Unspoken

by Celia Mcmahon

  This fury was not of this world. I wasn’t a girl. I wasn’t even human anymore.

  I was burning hatred incarnate.

  Distantly, something perked my ears. I felt a presence that was cruel and suffocating. I felt the others that were like me.

  The gray clouds parted as if they sky was tearing itself open. From it came a wind so strong it knocked people off their feet. Then came the rain, torrential and blinding.

  The beat of war drums was heard over the sound of the rain. Someone called to take up arms. From somewhere in the distance came screams. It was then that I realized the king had made a run for it.

  Fray nestled his massive head into mine. “We have to go.”

  I laughed softly, a deep guttural sound. “Not without his blood on my tongue.”

  I sprang from the stage and into the city streets.

  Lightning lit the sky. A crack of thunder followed and buried my howls as I lunged toward my father. But the crowd was too thick, too confused. He was lost in an instant.

  “To arms!” someone called.

  Instantly, I whirled toward the voice, a soldier, but they were no longer paying any attention to me and Fray. We stood in the center of the square and stared at the sky as it darkened above us. A brave soldier nocked an arrow toward Fray, but he swatted it away and roared until the man fled.

  “They’re here,” he said. “In the city.”

  “How many Gwylis?” I asked, still searching the wailing crowds for my father. I knew he wouldn’t confront me. No. He would no longer come to me. I’d have to go to him.

  “Enough,” Fray said. “Paired with the Peek Islands, they are a formidable opponent, Voiceless or not.”

  A shout from behind us was our only warning as half a dozen Mirosian soldiers decided to try their luck. Did they still think that we were the greatest threat in Stormwall?

  I laughed, and it came out more like a vicious growl. They came at us. Fray leapt to defend me as I was still clumsy in my wolf form and nearly fell on my own face attempting to swipe the men with my massive paw. I wanted to laugh at the situation. If Lulu were here, I was sure she’d have fodder for years.

  Lightning lit the sky again, a shock of white in the dark. The cracking boom of thunder drowned out the sounds of steel clashing against ivory teeth. Death and fury. I did not want to kill these men; they were not the enemy. I called out more than once for them to stand down, but they only saw what I was. Not who I was. The world spun around me—screaming crowds, orders from soldiers who had not yet realized the extent of this battle, and Fray, jaw open and snarling.

  By now, most of the spectators had dispersed, but a few remained. A little girl stood wide-eyed not a few feet from where Fray and I made our stand. But there was no fear in her eyes. There was wonder. An older boy, her brother perhaps, yanked her back, but she kept her eyes on me. Be brave, little girl. Do not let them conquer you.

  I breathed in. Bolts of jagged lightning reached the earth, shocking me from my place. I settled onto my hind legs, feeling strangely human as I used my two front paws to knock away the last of the pesky Mirosian soldiers.

  But the battle was far from over.

  Following Fray’s lead, we fumbled atop of stack of crates, knocking them over with a crash behind us, and managed to gain high ground atop one of Stormwall’s pubs. The roof felt as though it would cave at any moment.

  “There,” Fray said, indicating with a sweep of his head.

  Indeed, dozens of Peek soldiers standing shoulder to shoulder, swelled from the tree-line just beyond the city gates. We watched as the dozens became hundreds, and then I decided that it was time to stop counting. The moment they met with some of the unarmed townspeople, I knew this battle would be mine.

  I leapt from the rooftop and sprinted through the city gates, shouting at anyone who would listen. The blood pounded in my ears. This magic inside me felt hot as coal, making my blood boil. I feared for what would happen if it came loose. Would it become the barrier I created for Fray or something more menacing?

  The soldiers struck down anyone who came near. They stood in perfect lines with shining armor bearing the black and silver that marked their land. But as they marched, they began to part, allowing a group of men through. These were not wearing armor and carried various weapons. I drew out air from my nostrils. Voiceless.

  For a moment, I stalled in my movements. I wanted so badly to see them as monsters, but I knew deep down that I would never see them as anything but human. Misguided maybe, but not my enemy. Not so much anymore.

