by Alex Lux
"That is the way to happiness." A bittersweet smile pulled at his lined face.
I tucked that lesson into my mind, knowing it was an important one. I wondered if Marcus would have kept his sight, if he had learned it earlier.
My first thought, as we left the fortress through a different door on a track to what looked like a grove in the forest, was about Ryder. And lunch. Was it a good idea to eat before a Trial of Strength? I didn't know what this trial meant, but if you shouldn't swim after eating, it made sense you shouldn't do something like a Trial of Strength after eating, right?
Then I kicked myself mentally, because of course, given what this trial likely meant for him, his first concern wouldn't be an upset stomach.
My mind shut down as animal instincts kicked in when we heard something around us, stalking us. Sticks snapped in the snow, ice crunched underfoot. It seemed to come from everywhere.
Derek stood protectively near me, his body trembling to control his shifting. "What's out here?"
Sniffing, I smelled other people, other Lycans. I could identify them more easily now, more from their non-scent than their scent.
Alaric stopped, looking around, a fine mist obscuring the landscape, like in a dream. "I must call the Old Ones." He hunched over, twisting, bones cracking, and when he pulled back his head he showed more beast than human. His howl filled the night sky, shaking the world, or so it seemed.
The howl faded and silence filled the space, a silence so complete it felt as if the earth held its breath in anticipation of something bigger.
And then the howls began. They surrounded us, growing louder and closer. Shadows cast by moonlight crept in from every direction. Derek began to shift, but held himself as human as he circled me.
I braced for an attack, but only one lone wolf emerged from the shadows. He towered over us, even over Derek who dwarfed most men, and wore scars across his body as war wounds, with pride. While he walked on two legs like a man, white fur matted his flesh and razor sharp claws turned hands into paws. The Lycan didn't shift into full wolf like us, and it was a disturbing sight.
He raged and bellowed in anger. "Who calls upon me?"
The bishop, human once again, faced this beast without fear. "We seek a Trial of Strength."
The white wolf chuckled. "Good. Far too long I have been away from death."
TWENTY SIX
Virtue Cannot
ROSE
You should not have believ'd me, for virtue cannot so
inoculate our old stock but we shall relish of it. I lov'd you not.
— William Shakespeare, Hamlet
ALARIC PULLED OUT a scroll and unrolled it, showing the white wolf. The wolf nodded with approval and Alaric stuck it back in one of the folds of his robes.
The white wolf stood taller, head held high. "Which of you will challenge him?"
Alaric stepped forward. "I will. He is my responsibility."
The White Wolf nodded, then turned his head toward me. Opening up myself to my power, I tried to pierce through the icy darkness around him to see into his true heart, but the deeper I went, the colder and darker it felt. I pulled out with a shudder as the wolf watched me with old eyes full of secrets.
"And you?" he asked.
"I will," I said. "I will challenge him." I had to see this through to the end.
"No." Derek grabbed my hand. "You don't have to. I'll make sure he pays."
"So will I," I told him. Something wild stirred inside of me, a thirst for blood and vengeance. My humanity, my empathy sank into my soul as my animal nature pulsed under my skin. Thousands of bloody battles had been fought here, maybe more, and the righteous judgment had become its own magic, infecting the stone and earth, the trees and sky. It bled into me, readying me for the fight ahead.
"The both of you then," said the White Wolf. "Very well."
So it was to be three against one. If not for the ancient magics I would have felt bad for Ryder.
The wolf, almost as ancient as those magics, gestured to Ryder. "Remove his shackles. My brothers will watch him."
Alaric did as told and two men in black cloaks stepped out from the woods, taking Ryder's arms.
"If you try to flee, or harm anyone," said the White Wolf, "my brothers will eat your flesh."
"Understood." Ryder stretched his jaw and smiled at his new jailers.
"Take him to the baths." The White Wolf turned to walk away. "A man should meet death at his best."
