Chapter 1
Lyall
Standing at the far edge of the Storm Hill plateau, I watched with helpless anger as my brother Ranael soared through the night sky. The long stream of flame the Demon Wolf shot in the distance spoke of the rage and madness that continued to control what had once been the sweetest and most loving mind.
Why the fuck was he still cursed? It had been exactly a year since Amara had given the Weaver what I believed to be the cure. So why the delay? Why had she not administered it to Ranael? My brother deserved peace. And selfishly, I terribly missed him. As the black sheep of the family, I struggled to find my place.
Few of my siblings knew how to handle me. I suspected many of them also resented me for how it came to be. Granted, none of them had ever expressed it in a blatant fashion. In fact, there was a possibility that my own paranoia gave them intentions that they may not even possess. But Ranael had been the only one to have truly embraced me, mentored, and nurtured me.
My gaze followed his majestic silhouette as he flapped his magnificent wings. Like all the members of his breed, he had the body of a giant wolf, imposing feathery wings, a large set of horns, and a fluffy tail which gradually turned into a snake. That snake bite was the most lethal poison in the world.
How I missed flying alongside him in my Gharlakan form or racing through the forest with him as a wolf.
Hearing his furious roar further fanned my anger. Giving in to my impulsive ways, I shifted into a Gharlakan and headed towards the Weaver’s house. I needed answers that only she possessed. As a doppelganger, I could take pretty much any appearance I wanted, especially those from creatures or people I had eaten.
This form was my favorite because of the creature’s various abilities. Its body vaguely resembled that of a canine, although with longer legs and arms that could have belonged to a werewolf. The pointy face was reminiscent of a fox with the same pointy ears and long snout. However, the mouth qualified more as a beak than a maw.
Initially, I had balked at the absence of eyes. But being guided by echolocation like a bat turned out to be far more effective and precise. It even permitted me to see certain forms of magic and the heat signatures of potential prey. The wings also could have belonged to a bat if not for them being covered in white fur with specks of blue, just like the rest of the body. Strangely, I really loved the feel of this form’s very long tail, which fanned at the tip into a fluffy and bushy fur. It was the way the wind flowed through it that was quite pleasant.
My chest constricted as I dashed over the luxuriant forest of Wolfmoon Mountains. Every time I traveled through this area, I remembered the feel of Amara in my arms. She felt so fragile, her body feverish and wracked by spasms as Ranael’s poison coursed through her veins. She had voluntarily exposed herselfto the Demon Wolf’s bite as that venom was the only antidote to the poison that was already slowly killing her body. But Amara and her mate Remus had not understood the instructions of the Weaver about the second bite needed to neutralize Ranael’s venom.
Without me carrying Amara back to civilization from the Storm Hill plateau—while Remus sought clarification from the Weaver—she never would have survived that ordeal. I could never regret saving her, but my heart still ached that she had not reciprocated my feelings for her.
I proudly labeled myself a psychopath and a narcissist. My entire existence pretty much revolved around sating my whims of the moment, seeking pleasure, and giving free rein to the darkness that swirled within me. But Amara had changed all of that.
The taste of her blood on my tongue as I sank my fangs into her tender flesh still lingered to this day. As a doppelganger, by consuming the blood or flesh of a living being, I could experience every thought, every memory, even those buried deep in their subconscious. And hers had more than enthralled me. I had never met a purer soul than Amara’s. For the first time in my wretched existence, I had been ready and willing to put the needs of another before my own.
Far too often over the past twelve months, I berated myself for not killing Remus and conveniently being there to console Amara after the passing of her soulmate. And yet, the few occasions I spied on them comforted me in the fact that I had made the right choice. As much as it hurt me, I couldn’t deny that the wretched pup was truly making her happy. The new side of me that my contact with Amara had awakened wanted to feel embarrassed for the petty derogatory pet name that I kept giving Remus. He was a formidable and sickeningly honorable Lycan.
