“Wait,” Bryn said, frowning down at the unconscious beast. “Let me inspect it first. The carcass we examined was badly wounded—I’d like to see a living one up close.”
“Absolutely not,” Rangar snarled.
Mage Albia glared at him as though he had insulted her magical ability. “My hex is effective, I assure you. The wolf will not wake.”
Rangar looked ready to throw Bryn over his shoulder and cart her out of there, but she rested a firm hand on his chest. “I’ll be careful.”
His nostrils flared. “If you think that I—”
“Come with me, then,” Bryn said. “And keep your sword drawn if it makes you feel better.”
Rangar clearly didn’t like the idea but was smart enough to know Bryn wouldn’t back down. He muttered a curse under his breath, drew his sword, and aimed it over the sleeping wolf’s head as she bent to inspect the animal.
She stretched out a hesitant hand to touch its fur. It was softer than she’d expected, though caked in dirt. She could feel its chest rising and falling. Taking its head in her hands, she gently examined the oily black substance oozing from its eyes. Though the wolf was enormous, it felt vulnerable and delicate in its sleep, and her heart went out to it.
Someone made it into this monster.
She carefully pried open its jaw and looked closely at the oversized teeth that crowded its mouth around the strange black tongue. Finally, she stepped back and wiped her hands on her dress. She took a deep breath. “What will you do with this wolf?”
“Kill it once we have finished studying it,” Prince Anter said. “It cannot be allowed to return to the forest.”
Of course, he was right, but it pained Bryn to think of the wolf being slaughtered.
* * *
That night,she lay in bed listening to the distant sounds of the waterfall. The bedroom’s windows showed the treetops swaying in the wind, making her feel strangely out of sorts. Rangar had kissed her senselessly and now slumbered by her side, but the whole time she hadn’t gotten her mind off the berserkir wolf.
Letting out a long exhale, she finally admitted to herself that sleep wouldn’t come. She got out of bed and lit a candle with the spark spell, then opened one of the books Mage Marna had sent. This was one written in an old common tongue that Bryn knew a little of. It told the history of the berserkir beast legend.
In the old time, there was a legend of the berserkir beasts - a pack of vicious, rabid animals that roamed the dark forests, hunting for prey with a bloodthirst that knew no bounds.
According to the legend, these creatures were once ordinary animals - wolves, bears, and other fierce predators that roamed the wilderness. However, a dark curse befell them, causing them to become twisted and mutated, driven mad with an insatiable hunger for blood.
The berserkir beasts were said to be almost unstoppable, tearing through anything that crossed their path with ferocious speed. They were feared by all who lived in the kingdom, and many a brave warrior fell victim to their relentless attacks.
Despite their fearsome reputation, there were some who claimed to have encountered the berserkir beasts and lived to tell the tale. These brave souls spoke of the beasts' unending rage and savagery.
As time passed, the legend of the berserkir beasts spread throughout the kingdoms, becoming a cautionary tale told to children to keep them safe in the wilderness.
She closed the book as her mind ran back through the old story. In the Mirien, they told a version of this tale where, instead of animals, a dark sorceress with a vendetta turned soldiers into vicious, bloodthirsty warriors. Bryn tried to piece together all the clues they’d uncovered, yet the puzzle refused to come together in her mind.
She reached for a midnight snack from a tray one of the servants had left. Her hand fell on a biscuit, and she grimaced as soon as she took a bite.
Orange biscuits.
It wasn’t the flavor that was off-putting, but the memories it invoked. Months ago, Captain Carr proposed marriage with orange biscuits and stuck his disgusting tongue down her throat. Before that, orange biscuits called to mind Baron Marmose’s equally off-putting courtship when he’d served her the biscuits and bored her to tears with tales of his yapping little lap dogs . . .
Her breath caught in her throat.
His dogs.
Baron Marmose was well known for his hobby of breeding and training dogs. Most of his pets were tiny, fluffy things she might have mistaken for dust mops, but one thing he’d said on that long-ago carriage ride now stuck in her head.
“One must maintain meticulous breeding ledgers, princess, or undesirable traits may pop up in the offspring. I once bred a whole litter of black-tongued miniature sheepdogs . . .”
A strange feeling began to curdle in her stomach. Baron Marmose was exceedingly skilled in dog training, and while most of his animals were lapdogs, he was also known for training highly prized hunting dogs used in the Ruma army.
“The way these wolves stalk their prey and work together feels . . . organized somehow, as though someone trained them to do it,”the old woman at the inn had said.