  Once I engaged the Peek soldiers, I felt the power reach my core. My teeth were met by swords. I let my own rage guide me through the fumbling of my feet and jaws. I had never fought with a human, and I had never intended to, but there was something thrilling about the taste of their blood that made my entire body shake with the thrill.

  I continued to barrel through the men blindly. Some, if not most, fled in fear. Those who stayed fought ardently, maybe out of fear or bravery. Or both. I felt pain in the places they struck me, but it wasn’t enough to bring me down. Fray was beside me and fought as though we were tethered by a rope. I mimicked his movements and obeyed when he told me to retreat. I knew this was a battle I could not win. Not this way. We were outnumbered, and soon enough, they’d realize that.

  I treaded on Fray’s heels away from the men, and watched helplessly as Mirosian soldiers approached, marching from the castle. Lightning spread across the sky followed by the long howl of a wolf. A prickle of fear ran through me.

  “Their Voiceless allies are not what they have to fear,” Fray said. “The wolf, the one you fought in the woods—he is the only one left alive who can change. If we bring him down, your people may have a chance.”

  I glanced at Fray. “What would I be if I left them now?” I asked, thinking of the townspeople fleeing for their lives. People like Pyrus, who could not defend themselves. What would I be if we abandoned them now?

  I had to at least try.

  We fled the initial battle there at the gates of the city and made our way to the castle along the King’s Road. Despite the rage that shot through me upon seeing the home I’d left behind, I pushed forward. Fray worked beside me, grabbing and pushing through soldiers, acting defensively and offensively in tandem. I kept the castle turrets in sight as I fought on, taking down as many Peek soldiers and enemy Voiceless as I could. Finally we came face to face with the Gwylis who had nearly killed Fray in the forest. He brandished a Mirosian soldier in his massive jaws and then dropped him upon seeing the two of us.

  “Brother,” he said to Fray and then to me, “Sister.”

  I collided with the wolf, catching him off guard. He snarled and bit at me, drawing blood that warmed the base of my muzzle. We nipped and snarled as our fight brought us away from the King’s Road into the shelter of the trees, where he knocked me aside. My body crashed against a tree trunk and pain shot up my spine. He was too strong and too quick, and I was too inexperienced. He bore his full weight on top of me and roared.

  “Isabelle!”

  The wolf hesitated for a moment and then the realization dawned on him. “I don’t believe it,” he growled. His teeth flashed as they came down on me. I pulled back my lips and roared just as Fray brought his own weight to the fight, nearly crushing me. The two wolves tumbled off me. With some effort, I managed to get back onto four legs just as Fray took the wolf by the throat and clamped down so viciously I could almost hear the muscles tearing and tendons snapping. And the sound of bones breaking.

  The ground trembled beneath me as the two armies met closer to the castle gates.

  “This won’t stop it,” I heard Fray say. I looked up at his blood-tinged muzzle. “Isabelle, let’s go.”

  “I can’t go yet,” I said, and the words brought agony. I wanted so badly to go far away and let this place fall. But there was one thing left to do.

  “Together, we can find my father,” I said to Fray and buried my muzzle in his ruff. N
ow was the time to do Henry’s bidding and end at least one traitorous king.

  “Together,” Fray agreed.

  Chapter 47

  Our steady run led us to the castle gates, where we were met with swords. More than half of the guards fled upon seeing me. The other half swiped at my throat and bounded forward courageously. One way or another, I was getting into that castle.

  “The enemy is in the castle,” I growled, throwing one from my back. None made another attempt to attack when Fray appeared. They ran away with their dignity.

  “I can smell him,” he said beside me. “Will you kill him?”

  With my senses heightened, I could smell my father. I glowered up at the castle in front of me. The windows of his room, two stories up. My ears pricked. I could hear him, scurrying like the rat he was.

  “He deserves no less,” I said. Fray responded with a nip to my ruff, and then he dipped his head low and sprinted away, clearing a path through the castle gates.

