"Don't be stupid, Astri, you cannot risk your life for that fool. He isn't worth it," says the loud, raspy voice that I don't recognise. Somehow I manage to turn around and face him, still trying to fight him, but he’s so much larger than me and his grip is strong.
It's a man, but he isn't local. He has ashy blond hair, with wide, broad shoulders and crystal blue eyes, and there’s something familiar about his features, but I'm currently too freaked to figure out what it is.
"I'll let you go, but you have to be smart, and have to promise that you won't scream. Trust me, you don't want to be caught spying on the Ming, otherwise we’ll both be as good as dead," the shifter says and I'm already planning to kick his arse once he lets go of me.
Several minutes drag by and I stare at him filled with fury, breathing hard, while trying to figure out which of his bones I should break first.
He finally takes his hand away, and I want to scream, but waves of calm energy are sliding through my body. The stranger’s doing something to me, his energy connects with my inner beast. I back away to the wall, staring at him with my eyes wide open and not understanding what the hell is going on with me. He's older, maybe in his late fifties, and only now I notice the shades of grey hair on his sides.
"Who the hell are you? And how did you even know that I was here," I ask, realising that I dropped my knives somewhere, so now I can't even defend myself. On top of that, Jorgen’s already inside the temple, and I have no idea what those humans are going to do to him.
"It's a long story to be honest. I recognised your invisibility spell because of our connection, so I followed you here," he says and my stomach makes a flip, because even his voice sounds similar. I shake my head, and drag my hand over my deformed cheek.
"Who are you?" I ask in a whisper. I have no doubt that this stranger is a shifter, but not a mage. I try to dig into my memory to figure out if we’ve met before, but my mind seems blank. This whole thing seems spooky and he’s staring at me like he knows me.
"My name is Edvard and I'm your uncle, Astri. I was the one that forced your aunt and uncle to take care of you after Ruscal thought you were dead," the shifter says, staring at me intensely.
His words aren't getting to me, and I keep shaking my head, telling myself that I can't believe his lies. This is impossible, he can't be my uncle; he can't be another Wyvern. Every member of my family is supposed to be dead.
I laugh, acting like I’ve lost my mind. Only yesterday, I was in Jorgen's castle, planning this crazy trip and not even thinking that anything could go wrong. Now I'm standing in front of my uncle, another member of my family. This is just too crazy.
"No, you can't be, you're lying to me. It's been eleven years and how did you even know how to find me?" I mumble, trying to breathe, but I can't. Panic slows down my heartbeat and I feel like the walls are starting to close down all around me. What's happening to me, am I going crazy?
"Just calm down and take a deep breath. I can explain everything if you give me a chance," he says and I keep shaking my head. Every part of me refuses to believe him, but the other part keeps screaming that finally, after so many years of being alone and unwanted, I have a real Wyvern shifter right in front of me.
"Impossible," I gasp.
"Yeah, I thought that you may react like that, but since you revealed your true identity to everyone in the Eastern World, I don't need to keep hiding anymore," he tells me, and I keep staring at him like he’s speaking a different language. This shifter just appeared out of nowhere, and now he’s telling me that we’re related. "I knew you would try to rescue the duke. It's a suicide mission and I strongly advise you against it."
"What? Why, no. If I don’t get him out of here, these humans are going to kill him," I say pacing around, ready to throw some sort of spell on my alleged uncle, but then decide against it. He walks up to me and I back away further against the wall, trying to conceal my energy. My mind isn’t functioning right, the shifter–everything about him is reminding me of a Wyvern. I have never in my life seen another Wyvern shifter, other than my parents, and I'm too shocked to start thinking straight.
Edvard frowns and studies me for a few moments, and I feel so tormented. He doesn't know Jorgen, he has no idea what's happened to him.
"You cannot trust the Duke of Rivenna. His brother knows about you now and he’s already tracking you down," he says, sounding angry.