As I left the Wolfmoon Mountains behind and crossed the river into Willow Grove, my thoughts shifted back to the Weaver. It had been at least two years since I last visited my mother, well before ever meeting Remus and Amara. So what kind of welcome awaited me?
As I closed the distance to the large gates blocking the access to her domain, I was shocked to see the two imp statues mounted atop the pillars framing the gates stir to life. Their stone bodies shifted, taking on a leathery texture, and their large owlish eyes started to glow. To my dismay, not only did the gates not open to welcome me in, but the guardians took flight, making a beeline for me to block my path.
Flabbergasted, I flapped my wings back, hovering at a safe distance from the creatures. In my two hundred and fifty-one years of existence, the guardians had never refused me access to my mother’s home.
Does she hate me so much?
Had my long absence and silence built into resentment? Or was it the original offence that had finally festered to hit its ultimate culmination? The moment rumors about Remus and Amara seeking Ranael had reached my ears, I hadn’t doubted that the Weaver had made certain I knew. I often wondered if it had been a bait to get me to visit her after so much time. Realizing that she had allowed me to fall in love with someone that was never meant to be mine angered me enough to not visit her. Was she now punishing me for it?
Was sending Amara the actual punishment?
I immediately cast out that thought. She had not been my soulmate, even though my heart felt she should have been. The Weaver loved to play games, bringing people together in the most unusual and unexpected fashion. While some of those pairings ended in people finding their happily ever after, it always benefited her in some way, allowing her to accomplishsomething in the furtherance of some plot, or acquiring some crucial resource that would otherwise be unattainable. That had been the case with the serum she derived from Amara’s rare blood once she was cured. The Weaver made sure I met Amara back then because without my intervention, she never would have secured the serum she wanted.
And now she refuses to see me because I’m no longer of use to her?
That thought cut me deep. To say that I had mommy issues would be the understatement of the millennium. That sense of rejection stabbed at my heart with a searing blade. However, just as I was about to turn around and leave, it finally dawned on me that the guardians weren’t chasing me away as they normally did with unwanted visitors. They were merely preventing me from passing the gate and traveling up the path to the house.
Could mother already be entertaining another guest?
That instantly appeased me. Tons of people regularly sought my mother’s assistance with various problems, most of them quite serious or dire. You didn’t request an audience with the Weaver unless you were truly desperate. The cost for her services was beyond astronomical. However, as deranged and cruel as some people estimated it to be, they didn’t understand that she was in fact helping and maybe even saving them. Because they never got to see the other side of the coin, they just assumed my mother to be heartless, insane, and in some cases even greedy.
I spent the next ten minutes flying around in a circle in front of the majestic gates of her domain. The guardian imps settled back onto the top of their pillars and folded their bat wings. Although they didn’t shrink down to their statue size or turn back to stone, their non-threatening stance confirmed that I wasn’t being shunned but merely expected to wait my turn.
From my vantage point, I could see the long path leading up to my mother’s dwelling. But the tall trees of her magical garden—not to say forest—blocked my view of the actual courtyard in front of the entrance. However, moments later, a brown carriage cleared the obstructing trees as it made its way towards the exit. With a will of their own, the intricate iron gates quietly parted, opening the way for the departing visitor. It was a woman who looked to be in her mid-thirties, her face displaying a mix of hope and distress—a common occurrence with the few who managed to speak with the Weaver. I couldn’t help but wonder what impossible task Mother had laid before that woman’s feet in order for her to obtain the aid she was seeking.
Wiping those wandering thoughts out of my mind, I flapped my wings towards the house, flying over the gates. This time, the guardians didn’t stir. Instead, the yellow glow of their eyes faded as they shrunk and turned to stone at the same time as the gates closed behind the woman.
My gaze roamed over the spectacular vegetation flanking both sides of the wide, packed dirt road leading to the entrance. Most of the plants and herbs that grew there shouldn’t be able to thrive in this environment. Conjurers, alchemists, and arcanists of every level would give a limb without hesitation to have access to this incommensurable trove of potent magic. Most of them would never even come close to simply peering at such exotic reagents.