  Moments later, I dashed through the palace and into the main hall. I stood within the open doors and uttered a soul-shattering roar. Fray sidled up beside me, growling with his head curved low at the soldiers that appeared on every side of us. “Up the stairs,” he told me. “I’ll hold them off.”

  I made a run for it, leaping over the tallest of the soldiers, and bounded up the staircase. Still clumsy on my feet, I tore apart the velvet rugs underneath me and crashed violently against the walls, knocking portraits from their nails.

  Servants screamed as I passed. Some threw things, and one even dared to charge at me. Their sounds clanged and crashed in my head, shouting, running, crying, breathing. It swelled until it was too much to bear.

  I howled, long and loud, and it tore freely from my heart and lungs.

  I kept going.

  I salivated at the thought of killing the man whom I called Father. I was so blinded by bloodlust that I hadn’t seen my mother come out of a room to my right. She hefted a sword in her hand. I met it with a paw bigger than her very head. She came at me again and again, screaming as she did. Did she know who I was?

  I bristled. “I don’t want to kill you,” I said, lowering my head. “Don’t make me.”

  “You’re not supposed to touch me,” she cried out. “I am on your side.”

  “On your side?” I snarled. “You’re madder than I thought.”

  “No, we had a deal. Dal said…”

  I cut her off with a roar. “Who is Dal?” When she didn’t answer right away, I pressed, “Answer before I tear you to shreds!”

  “Dal Paratheon, the king.”

  For a moment, I staggered as the realization hit me. My mother, had she conspired with King Paratheon? I think back to the letter in her pocket and all the times she’d brought up the king. She had betrayed my father.

  I backed her against the wall. “You’re on a first name basis with the King of the Peeks?” My voice rumbled and she cowered. I could feel myself want to smile at this.

  “You’re not one of his,” she said, matter-of-factly. “Who are you?”

  How very much like her to ask questions of a wolf threatening to rip her apart. Would she rule beside Dal Paratheon, I wondered? She had traded one bastard’s bed for another.

  But none of it surprised me. Not in the least.

  She got to her feet and lunged toward me in a maddening frenzy. I knocked her back with a swipe of my head and sent her soaring in midair. She hit the wall of the hallway and fell like a doll onto the floor. I waited to see her chest rise and fall before deciding that I would let her fate be resolved elsewhere.

  Then I snatched a torch from the wall, the handle positioned gently between my teeth, and set the tapestries ablaze as I moved. Let it burn. Dal Paratheon can rule a castle of ash. I let the torch fall to the floor just in front of my father’s chamber doors.

  In a path a fire, she will walk. And out of the flames, a beast will rule.

  I nudged the doors open.

  My father was the very picture of a cornered rat. He dropped to his knees, held his face in his hands, and cried, “Please, don’t kill me.”

  I padded forward until I was close enough to move the hair on his head with my breath. I could swallow him whole. He wouldn’t feel anything. I could make it quick.

  “Please,” he begged. “I am ashamed for what I’ve done. Have mercy.”

  “Mercy is a quick death,” I said and laughed softly. It came out like rolling thunder. “Death will come all the same.”

  He looked so small, so vulnerable, that for a split moment I considered letting him go. But inside, the beast chewed through the ropes, begging for release.

  Our father is a murderer, a warmonger…

  “Show me,” I growled, blowing air from my nostrils. “Show me that you cared, if only just a little. About your son. About me.”

  My father hugged himself, rocking back and forth on his knees.

  He is the devil himself.

  He looked up, cheeks wet with tears, trembling.

  He stole everything.

  He took everything.

  Don’t let him fool you.

  Izzy, you must stop him somehow.

  One bite is all it would take. My lips curled into a smile.

  “Don’t become like me,” he said softly.

  “I will never become like you,” I snarled. The flames from the hallway danced in my father’s eyes. There was no light left in mine. It had all been extinguished the moment Lulu had died.

  Our father is a murderer.

  I stepped back, and the tension in my body relaxed. Stormwall was going to burn whether he was alive or not. I had already set the first flame.

  “Give Stormwall to the Paratheons,” I told him. “If you fight, I will hunt you down and kill you. I won’t rest until I do.”