"Jorgen didn't know what happened to me eleven years ago when Ruscal murdered my parents. He's a good man and I won't leave him. Those warriors are savages and he’s vulnerable," I say, knowing that my uncle doesn't understand anything, he has no idea that Jorgen’s gone through cutting of the mage ritual.
"So it's true then? My niece is in love with the enemy, the shifter who’s part of the Wyvern prophecy," he asks me looking disgusted, and I have no clue why he’s mentioning some kind of prophecy. None of this makes any sense, and I need some space. I need to get out of here in order to come up with a plan.
"Astri, you must listen to me. He’s not your friend, he’s the enemy. You're going to be better off without him," Edvard says.
I refuse to listen to him, and I can't abandon Jorgen right now. There’s no way that’s happening.
"I'm sorry but you show up here out of the blue, claiming to be my uncle. You have no idea what I’ve been through lately and surely I'm not going to let Jorgen die. We travelled all the way to the Asian World for a reason," I shout, losing control. We’re wasting too much valuable time talking and I need to get inside that temple.
"You're right, I should’ve met with you much sooner, but things got complicated. I only arrived in Rivenna a few days ago and then I saw you shifting, so I followed you all the way here, hoping that at some point, we could talk. Astri, please don't be blind, the duke doesn't have any feelings for you. He’s been using you this entire time."
"I don't believe it. You don't know anything about him. Besides, I just can't deal with this right now. Are you going to help get him out or not?" I ask, and then silence falls between us. I'm literarily shaking with fury, thinking, how dare he judge me? He doesn't know me and he gave me away to my aunt and uncle when I was only ten years old.
Frustration envelops Edvard’s features, and he keeps glancing from me to the window like he’s trying to figure out what to do.
Tension rolls through my entire body and I hate that I'm wasting time, not even knowing what’s happening to Jorgen now. This whole thing seems awkward on a painful level.
"Obviously you're too stubborn, just like your mother and you won't listen, so yes. I will help you," he says, as waves of anger cross over this features. "But we need to wait until the sun goes down. The guards inside the temple are armed and General Ming hates shifters. I’ve been in this part of the Asian World for almost ten years now, and even after a hundred years, the locals are still stuck in their old ways. They’re afraid, so afraid of us, that they’re willing to use violence against us. They won't kill him just yet, not until they find out everything that they want to know."
The outbuilding that we’re in isn't very big. I spot a few garden tools in the corner and some ceramic dishes. Edvard was able to sneak by the locals without attracting any attention to himself, but he must have used some kind of spell. Maybe I'm completely stupid to trust him, but he's a true Wyvern. I never thought that I’d meet someone from my clan. It seems that I’ve been right about Ruscal, there’s a reason why he wanted to kill me all those years ago.
"Tell me more about this prophecy and what you were thinking, leaving me with Beatrice and Richard?" I ask, not even trying not to sound bitter about his decisions. For a long eleven years I’ve lived, convinced that members of my own family didn't want me. It wasn't easy, but I managed to pull through.
"During the Great War a Warlock revealed the prophecy to the head of the Ryer Clan. The prophecy indicated that Wyverns were supposed to rise above the others, and bring destruction and chaos into the entire Eastern World, you know the usual blad
y blahs nonsense. This whole prophecy has been told so many times that it's hard to figure out if half of it wasn’t made up. The bottom line is, that other shifters started to believe that we were the reason that the Great War started in the first place, so they started killing us, claiming that they were protecting the world," Edvard says, dragging his hand through his hair in obvious frustration.
I stare at him, trying to digest the whole unbelievable story. Ruscal seems like the type of shifter who would believe in this sort of thing, so I shouldn't even be surprised.
"And that's why Ruscal tried to kill me, because he thought that I was the last Wyvern left, that there wasn't anyone else?"
"Yes, something like that. Ruscal was brought up by someone who hated our clan, and he was indoctrinated from an early age to hate us. He tracked your parents down, finding them in Rivenna, and then murdered them. And if you believe that Jorgen is on your side, then you're wrong. The Lindworm clan cannot be trusted. Every member of their family believes in this prophecy. They’re the reason that I’ve been hiding all these years."
