriana’s face, wiping away her tears and kissing her cheeks. “In my final act as Matriarch of Irongarde and as Mother to Matriarch Oriana of Steelcross, I’ll lend you my magic and support during your blood transfusion. I may have lost you, but I will not permit you to die.”
That was good because Oriana didn’t want to die. She had too much to live for, and even more for which she needed to redeem. In time, she’d forgive Kalinda, but her mother would have to travel her own path of redemption if it was to be found at all.
“I’ll have the journals I’ve kept from you delivered to Steelrise.”
“Thank you.”
Oriana kissed her mother’s cheek, knowing, by month’s end, they’d never be like this again. She’d mourn the loss of Kalinda in her life but not as much as she would grieve for the woman who’d sacrificed her morality to perpetuate a flawed system she was tasked with preserving long before she’d taken her first breaths of life.
It wasn’t fair.
It wasn’t right.
But Kalinda could’ve done better. Much, much better. And so could Oriana. So would Oriana.
Blood of the Sun Decree #190
June 1, 2240
By Matriarchal decree, Blood of the Sun Decree #3 is null and void. Witches are no longer mandated to complete the Rite of Endometal Fusion.
Oriana, Matriarch of Earth Rift
Hunger of the Hopeful
Hiding in plain sight, as the full-humans like to say. I’ve searched for decades to unearth the truth of the war between witches and werewolves. It was here all along, one of the rare bits of pre-matriarchy history Alba didn’t destroy. Admittedly, I understand Alba’s motivations. I can’t imagine what life was like for witches during Alba’s time. Not just the werewolf threat, although that had to have been terrifying, but the lack of control over your witch magic.
I wonder how the witches figured it out. At what point did they realize they could not only insert liquid metal into their bodies and survive but that the metal could be used to manage their magic. I’ve also heard full-humans say that necessity is the mother of invention. I suppose, for my witch ancestors, that proverb proved to be true.
The War of Eternal Hunger. If it weren’t
so sad, I would laugh. Instead, I’ve shed a fair amount of tears. I once asked Mother how witches controlled their magic before the institutionalization of the Rite of Endometal Fusion. She’d not only had no answer, she also had never contemplated the question. Mother had, however, been curious as to why I raised the issue but had just as quickly dismissed the subject.
The question remained, waiting to be answered and finally laid to rest. The War of Eternal Hunger. I just had to write the title of the war again because, armed with my new insight, I now know it wasn’t a war title at all, but the name given to the witches victory over their werewolf oppressors.
I can now lay my question to rest because the way witches controlled their magic was to reduce the natural build up in their bodies through expulsion. They literally fed werewolves their excess magic, which not only helped them to control their magic but quenched werewolves’ hunger for it. But when witches rebelled against werewolves, they cut off access to their magic. Thereby creating an eternal hunger within werewolves witches refused to sate.
Witches and werewolves balance each other, as much as we are each other’s foils. We were made for each other, both having the ability to feed the need of the other. Yet, we’ve been locked in a battle neither side can ever truly win.
I’ve written all my thoughts down for you, Kalinda, with the hope you’ll never need to read my journals. If I don’t survive tomorrows experiment, know that I love you and your father. I ask that you not close your heart and mind to what I’ve done and learned. I ask that you put aside your grief and finish my life’s work.
Don’t allow your disappointment in me for choosing this fate over the safety of doing nothing, blind you to the great need for change. Please, Kalinda, do not punish our people for my mistakes. They deserve a Matriarch who will work to find the balance between witches and werewolves. It won’t happen during your lifetime, perhaps not even during the next, but I have faith that, with the right leadership the sun and the moon will align in harmony.
Promise Forever: Fairy Tales with a Modern Twist Page 54