The old monk, Marcus, showed Derek and I to a private room with walls of stone and a simple bed and dresser. A fire burned to take the cold edge off, and thick carpets offered the only color. I stretched out on the bed, exhausted but too full of adrenaline to sleep. My initial confidence in our victory had given way to doubt. We'd barely won against Ryder the first time we fought him. How would we win this time? Would Bishop Alaric really be able to fight his protégé?
I still had no control over my shifting, which frightened me. What if I couldn't shift when I needed to? Or shifted into something that could easily be killed by a Lycan? Maybe I should have killed Ryder earlier and been done with it. Was all of this worth it?
I turned to Derek, who had a book open but wasn't reading. "I'm going to go on a walk and explore the castle."
He rose. "I'll go with you. It's not safe here."
My hand rested on his chest. "I'll be fine, and I need to be alone. I won't be long."
He didn't like it, but he knew I wouldn't back down. Derek still struggled with the balance of wanting to keep me safe versus understanding that I wasn't a child who needed constant protection.
I told myself I was just exploring, that I wasn't looking for anything in particular, but my lie betrayed me when I found the baths and couldn't remember any other details about the fortress. Another stone room, but this time filled with large pools of different temperatures. Ryder sat in a particularly steamy one alone, with just his guards as company. The natural bubbling of the water hid his… private bits, so I walked to the edge of the pool and sat down to face him. All the questions I had running through my mind tumbled out.
"Why did you come to Elysium?"
He looked up, not surprised to see me. "Because where Alaric goes I often follow. And because I found a school of paranormals intriguing. I suspected some of you may have been Nephilim, but I never suspected that the Nephilim bore a child."
"What do you have against them? Against Nephilim?"
"I know what they can do," he said. "I know what they are."
"And was it worth it, attacking Drake?"
"It was worth trying." He smiled and I wanted to smack the smile off his face.
"You're driven by hatred," I screamed. "You know nothing of right or wrong, nothing of compassion. Nothing!"
His face turned serious, jaw tense. "I know nothing, do I?"
He turned away from me, his eyes lost in the distant past as his voice took on the tone of a storyteller. I know I was hearing something rarely shared, and I tempered my anger and settled in to listen without prejudice. It was the only way to learn the truth.
"Do you know of the Emzara, the Hands of Lilith, the Silver Tree? Of course not. Why would you? Their tales are old.
"So let me speak of the Emzara. They are, all of them, Nephilim, and their duty is to guard the Twilight Throne. If you were to see one, you would see a mask of gold with eyes the black of night. You would see armor like sun and steel. You would not see the scars below, the pale lines that cross like blades across their backs, or the shape of bone, twisted into armor of its own. If you were to see an Emzara and flee, indeed no one would judge you coward, not even I.
"Let me speak of a time, back when the Twilight King reigned, that the Emzara arrived at a poor fishing village. Their general stepped forward, a cloak of shadow wrapped around him, small lines like scars upon his mask, and he said to the people, 'You have all been deceived. You have prayed and confessed and think that makes up for your sins. But you serve a false god, and truly
you have never been forgiven. If you wish to repent, if you wish to leave deception and wicked ways behind, join me.' He drew a line into the ground, between the village and the Emzara. 'Come over to my side,' he said, 'and see the truth of your deeds.'
"'And if we don't?' asked Rackus the Butcher.
"'Then you are lost,' said the Emzara General.
"The villagers talked amongst themselves. Most stepped away from the line. Some stepped forward.
"Rackus was the first to cross. He held his butcher's knife and handed it to the general. 'I will be one of you,' he said.
"'See the truth of your sins, see how you must serve,' said the General, and he took the Butcher's knife, and buried it in the Butcher's neck.
"The man collapsed, twitching and jerking, for his mind was already lost to itself. Before life left the Butcher altogether, the General fell to one knee, cut his own wrist with the Butcher's blade, and poured blood down the dying man's throat. And Rackus gasped, like a drowning man gasps for air, and he awoke.
