steps to the healer’s cabin in the dark of night the next day, the air warming with summer approaching. Anna opens the door for me silently, looking around for signs of anyone else before letting me in.
I’ve been doing checks around Eridian all day since talking to Solvier last week, making sure all is well, which it is. There have been no signs of anything wrong and The Deadlands atop the cliffs are quiet. A bit too quiet after having such high activity recently. The Elite search party has been coming back empty handed and frustrated every so often, finding nothing in their search for Sarah. Darius was furious this morning with them, his face murderous as he spoke harshly to his men. It seemed that Leo was trying to talk him down, but Darius just shook his head and walked off with Maize, their heads bent together talking. Leo, Damian, Jerrod and Zaide held back, choosing not to follow after Darius. They watched me and the guys closely as we passed them, and I didn’t like the look in their eyes. They were hard and cold, far more so than usual, and it makes me wonder just what was said because I hadn’t seen Darius since. Since the vow was made, all Elites have been more laid back, so seeing them like that has rattled me a little.
I wonder if their deadline is approaching.
“She’s awake,” Anna whispers, bringing me back to her, and she nods her head for me to go through the door to Sarah’s room. She hasn’t left this room since she’s been here, over three months now, making this space her own. Not that she could leave the cabin if she wanted to with the Elites turning up.
I enter her space with Anna behind me, closing the door softly. Sarah sits on the bed, looking at something in her hands before she notices us. She quickly puts the item beneath her covers on the bed before getting herself comfortable. She’s looking better with the weight she has gained and with her healing increasing now that the dassil flower’s effects are fully out of her system now.
She’s made the room her own. Scattered papers with drawings litter the room’s surfaces, paints and dried flowers haphazardly collected together on a table in the corner. I see several different varieties of them. Who’s been bringing her flowers? I give her a smile as I bring a chair from the side of the room, dragging it toward the bed and taking a seat.
“Hey,” she smiles, her toffee eyes lighter than they have ever been. “I saw you just last week, I didn’t think you would be back so soon.” Neither did I, but I said I would keep her updated, and I will. I’ve been sneaking into the cabin when I can in the night, making sure no one is around to notice. Apart from the couple nights I’ve seen her, Josh has been keeping her company when he can, but we have been busy for the last week.
“It’s just a quick update,” I tell her, and then steel myself for what I’m about to tell her, unsure how she will react. I wanted to be the one to tell her myself. “There was a man in the forest last week. He tried to grab one of our girls, Sam.” She tenses at my words, and her worried eyes lock with mine.
“Is she okay?” Her voice trembles as she asks, but my heart warms that even though she doesn’t know this girl, she’s still worried for her.
“She’s shaken up, but Kade is with her.” He hasn’t left her side since. She won’t let him, and he can’t refuse her. “We don’t know who this man was as there is no sign of him now. Sam said he was as tall as Josh with dark hair and his eyes were brown, possibly lighter, but then maybe blue. She also said he smelled like bad iron. Do you possibly know of anyone like that?” The thought crossed my mind that it could be someone else looking for Sarah, and even though I doubt it, I have to ask her.
She thinks for a moment before eventually shaking her head. “No, not that I know of. Though I don’t know for sure because my memory is still blurry from them giving me the drug,” she whispers. I nod, assuming as much. “Do you think it’s someone from my pack?”
“I honestly don’t know,” I tell her. “We haven’t had anyone come to Eridian unless we brought them here. Now the Elites are here and a male suddenly appears only to disappear again.”
“Are the Elites still looking for me?” She picks at her fingernails, waiting for my answer.
“They are. Their search party came back from The Deadlands today and found nothing. I don’t think they have long left on their time limit and should be going soon. It seems tensions are running high. The Elites that are using the spare cabin are slowly healing, but Anna can speed that up when we need her too. There is not much that can still keep them here.”
“Those Elites are nearly healed,” Anna says from her position by the door. “They should be ready to go in a few days if I let them. Their witch, Maize, has been helping. She is a very curious one, so I’ve had to be careful with what I do. She’s not a healer, though she knows the basics, so I try to occupy her with other things when she’s around them.”
