by Brea Viragh
“What would two fine wolves want with me?” was all the Nightwalker said, and there was no innocence in the question.
No, they played a dangerous game.
Calen took one step forward before he found his body quite unwilling to cooperate and go further.
“It’s been a time since anyone has come to visit me. Has dared to climb the mountain.” Nightwalker inhaled a breath. “The Roberts pup. Returned since your last trip? I have to admire your tenacity.” The smile flashing in the darkness was a mockery to the gesture.
Van kept his focus ahead of him, reaching into the pack he carried and bringing out a bauble. A brooch of stunning silver with a ruby large enough to have been an egg colored for Easter. “Here. For you.”
He tossed the brooch to the Nightwalker, who caught it in one swift motion of shadowy talons. A second inhale sounded. “Ah, you remembered. Good, Van, very good. Sentimental and cherished. Valuable beyond price. You held on to this keepsake from your mother despite your pack losing resources. Very good. And you?”
Calen had the impression of eyes streaking along his body. Devouring him with a single swoop.
“I’ve not seen you before.”
“Hello, Nightwalker,” he stated.
“Yes, Calen Siegfried. You don’t smell like the rest of them. Never will, if I had to guess. You’re different. Tell me, Calen Siegfried. Are you scared?”
He didn’t dare lie to her. “Yes. I am.”
The creature stood to her full height, dark hair brushing the ceiling but keeping a few feet of distance between them. The same sensation of eyes skittered down Calen’s spine, but he kept it straight. Kept his shoulders taut.
“Good, Calen. Very good.” Nightwalker cocked her head and the torchlight reflected off those dark strands. Like inky tendrils of night captured down from the sky. “And what do you have to give me?”
He hadn’t the wealth for such a bauble like Van had brought. His instructions, however, had been clear. To give up a piece of himself. In whatever form he decided. The brooch must have been something of value to Van for him to offer it to Nightwalker now.
Calen fumbled for his own sack, and the container he’d brought within. “It’s a lemon tart.”
“Something so simple.” The Nightwalker accepted the container, her entire upper body bending low to inspect the treat, head tilted and nostrils widening. “Yes, simple and delightful. This truly carries a piece of you. A tiny yet integral piece of yourself that you put into everything you bake. The only thing you believe you are good for. You made this with every ounce of hope you possess. You have my approval.”
“We have questions for you,” Van began.
Nightwalker scuttled back a step with both prizes clutched in her hands. And it was only then that Calen realized she had four legs, each tipped with a deadly claw that burrowed deep into the stone without effort. “A question for a price,” she stated in a hiss of sound. “You know the rules. You were always smarter than the other Lycans who came to call.”
“Yes, and I remember the flattery.” Van gave a subtle nod in his direction, eyes wary.
Calen had to remember to think. To choose his words with care and precision.
And not to look at Nightwalker.
Because the one time he did, the one time he dared to twist his head up and into her cold black eyes, he saw pain. Pain and death and blood. The screams of thousands. He saw the ways she knew how to break a human, how to kill them slowly until they begged to be put out of their misery. But there was too much agony for her to give it up. She would never stop, never—
“Calen.”
The sharpness of Van’s voice brought him back to the present with painful awareness of the rigidity in his body. Calen dropped his gaze from the Nightwalker and pushed her memories aside. He bunched his hands into fists.
“The curse keeping Odessa and the others imprisoned on the lake,” he said. “I want a way to break it.”
Nightwalker’s head whipped toward him. “A question for a question, dear one. You answer one for me, and then I will oblige you with the same. The moment your parents died—did you feel it?”
“I didn’t feel anything until Alex told me of their death, the way someone had skinned them alive,” Calen said slowly. “And I have hated myself for it every day since then. I should have been aware of it, should have felt the chords between us sever when they were murdered. I should have been with them at the end. But I felt nothing more than the lash of emotional pain and the shock at hearing of it secondhand. The block inside me was already in place.”
The Nightwalker’s presence loomed closer. Her energy eager. Ready.
“Your abilities. Had you felt them before that day? Or did they disappear into the void along with your parents?”
Calen curled and uncurled his fingers. “If there was anything, I do not remember.”
“No shifts? No pull from the moon?”
Is that what you want for yourself? The ability to change your form? The question nearly burst from his lips before he thought to censor himself. “Nothing, I’m sorry. Just normal childhood yearnings. Fresh air, room to run. Food and friends and fun.”
“That is more than one question, and he has answered every one you threw at him,” Van interrupted. “It’s your turn now.”
Nightwalker clicked her tongue. Waiting and weighing. “I’m very sorry if my eagerness is disturbing to you, Van Roberts. It is not every day that one meets a natural-born Lycan without the ability to shift. My curiosity got the better of me.”
Those senses he’d attempted to harness, to cast a wide net around the room, picked up on a solid wall surrounding the Nightwalker. Keeping her true origins masked from them had they decided to probe her deeper. Foreign, alien, ancient. She didn’t belong here, had not been cut from the same cloth as the other creatures who lived among the shadows.