Chapter Eight
The painful truth.
"I took part in Jorgen’s contest to become his assistant, because I believed that he was the one who scarred me and killed my parents. I only recently found out that he had a twin brother. It's hard to believe that he knew about this prophecy," I say thinking about all the time that I’ve spent with Jorgen. Edvard’s wrong about him, but Ruscal’s obsession with Wyvern's makes sense. For years, he believed that he killed the last one of us until he started hearing things about me in the papers. I kept having visions of the past, and those visions always reflected both past and present. My aunt and uncle kept telling me that my parents died in car accident, but they were all lies. I saw the murderer in one of those visions, but for years I didn't know his identity. Then a day before the contest was announced, I was finally able to recognise him as the Duke of Rivenna."
Edvard looks a little shocked and I realise that my visions unfolded all of these unfortunate chain of events. At the same time, I'm grateful that I discovered the identity of my parents’ killer, because it motivated me to stand up to my aunt and uncle, and to actually be free of them once and for all.
"I can't be wrong about Jorgen, Astri. I know that his mother, Lorena, went into labour when Hans was away. She gave birth to twins. This story seems slightly complicated, and I don't know the full details, but apparently Lorena's aunt showed up in the castle to bless the boys the same night. She was a Warlock witch, filled with extraordinary power. Something happened that night and the Warlock left the castle with one of the boys, and you're guessing right; she took Ruscal. A few days later, Hans returned to his wife. She was in a bad state, hemorrhaging, and she passed away the next day. He had no idea that he had two sons, no one knew that she would have twins. The Warlock witch must have put a spell on the staff to make sure that no one would tell Hans what happened. Jorgen grew up without knowing that he had a brother. Years later, Ruscal showed up in the castle unexpectedly, claiming that he was the legitimate ruler of Rivenna. The rumours started spreading and people began saying that Hans asked the Warlock to take Rascal away, apparently he was afraid that he was evil," Edvard explains and I'm shaking my head, knowing that Hans would have never done something so terrible. He was a good ruler, a shifter with huge heart. Even my parents respected him, so I'm sure people made this rumour up.
Jorgen hadn’t told me any of this and maybe he just wasn't ready. Either way, I didn't press him to talk about his brother. Ruscal escaped when Emilia interfered and I wasn't ready to ask any questions at the time. Jetli was hurt and we had no idea if she was going to make it. She was all I could think about anyway.
"Well that explains a lot. Jorgen and Ruscal are so similar. My visions were never wrong, so I set my plan into motion. I hated him even after he healed me, and when he was kind and helpful," I tell him, still pacing around and trying to put together missing pieces of that story.
"As I said before, I don't know how much of it is the truth, but the bottom line is that Ruscal was separated from his brother at birth. Who knows why the Warlock witch took him away, maybe she believed that he was scarred. I have no idea, the point is that fifteen years later, he started killing Wyverns. He believed in the prophecy and simply followed the vision of a mage who brought him up. Sergiej was from the Yourie Clan of shifters and somehow Ruscal ended up living with him. The mage poisoned him with his own hatred for Wyverns.
Then you were born and your parents were afraid for your safety. They travelled around the Eastern World, trying to find shelter, a place where they didn't have to live in fear. Ruscal was murdering Wyverns and no one was doing a damn thing about stopping him. It was terrible, crazy times, everyone was afraid and no one knew who they could trust," Edvard continues with his story, and his eyes are enormous, like he is reliving those times all over again. "And all because of some stupid prophecy, that might not even be true.
Your parents found a safe place in Rivenna and then lived there for years; they believed that Hans would protect them from his own son. I have no idea what happened or who betrayed them, but Ruscal managed to track them down."
I'm shaking with anger, thinking about the past and my parents. They must have been really scared, while Ruscal was out there, murdering innocent shifters.