"'You are reborn,' said the General, putting a hand on the man's shoulder. 'You were a cheat, a thief, a liar, slipping into your neighbor’s bed, slipping your hand into their purse, but no more. Do you see now, how wrong your ways had been?'
"'I do,' said Rackus, and he began weeping. 'I need to serve for what I've done. I need to earn forgiveness.'
"'And so you shall,' said the General, and then he spoke to the village again. 'Join me and repent,' he said.
"Three more villagers stepped over the line. Then seven. Then no more.
"'Remain on your side,' warned the General, 'and remain in your old ways, faithful to a false god. Remain covered in sin and fear and pain.'
"'We like our god,' yelled Perrin, the fisherman. 'There's no fear here except the kind you brought,' yelled Lauren who lived by the water. 'Leave us be,' yelled Martin, the young boy with black hair.
"'So be it,' said the General, and he turned to the Emzara. 'Kill the old, take the young,' he said, handing the Butcher back his blade. 'Repent,' he said.
"And Rackus the butcher went forth, an army of sun and shadow behind him.
"They killed the old fisherman and took his young daughter. They burned down the house by the water and stole away the children. They found the young boy with black hair, and when he fought back, they put a Butcher's knife through him."
Ryder stood, exposing himself, but my mind was still on his story. How could he know this?
"Remember this tale, and that whatever the Nephilim may be, they are first and foremost the Emzara." He turned to reach for a towel and I saw the scars upon his skin. Pale lines that crossed like blades upon his back.
Now I wondered where Ryder had come from, and if he'd ever crossed a line drawn into the ground, and if he'd ever gone by another name.
TWENTY SEVEN
Smile And Be A Villian
ROSE
one may smile, and smile, and be a villain
— William Shakespeare, Hamlet
I DIDN'T TELL Derek of my conversation with Ryder, though not because I meant to keep it from him. By the time I reached our room, Alaric was there to collect us for the Trial.
"I have a request," he said, as we reached the grove of trees. "Let me fight him alone. A bite from Ryder could kill you. Don't risk it."
Derek growled. "You care nothing for us, you just don't want Ryder to lose."
The bishop dropped his head. "You might be right about not wanting him to lose. I'm just not sure what the right path is anymore. Until this happened, the world had always been black and white for me, the right path always clear. I lived by the belief that the challenge was in doing right, not determining what was right. Now, it seems, the easy part is action, the hard part is in making the choice."
We journeyed into the forest again, wading through moonlit snow. The Brothers pulled Ryder across from us, and The White Wolf emerged from behind the trees. "Are you prepared?" he asked.
"Yes," we all said. And the wolf nodded. And the Brothers unleashed Ryder.
As he began shifting, we spread out and encircled him
We could die in this fight, not from a death blow, as Ryder would need, but from just a bite.
I didn't forget that, but when I shifted to wolf and let the magic of this place fill me, I pushed that knowledge away and let the hunt take hold.
Derek and I attacked in turns, snapping and growling, deflecting blows and distracting while the other took a shot. Like a dance to the sounds of wolf howls, we parried and feigned and lashed out in perfect unison.
And we stayed far away from his mouth.
Alaric's attacks were not in synch with our natural rhythm, and in one poorly aimed altercation, he wound up under Ryder, long teeth stretched out to each other, hand-like claws ripping at the other.
I growled, howled and threw myself at Ryder, knocking him off of Alaric, then pulling back as he crashed to the ground, stunned. Alaric had his kill shot, Ryder's throat open to him.
I braced myself for the spill of blood, but Alaric hesitated, uncertainty written on his wolfish, beastly face. It was just enough time for Ryder to regain his sense and kick the bishop back. Alaric flew into a tree and collapsed in the snow, shifting back to human form. I could still hear his breath and knew he was only knocked out. As I turned my attention back to the battle, Ryder charged Derek.