  “Isabelle,” my father breathed, tears running down his cheeks.

  I looked away. “I won’t rest until I do.”

  I turned away, and walked over the threshold.

  The hallway was on fire. I couldn’t see past it. But Fray was out there, somewhere, and my father was as good as dead, if the Paratheons and my mother had anything to say about it. Let them. I was not afraid of dying, but I did not want it to be here.

  I sensed movement and the sound of steel emerging from a sheath. I closed my eyes briefly. Oh, you cowardly king.

  “Die!”

  I whipped around to find my father atop his bed. He wielded a giant, sword pointing downward toward me. But before he could even make a move, I was on him. Bones cracked, skin sliced. I tore him apart, silencing his screams with teeth to his neck and left him in a puddle of his blood that dribbled down the mattress like rain from a window sill.

  Chapter 48

  I watched from the window of my father’s chambers as the horizon glowed red. There was the smell of burning wood, almost like a campfire, until the scent of human flesh reached my nostrils. The castle was stone and would never fall, but everything inside would undoubtedly burn. Even the royals who lived within.

  There was a war raging out there. Mirosa, The Gwylis, and the Peek Islands battled for a kingdom I no longer wanted. But the battle cries died as quickly as they came.

  Long live the king. The king was dead.

  The moment I killed my father, there was this sense of calm, as if the burden of seventeen years had fallen from my shoulders. My weakness almost killed me. But never again.

  Still, even then, I felt a twinge of sorrow. I didn’t have such a cold heart as to forget the good memories I’d had. Especially those with Pyrus, Lulu, Henry, and my mother before she went mad. Even Ashe had crossed my mind.

  One thought stood out among them all—we had to leave Stormwall.

  I passed a broken mirror leaving my father’s chambers. My reflection faded in and out of focus, and through the cracks, a dozen Isabelles, broken, shattered. Hot, sticky blood dried on my muzzle. I could taste it. Iron and decay.

  I’m in another skin.

 
I’m not me.

  I’m not me.

  And then there was the brown wolf beside me with a muzzle soaked in blood. He smelled of death, and I lost myself in it. Yellow and red flames reflected in his eyes. But through them, I saw Fray and the blue of the ocean my brother had once spoken about.

  “Whose side am I on?” I asked. A girl’s thoughts. Not that of a great wolf.

  And the brown wolf answered. “Mine.”

  All at once, the weight of everything fell upon me. I felt myself change, and the strong scent of my father’s dead body slowly faded to just the coppery smell of blood. I crumpled to my knees, too tired to stand. Arms caught me and eased me down, so I was cradled against Fray’s skin.

  “It’s over,” he said, smoothing my hair. “Let us leave this place.” After a moment, he asked, “Is there anything you need here, Isabelle?”

  I nodded. The thing I needed was in my bedroom—something I’d forgotten until now. My emerald necklace. Though naked, I stood up and swallowed the tears stinging my eyes. “There,” I said, indicating a large ornate wardrobe. I blushed against my will, avoiding Fray’s naked body as I sensed him get to his feet and near me. “Clothes for you.”

  As he rifled through the wardrobe, I found that there was nowhere to look. Death was everywhere. And even though I’d done it, even though I did not regret it, I found myself completely numb at the vision of my father’s body. Was it a side-effect of being a wolf or was I hardening to the point of losing myself?

  I took a deep breath and pulled my gaze from my father and to a newly dressed Fray. He draped a large cloak over me like a blanket. Before I could protest and tell him that I wasn’t ashamed, he pulled me against him with such force that it knocked the breath from my lungs.

  “You did this for me,” he said, his breath warm on my cheek.

  I shook my head. “Most of it. Some of it. Not all of it.”

  His smile when he pulled away could bring down a kingdom. This man. I wanted to love him, but the world was not making it easy. Not yet. Not when death surrounded us.

  Fray directed his attention to the open balcony doors. His hair was a tangled mess, and his beautiful face was stained with blood and grime. But as his eyes danced between me and the battle below us, I knew being alive wasn’t enough for me.