"How did he get away with all those murders? Why wasn't he brought to justice?" I ask, thinking that this has gone on for far too long.
"He made a deal with royal mages and other important shifters. Everyone in the Eastern World was too afraid to stand up to him. He had so many connections, but things started changing when Hans challenged him, trying to convince others to put him in front of a tribunal to answer for his crimes. Things started happening and Ruscal was forced to seek asylum in the Asian World.
Minevra, your mother, was still afraid for your safety and your parents had been moving around for years. Ruscal murdered my wife, and when I found out that he was travelling to Rivenna, I knew that I had to stop him from committing yet another terrible crime. Unfortunately, I arrived too late. Their house had been burned down and you were missing. Humans and shifters were everywhere and no one knew what happened. I started looking for you everywhere. It was total chaos, and I figured out that you were hiding somewhere. You were only ten at the time, so you weren't a little child anymore.
I tracked you down to an outbuilding near the castle. Ruscal must have followed you there after he killed your parents. Things progressed fast, and I think that evening your own fire magic turned against you, and you nearly lost your life. In a way, that blowback spell saved your life, because Ruscal was convinced that you were dead; that he had killed the last Wyvern shifter. Then I found you in that chamber and I was sure that you weren't going to make it. Astri, I couldn't sense your pulse and your face was severely damaged. I’ve been blaming myself for years after that, trying to understand what went wrong that day. In the end, I was too afraid to take you to the healers in case Ruscal was planning to come back. That night, I brought you straight to the human hospital, then called your aunt Beatrice, forcing her to take care of you. She was your mother's cousin, and I knew that you would be safer with her."
I listen to him, as tears slowly move down my face. I suddenly remember everything, remember him leaning over me in the chamber. Ruscal showed up in Rivenna, because he found out that my parents were hiding in the city. Edvard and I are the last Wyverns left in the world. This feels so surreal.
"What about justice? We have to do something, we have to find and kill him," I say, clenching my fists. I’ve been waiting too long to get revenge, to get justice for what happened to my parents. Ruscal went on a crusade and no one ever stopped him, this doesn't sound fair.”
"Hans tried to imprison him, but Ruscal was protected by Sergiej; one of the most powerful mages in the Western World. Other leaders were too afraid to interfere, they were all afraid that Sergiej would attack them. I knew that you were still in dang
er, but as long as Richard and Beatrice cared for you, Ruscal had no clue that you were alive. Trust me, it was hard to leave you with them, but I had a daughter who I left in the Asian World myself. A little girl that no one knew about, not even Ruscal," Edvard keeps explaining and my jaw drops.
"What? You have a daughter? That's means that there’s another Wyvern alive?" I ask. Then Edvard face twists in pain, and I'm scared that I’ll never have a chance to meet her.
"Yes, Aria is about your age but she doesn't remember anything from her past. She's half human and right now, believe it or not she’s inside the temple where your beloved Jorgen vanished just a moment ago," Edvard explains, sounding very emotional and looking towards the small window. My jaw drops as I follow his gaze. I get it, I understand how much he had to sacrifice in order to keep me alive, but Ruscal has to pay for everything. He has to be brought to justice. Death is too good for him, even if he is Jorgen's twin brother. "I'm sorry, Astri, but I didn't know how else to keep you safe. Richard and Beatrice weren't good people, but I thought that at least you were going to live a normal life with them."
"No they weren't good, but you were right. I had roof over my head and I was safe with them for eleven years. I was always very careful, so no one knew that I was a Wyvern. Things started changing when I signed up to participate in Jorgen's contest. I thought that if I got close to the duke I could make him pay for what he did to my parents."
"Ruscal must have been furious when he found out that there was another Wyvern right under his father's nose. He couldn't return to Rivenna, because he knew he would be arrested and sentenced to death," Edvard explains.
Wyvern's Passion (Mage Chronicles Book 3) Page 6