Claws slashed at each other. Ryder had the advantage of height, but Derek darted through his legs, snapping at tendons as he went. Ryder, using his wolf man-hands, grabbed at Derek, tearing a bright red gash into his side as he threw him against a tree.
The fight moved us through the woods. I had to run to catch up, to help save my husband. Faster, faster, I pushed myself to go faster, to fly there on the wind. My body lightened, paws shifting, bones rearranging, until I flew with long wings flapping against the wind. Like my dreams, I could fly, but my dreams didn't compare to the freedom of feeling every molecule of air caressing my feathers. Increasing my speed, I swooped down, pulling Ryder off of Derek before he could do more damage, lifting him with powerful claws as I pumped my wings and flew higher, higher, into the sky.
He growled, pulled, and reached up to scratch me, but I flipped around, disorienting him even as I relished the power of flight. As we approached the clouds, I unclenched my claws to let him go. He grabbed me, holding on for his life, but I beat him with my wing and pulled higher into the sky until he had no choice but to release me, tumbling back down to the ground, just like he had when Beleth dropped him.
I followed him down, worry for Derek clouding my mind, and found Ryder lying in a heap, dead or knocked out. I crept closer, still in bird form, and his body sprang up as he grabbed my wing and snapped it. I screamed, but the sound that came out of my beak didn't sound human. Shifting broke and rearranged bone, but nothing felt like this, like my arm had been torn off.
Derek ran in, still in wolf form, fighting Ryder back, keeping his body between mine and the Lycan’s, as they neared the edge of a dangerously high cliff. I could see the fury like a red haze around Derek, and I tried to shift into wolf to help him, but my body refused to listen to me, clinging to the bird form against my will.
This panicked me, but not as much as seeing my husband backed into his own death.
While Ryder maintained his clarity, Derek lost it, charging when he should have waited, and ended up at the edge of the cliff in the claws of Ryder, who had him by the neck.
"It's over," said Ryder.
He'd won.
And he would kill Derek.
The White Wolf and his brothers came from the trees. They'd been watching all this time it seemed. "You have passed the trial," said the White Wolf, "And won your freedom."
TWENTY EIGHT
The Lady Doth Protest
ROSE
The lady doth protest too much, methinks
— William Shakespeare, Hamlet
LYCANS SURROUNDED ME, some in beast form, some as men, in a hall in the great fortress. They sp
oke little as they examined me while I sat, shivering with one of their dark robes to cover my nakedness. I'd managed to shift back into human form, mostly. But Derek's fears had been realized.
My arm, broken during battle, didn't shift with me, not entirely. It hung limp from my body, a mutation of bone and feather and flesh that made bile rise in my throat when I looked at it. Pain washed over me in waves, taking reason and sanity with each ebb and flow. I pushed away from those who tried to help me, needing to reach Derek.
Ryder had won, but hadn't claimed his prize of the kill. Instead, he'd let Derek go, injured but alive. Alive, but unconscious.
Another group of Lycans surrounded him, muttering inaudibly and applying tonics to him of unknown origin. I could hear him moan in his delirium and fevers. They said he hadn't been bit, only scratched, but I had to see for myself. I had to touch my husband, breathe him in, feel him in my arms.
Another wave of pain rode me and blackness overshadowed all.
When I pried my eyes open, the White Wolf looked down at me, his yellow eyes glowing, heart unreadable. "You cannot shift, child?"
"No." The word croaked out of my throat, as if I'd been screaming in my sleep.
"There is a shifter, a Druid older than these woods. He knows the ancient ways, magic long forgotten by most. I've smelled him since you arrived. He's hiding, but you alone can find him. And he alone can help you, teach you to control your shifting before it takes you over and destroys your humanity."
He moved aside and revealed an open door that led to a white forest of snow.
Power blew into me, thrummed in my heartbeat, the same power I'd felt at the Vatican. The world around me faded into blurry echoes and all I could see was that door, all I could feel was that power calling to me.