“What do you mean curious?” I question her.
“She always watches me closely when I tend to the Elites, and I’ve also seen her watching the pack when she thinks no one notices. She stays hidden and far back unless she eats dinner with us at the gathering. I don’t like it, Rhea.” She moves to lean against the table beside Sarah’s bed, her brows scrunched in worry.
Now that I think about it, I haven’t seen her around all that much. A few times at dinner at the gathering, but that’s it, and she didn’t go with the search party into The Deadlands. So what has she been doing?
“What level witch is she?” I ask Anna.
“High, if I were to take a guess.”
“That’s worrisome,” I mutter, and sit back in my seat in thought. “If she was up to something that she shouldn’t be, we would know about it by now, right?”
Anna sighs, a curtain of red curls flowing around her face as she looks down toward her feet. “I don’t know if she is up to something or just curious, but it’s just strange how she observes us so closely, especially me when I’m healing. I know this place is new to her, but she takes that curiosity to another level. I’ve seen her try to talk to a few members, but she gets nothing from them. She tries to talk to Kade a lot when she sees him, but he just straight up ignores her,” she huffs. “We’re loyal, we won’t tell her shit. But she never seems overly frustrated when she gets shut down and then stomps off into the forest.”
“I will keep an eye on her and ask around. No one has come to me about her yet, so maybe her curiosity is innocent, but it’s worth asking them anyway. If the Elites are ready to be fully healed, a few more days and they will be leaving if their time limit is up. We will have to see.” Anna’s eyes turn sad at the thought, and I give her a small smile.
“You will still be going with them then?” Sarah asks, already knowing about me going to the Highers. Josh updated her on that.
I nod. “Yeah. I committed a crime against the Elites, and with the vow I made with Darius, you will all be safe.”
Sarah looks down at her hands before tucking some of her dark hair behind her ear. “It’s my fault the Elites are here in the first place,” she whispers. “You shouldn’t be punished when it’s my fault.
I reach forward slowly and take her hand in mine. I wait for her eyes to come to me before telling her. “It was my choice to go into The Deadlands, and it was my choice to do what I did to try and stop them from finding Eridian, even if it didn’t end up the way I wanted,” I laugh sadly, shaking my head. “But it was my choice to do what I did, just like it was your choice in choosing to live and come here.” Tears fill her eyes, and she squeezes my hand tightly in her grip. “Never feel bad for making that choice. The situation isn’t the best right now, but we will make do. We always make do with what we have. The pack will be in good hands with Kade with many guiding him, especially Josh while I’m gone.” At the mention of him, a smile spreads across her face, and my own genuine smile appears.
Josh thinks I haven’t noticed him sneaking in here for more than check ups, but I have. I won’t push him though. He will tell me when he’s ready if something is going on with them. I’m just glad Sarah seems to have someone close to her, especially a male with what she’s been through. I know Josh won’t hurt her, and I guess she knows that too.
I stand from my seat, giving Sarah’s shoulder a squeeze. “I’ll see myself out,” I tell them both, moving for the door. I go into the hallway of the cabin and pause to take a breath.
I don’t think it will be long before I’ll be leaving Eridian for who knows how long, I don’t even know when I’ll be back. I don’t know what my punishment will be either, but I’ll take it to keep everyone safe here. Edward told me about the trials that happen at the Wolvorn Castle, but he never went into details on what kind of punishments are given. Darius wants my punishment to be passed over to him, but will that be the outcome? Does he have the power to be granted that request by the Highers?
I guess time will tell what’s in store for me.
I walk to the front door, pressing my ear to it and listening for any signs of movement on the other side. When I hear nothing, I silently open it and close it behind me. I scan the area, seeing no sign of anyone before I make my way toward the gathering in the center.
I press my hands to the trees in greeting as I pass them until I reach my seat. I slump into it, stretching my feet out in front of me. The fire pit in the center is just a glow of embers at this time of night, the slight warmth from it reaching me. I take my knife from my boot, looking over the hilt and running my fingers over the familiar writing there. Arbiel Canna. We bleed wolf. It’s a vow to love and protect. A statement to be true to who we are, what we are.