“It’s time for my question,” he put in as confidently as he could. “Is there a way to break the curse keeping Odessa and the other humans trapped?”
A glimmer of interest skittered along his mind before receding. “That depends on the nature of the spell, and the nature of the spell weaver. You would need those two pieces of information to determine the route. But yes. There is a way to break the spell. A way to break any spell regardless of the circumstances.”
Van’s eyes flashed in the darkness. “Then tell us.”
“Death,” the Nightwalker said simply. “Death is the fastest way to ensure victory. Find the magician and kill.”
His entire body went taught, a muscle in his neck twitching. “And if we don’t know the identity of the caster?”
They’d been searching for answers with no luck. Nothing satisfactory.
“Find something else imbued with their magic and it will lead you to their identity. If you find you cannot accomplish that much, then there is an artifact. A curse breaker of legend, tales spun around a knife and everything that it stands for. They say that all the magic contained inside was harnessed from a dying universe and forged into a blade with the power to cleave apart worlds. It cannot be destroyed, only hidden. Forced into the annals of history and forgotten. Find something like that, and you can overcome even death.”
Nightwalker clicked her fingers again, waiting for them to speak.
Van’s face remained a mask of calm against the declaration. “And I suppose you know where the elders of this world have hidden such a blade?” The creature opened her mouth, no doubt to obfuscate and distract, when he interrupted her. “Three questions asked. Three answers owed.”
Calen braced himself for the answer, unsure if he would be ready for it.
Nightwalker let out a dry laugh, desiccated as the desert wind. “The spell cleaver was hidden beneath the depths of the mountains for centuries before it was moved. Moved to the bottom of the darkest trench where no mortals would tread. Even the immortals are wary of venturing toward it.”
A night-tipped finger pointed to Calen. “You would be a fool
to travel those distances. You would lose much of yourself in the process, and there is no guarantee you would survive wielding such a blade. You don’t possess the power or such a feat, Calen Siegfried, not even if you were whole.”
He stiffened under her scrutiny. “Then why tell us of it in the first place?”
“Because there is always a choice. There is a choice for which way you want to go in life, a choice for how much you are willing to sacrifice. A long, impossible journey to save the one you love at the possible cost of your own life, or a pack united? Choices make this existence what it is.”
Calen thought of Odessa. He remembered her warmth, her steadiness. He wondered if she stood in front of Nightwalker, if she would not hesitate, as he did. There was nothing reassuring in this line of thinking.
“I should have died with them,” he put in softly, speaking of his parents. “The only reason they went without me was because I’d been out running around in the cold the entire day. I hadn’t worn enough layers, and when I finally managed to come inside after their scolding, I had a bad fever. They bundled me in bed, left me with soup, and went to the meeting without me. I should be dead.” His eyes guttered. “To be left behind, to be shuffled around from hand to hand because no one wants you afterward, and to use my life for nothing good—I was alone. And I knew it should have been me, and at least then, we would have been together. The guilt, the selfishness, they eat away at me.”
The Nightwalker considered him. He felt the heat of her gaze across his back. “You know a way to the curse breaker, Van. Know the spells it takes to get in touch with those who keep possession of its gates. You also know the cost. You know retrieving the blade is a last effort when the alternative is that much easier.”
Van’s eyes shifted to the floor. “Slaughter.”
The full-scale dread Calen felt in that one word brought fire to his veins and a weight to his stomach. He shouldn’t have been surprised at what Van proposed, knew in the back of his mind that it was an option, but...
He spared a glance at Van, and for a brief moment, something like regret flashed across his face, gone in an instant as though it had never been.
“The curse breaker is a blade of legend. Slaughter, while such a nasty word, would take care of the issue with relative ease unless you can find a way to learn the magic weaver’s identity. There is sacrifice required either way.”
If Calen didn’t know any better, he could have sworn he heard a note of gentleness in the Nightwalker’s tone.
“We are not killing our people on the off chance we’ve found the responsible party.”
Their packs were part of the reason for coming today, to keep them safe from the magician, to find a way to break the curse. They were rapidly approaching a breaking point, hope drained and no solutions in sight. Another week of this and they would begin to tear each other apart.
“It’s counterintuitive,” Van agreed.
“It’s likely your magician is someone that you know. Someone close to the both of you, because he who hunts his own knows the secrets of both packs. Targeting a specific individual speaks of motive, and the others you say are trapped there may have been his first tests. To see how that power feels, how to control it, how to use it against others. That sort of power comes at a cost as well, as no one is gifted with raw magic. It can be depleted.”
“Is there a way to stop him from gaining more power?” Van asked.
Silence was his answer. The Nightwalker paused before hissing, “Why do you think those slaughtered wolves coincided with the abduction?”
It was the answer to his secret, to the piece he had shared of himself earlier. But Calen didn’t feel like he held the upper hand.
The ancient beast shook her head, and again, that dry laughter sounded. “Clever little wolves. Finally putting all the pieces together.”
“We’re done,” Van stated. “Enjoy your baubles, and enjoy your information.”
