The wonder I’ve felt turns sour with guilt. This is not a delight for her. It is not an exploration into a bold new world of magic—one that had only ever existed in storybooks.
This is a return to her prison. It is a place of pain. The one place she wanted to go anywhere but.
I will save you, I vow again.
As if she heard me, Aurora’s eyes meet mine once more. They widen slightly. I give a slight nod. One she returns.
It takes a half day of streaking through sweeping plains before I see anything that resembles civilization in the distance. Large, six-sided tents are erected, rising into points at their tops, with small flags waving in the breeze. They are surrounded by smaller tents of all shapes and sizes—wedge tents like those Evander and Bardulf travel with, and larger ones with canopies that stretch out before them. They all have three crimson bands stretching up one of their sides.
Before we can get too close, three wolves rush out from the encampment. One is as black as Evander. The other is white, laced with silver. But the one in the center is the largest. It has an all-too-familiar set of fierce eyes that cause the day’s warmth to flee the moment his gaze lands on me.
The one in the middle leads the charge. He leaps forward and lands as a man. Evander and Bardulf are beginning to slow also, and, with the world no longer reduced to a blur, I can make out his features.
He’s a handsome man with lightly tanned skin. Tall. With long, dark, brown hair pulled back into a bun at the nape ofhis neck. Like Bardulf and Evander, he wears no shirt. His skin has been adorned with an intricate tattoo of a wolf’s paw in the center of his chest. Around his brow is a circlet made of fangs, woven together by wrapped silver. It is a thorny crown that gives an uneasy edge to his overall appearance.
Evander and Bardulf come to a stop. Aurora slides down and I follow her lead. Luckily Evander doesn’t change back to his human form immediately. The bones of my legs seem to have become jelly and I rely on his sturdiness to keep myself upright. As soon as I release him, the lykin takes a step and sheds his fur for skin.
“Aurora, what a relief it is to see you.” Conri, king of the wolves, I can only assume, goes to her. He grabs her elbows and kisses both her cheeks, as though she is a long-lost friend returned.
The motion isn’t returned by Aurora. If anything, she has gone completely rigid. She stares numbly, straight through the wolf king.
“You have no idea how much you worried me when you left like that.” He wraps an arm around her shoulders and ushers her toward one of the two wolves that had run at his side. “Now, come, let’s get you bathed and dressed properly.”
Aurora digs in her heels. “I’m not going anywhere without Faelyn.”
“Faelyn…” His attention swings to me. But Conri’s arm is still around Aurora’s shoulders in a possessive stance. “Yes, I had been intending to ask why my two best knights somehow thought it wise to bring a human to our lands.”
“Not quite a human, a witch,” I dare to correct him.
“Ah, so then we don’t need to worry about the withering taking your life, as your body is already accustomed to, and linked with, the magic of this world. Good.” The way he speaks, I don’t think he actually believes that to be good. I don’t think hecares about me at all. Which, oddly, might be preferable. But the longer he looks at me, the stiller he becomes. Comprehension lights up his expression. “You are the witch in the woods from that night…yes, I know that cape. You are the one who took my Aurora.”
“I gave her shelter when she asked,” I say curtly, pulling my cape around me tighter for strength.
He inhales deeply and exhales with a serpentine smile. “You know, this was all a misunderstanding. You thought Aurora needed help.”She did, I want to scream. But I keep my mouth shut. “You looked after her, and now she is returned safely to me. I am feeling generous, this day. I think it is best for you to go back to your woods, little witch. Thank you for allowing me the option of hunting her, Evander, Bardulf. But I do not desire it. You may return her.”
“My liege, there is more,” Bardulf interjects.
“It can wait.” Conri waves at Bardulf, as if the imposing man is little more than an annoyance. “Aurora, the ring. Now.”
Her eyes turn toward me, and I can’t ignore the fear that fills them. My throat goes thick and I swallow twice. I try to stand a little taller as Conri follows her stare. I’m not going to cower with a metaphorical tail between my legs.
“You.” The wolf king closes the gap. This close, I can see the ring of black that lines his silvery eyes. He moves faster than I can react, his hand flying up underneath my chin. His fingers grab either side of my face tightly, forcing me to look up at him. “Do not try my patience, witch. I can be a generous man, but I am not without my limits. If you have the ring, give it to me now, and I will still allow you to return home with all your flesh intact.”
“I destroyed the ring,” Aurora declares, loudly. The two lykin still in wolf forms recoil back. Bardulf looks away inshame. Evander’s expression is impossible to read. Though it is completely, and utterly, focused on me.
Conri’s fingers go slack, but he doesn’t quite release me. “You…what?Aurora, I don’t think I heard you.”
“I destroyed it,” she says bluntly. “I went to a grove of one of the great redwood saplings—one that links to the redwood throne and all the way back to the Lifetree of the sirens, where the goddess of life resides. I begged for her to return my power and set me free.”
The wolf king releases me, spins, and is upon Aurora in a blink. He grabs her shoulders, shaking her, growling, “You would dare to abandon your oath?”
Aurora ignores the mention of her “oath,” instead saying, “I broke the ring on the wood of the redwood, but my powers didn’t return to me. I doubt they could so long as I’m in this form—too much ancient magic for one mortal body to handle; only an old god could restore it properly. So the magic found a new home.
“My magic, my essence, lives in her now, Conri. So do take care not to tear her flesh from her bones. She’s of far more value to both of us alive and well.”
The king staggers back. He looks from person to person, as if searching for someone to have an answer. Expression shifting from shock, to rage, to numbness. Finally, his eyes land on me with an emotion that I can’t quite make sense of.
The wind whispers through the grasses. Somehow, that solitary, quiet breeze reminds me of just how alone I truly am in this strange new world.