My father gave me this knife as an early birthday present, he couldn’t wait to give it to me. I smile as I remember how mad Mom was at him, telling him he should have waited until my birthday later on in the week. She didn’t stay mad for long though. Dad and I went to pick her favorite lesia flowers, and she couldn’t keep the smile off her face when we gave them to her. I still remember how they smelled, how their pale blue petals darkened at the edges. I loved rolling around in them when I was a child. Mom would take me to the blooming meadow in our woods that was full of them, and tell me stories of the Gods while Dad was busy being Alpha of our pack. The pack that betrayed us, betrayed their Alpha.
The smile fades from my face as I remember what happened the day after Dad gave me that gift, after Mom sang me to sleep that night. If I had just stayed home instead of wandering into the woods behind our house… If I hadn’t overheard a conversation I shouldn’t have, would things be different now? Would Mom and Dad still be alive? Would I have been free?
My fingers grip the hilt of the knife tighter, remembering my mom’s screams as they came for us during the night. My dad hadn’t returned home, and I wanted him to come back and help. There were too many of them and they were too strong. I tried to get them off Mom with my knife, cutting one of them before I was grabbed from behind and hit in the head. When I woke up, I was alone in a room, a cage surrounding me. It was a little later after I had woken up that they came. They would taunt me with my parents’ deaths, saying it was all my fault, that I was to blame. And I should accept my punishment and do what they want.
I remember my own screams echoing in my ears at the pain they inflicted, my ankles and wrists raw from trying to get the chains off. My stomach felt like it was eating itself in hunger, my throat so dry that only cracked sounds escaping from me. Then came my fourteenth birthday, when Runa came to me. They were prepared for the day that my wolf would come, though they just didn’t think it would happen so soon. I didn’t either. I managed to bite and claw two of them, injuring them greatly, but I was restrained again quickly. I spent days in agony from then on, forced to stay in wolf form to see how much I could take, how much I could heal, if I showed anything out of the ordinary.
They finally let me shift back, but then Runa refused to come back out after all we had endured and knowing how much pain would come again. But then we were dealt more pain for not doing as we were told. It was a lose-lose situation, and both options were us suffering.
Runa growls at the thought within me, at the thought of them and the pain we endured for so many years. I don’t hate her for not coming back out, she was protecting us in the way she thought best. Being in human form was the lesser of two evils, they couldn’t do as much as they wanted to do to us in human form because I couldn’t heal as quickly. But it was still torture. Runa has been frightened to come back out ever since, fearing that what happened before would happen again. She knows we’re safe here in Eridian, that no one would hurt us here. But having just come to me for the first time when I was fourteen and then immediately experiencing that trauma, I wouldn’t want to come out again either. Innocents shouldn’t suffer at the hands of monsters.
I inhale sharply as the blade cuts my fingers, blood welling to the surface. I bring my hand up to my face, watching as the red liquid trails down my hand. Who knew something could hold so much power, yet also be an invisible burden?
I’m always at war with myself about if I did the right thing being in Eridian. Did I make the right choice hiding away from the whole of Vrohkaria, helping those who need it in secret when I can instead of the lands as a whole. But then when I look at the smiling faces of my pack and watch the pups play, smiles so wide on their faces as they laugh, I can’t say I regret it.
I shuffle forward in my seat before lowering myself to the ground and crossing my legs under me. I take my bloodied hand and press it to the earth, closing my eyes and murmuring a prayer. “Ir mal terria, dah vek et ce.” My blood pools on the ground, the soil gently letting it seep into the earth as my hand warms against it, the land saying its thanks. I open my eyes when the warmth leaves me, and bring my hand back up to look at it. There’s not a cut in sight, just the stain of my blood, and I let out a small smile.
Then the air changes around me, and I don’t move as I tense. I don’t even look in any other direction as the words come from me with a snarl on my face.
They’re low, deadly and vicious. A warning.
A threat.
“Who the fuck are you, and what do you want?”