“Glad to be of service. Call again, Van Roberts. Calen Siegfried.”
Neither of them bothered to express their gratitude to her. Not when they were no closer to finding a spell than the first time they stepped foot up the mountain. Calen could still feel the Nightwalker’s lingering attention on them as they turned to make their way back to the open air. To the sunlight and away from the cavernous dungeon she called a home.
Van’s hand was light on his shoulder. “We are going to find a way. Trust me.”
They returned through the darkness with that eerie laughter echoing behind them. Calen shuddered, knowing he’d left a piece of himself behind in that mountain. A piece he would never get back.
Chapter 13
Van stalked toward a plush armchair in the sitting room of his borrowed suite and flung himself across it, stretching stiff limbs toward the fire one of the underlings had stoked upon their return. Then stifled a moan at the delicious heat coming off of those flames. It sunk beneath the skin and thawed a part of him he hadn’t realized had frozen from their conversation with the Nightwalker.
He spared enough energy to kick off his boots, knocking them aside with his toes and stretching his feet toward the fire. Muscles ached, and he wasn’t sure if it was from the physical exertion of the climb or the tension that had locked in once they crossed through those mountain gates, into an underground Hell.
Yes, he’d gone to visit the creature before in her lair. When he’d been wondering how to tell his father about his love, if it was the right decision to follow through with his heart’s desire or cut off all ties for the future of his people, the Nightwalker had not softened things for him when she’d spoken. Van had given much more than he received, and in the end, the choice had been taken from him regardless.
He remembered those moments through a haze, a film over the vision of his memories, of waking that day with an intent to end things, and finding his love had disappeared without a trace, the metallic stench of magic in the air.
But Calen hadn’t needed to know about that. Calen wanted to hear a simple and straightforward answer in regard to the woman he loved.
Van understood, and he wished he did not.
There were no simple answers. Nothing straightforward when it came to magic or matters of the heart. He could not snap his fingers and disintegrate the power keeping them imprisoned, despite how badly he wished it to be so.
And when the thread of hopelessness inside of him threatened to grow, Van pushed it aside as he had a thousand times before. As he would a thousand more times before he reached the end of his long life.
“You don’t need to look so morose,” he told Calen, straightening his back into a more comfortable position. “We’re going to find a way.”
Calen stood at the window with eyes that saw everything. Van wondered if the man noticed how preternaturally motionless he stood. How that sharp gaze never missed a beat. Calen did not give himself enough credit for the powers he did possess. The stillness, the observation, the heart that refused to give up. Those were all amazing qualities in someone the rest of the pack considered useless. Qualities that could not be bought or earned.
Even if they hadn’t had a vested interest in counteracting the spell on Odessa, Van thought the lie they’d concocted might have eventually come to truth. That he would have taken Calen under his wing, helping him to grow into the man, the wolf no one could see.
Or maybe it was wishful thinking.
“I don’t like it,” Calen said. “Why run us around in circles with the information? Why give us two impossible choices instead of a definitive answer?”
“Because Nightwalker does what she wants and owes allegiance to nothing and no one. There is no easy way to acquire our goals. It might be time for you to start thinking in terms of bad versus worse.”
“Then why did we waste our time in going to see her?”
“Because it was better than sitting on our asses when we had no other available route to take. She can be helpful, when she chooses. She gave us a place to start.”
>
Van stared down at the palm of his hand, flexing his fingers, working through the twisted web of information they’d been given.
It’s likely your magician is someone that you know.
He who hunts his own knows the secrets of both packs.
The magic can be depleted.
Though the rumors of dark magic were anything but true, Van knew the inner workings of that kind of power. He’d spent much of his childhood in the library at the Evertooth pack lodge, pouring over books on whatever subject he could devour quickly enough.
Power came at a cost outside of their natural abilities. Lycans, while authoritative and commanding in their own right, were tied to the moon as surely as the ocean tides. They had the ability to change shape whenever they pleased, although the height of their power coincided with the big-bellied-full moon. To work any kind of magic outside of that, outside of their superior strength and senses, took outside intervention.
And nothing carried a greater potential for that, a greater cost and reward, than death.
They needed to look into the killings, although most of the evidence had already been scrubbed away. The elders insisted there was nothing to be gleaned from the murders and had dispatched agents to clean the scene within hours of discovery.
Someone was not going to like that avenue of pursuit.
“Where did you say Alex took the pelts of the slain girls?” Van asked, still studying his hand.
Calen jolted out of that stillness at the force of the statement. “I didn’t. I’m not privy to that kind of information. I’m not part of that hierarchy.”
Van replied with quiet steel. “We’re taking a risk talking inside the manor house as it is. The walls themselves have eyes and ears and are waiting to swallow us whole. To reach beyond those in this room might cost us in the end.” He forced his face to go blank.
“Your imagination is getting the better of you.” Calen shook his head and held Van’s stare. But he didn’t dismiss the idea outright.
“There’s no sense in taking any extra risks when we have so much to lose.”
