Suddenly we were sitting in the temple as it had been hundreds of years earlier! The murals looked new, the carvings pristine, and the gold shone as if the sun was upon it.
“You two are the reborn King and Queen. You’ve been destined to overthrow Lady Skol because her long shadow of rule has ruined the balance of life. Her way of killing you was treacherous. And I am the worst of all because I allowed her in.” Her face was downcast, she avoided looking at us.
“But you weren’t to know,” Feyra said. “Lady Skol was a…a,” but Feyra didn’t know what to say.
“All the more I should have known,” Melania said. “But the past is where it lies, let us not disturb the dust any longer.” She adjusted her cloak and straightened her sleeves. “At the height of the Half-Moon Pack’s power, the city of Malwreith was a beautiful place full of wealth for all, equality for all, and safety for anyone. We were a democratic place that placed no importance of one power over the other. This was the decree of the King and Queen of each generation. This was the belief of every citizen. The shifters were who they were as much as the singers and seers. The men and women among us without powers were just as valuable also, for they possessed greater strength and will than any other. Without power, they relied on their own ingenuity.
“But as you have been destined to overthrow Lady Skol, it had been prophesied that Malwreith would turn to cinder and ash. It would be destroyed and become known asJebra. It was a prophecy that the King and Queen took seriously, but as time wore on, grew weary of. They hoped that it had passed, or never been. Not all prophecies come to fruition, but it was their hubris which ultimately caused their downfall. They believed that Malwreith was too strong to fall to pieces.”
The murals and paintings became more colorful as Melania spoke. It was as if the mural was moving. The flickering candlelight, which I’d not noticed before, made the people dance and sway. Horses galloped in the fields alongside the wolves, and the flames burned among the happy villagers.
“But the trouble hadn’t even started. The evening that the twin daughters of the King and Queen were born, a shooting star crashed out in the Wastelands.” She watched her lap for a time. “Now it is known as Mograaw’s Keep, but then, it was the darkest pit known to man. Its crash into the lands awoke something deep in the gorges of the Half-Moon. Below the gardens. Much further down than the Royal Houses. In the darkness unyielding, in the shadows long untouched by time and the sun,she came.”
“Lady Skol,” Feyra uttered.
“You’ve seen the vision,” Melania said.
I was still staring at the two women as if they were completely insane.Who was this woman?How did Feyra know all this, even with dreams? My dreams were always uneventful. Always normal like everyone else.
“When a prophecy is spoken,” she said, turning to me now. “It echoes across the ages, across the plains and through every cell living and dead. Those with foresight hear ripples of these, see visions through to the other side, and if taught, can enter it. Dreaming is one of the many gateways.” She smiled at Feyra. “But Roman had taught himself quite a bit when he found me.”
My jaw dropped. She smiled then and clicked her fingers. Beside her suddenly was an enormous wolf with burning eyes and smoldering fur. It was Roman! He panted with his tongue out.
“Roman!” I jumped to my feet in excitement. But then I realized thatthiswas in fact a dream. The truth trickled through, Feyra was still tied to the stake and I was asleep on the ground as a wolf. We were alone in the temple. And yet–
“The ghost of Jebra,” Melania said. “Is me.”
“How?” was all I could ask.
She smiled. “As I’ve been saying. Dreams are powerful things. Prophecies are powerful things. But misheard? Or misused? Very dangerous. And Lady Skol with her own pride has made that mistake time and time again. She is a predator of the deep. A monster of this world but long forgotten. She is of the old magic, the purest form of magic. Sheer power but no control. Her only ambition is to keep her power.
“And all those years ago, when the prophecies echoed down into the dark recesses where she’d dwelt, she’d been awoken to the fact that she was mortal. Ever since, she has done all she could to retain her position. But she is foolish because she misheard the prophecies. And in her mishearing has damned herself with every wrong mistake she’s made–”
“She killed me here, didn’t she?” Feyra said.
Melania nodded. “To my utmost horror. In theTemple of Lifeshe committed the greatest sin, but it was her first mistake. She killed the wrong person. Her greatest enemy, which she’d perceived as Diora the Queen, had only just been born. You see, Lady Skol’s greatest enemy as told in the prophecy, would be the long descendant of the King Elex. The forgotten son of Malwreith has been lost to time. And I have spent years destroying and covering up his existence. For it was the forgotten son’s decedent, who would father the Alpha that would rise up against her.Hewho would guide the Reborn Queen across the Warlands to her ultimate truth.Hewho would be a leader but could never lead. And it was he, who would be the blind man to die in the Temple of Dhrum.”
I stared at her for a long time. I was unable to breath. I couldn’t get a breath in. Every time I tried, I just couldn’t make my lungs work.The blind man to die in the Temple of Dhrum…
“Dion?” Feyra asked. “Dion, are you okay?”
“He is in shock, dear,” Melania said.
Sweat broke out on my forehead, I felt clammy and claustrophobic. “How do you know this?” I stammered. My heart was seizing in my chest, trying to break free. I looked at the great wolf beside her, it shifted on its haunches.
Words rebounded around my head, her haunting words never ending.Die in the Temple of Dhrum…Guide the Reborn Queen…Father the Alpha…
“Roman was–” but I couldn’t say it.
“Yes,” she said. “Roman was your true father.”
The wolf howled a long piercing note that shattered all realms and souls. It dove deeply into my heart and then left my body as a howl of my own. The wolf howled once more, and began fading into the wind.
“Your father was burdened with many things, chiefly the hardest, that he could never acknowledge his position as your father. Just as he couldn’t lead, he couldn’t be anything more than a guide. His destiny had always been with the Half-Moon pack, not the Whiteclaws. But to hide his, and your, bloodline, he had to let his brother take control.”
I still couldn’t breathe. And now I saw myself, my wolf in the ruined temple, shaking and seizing. I was having an attack. I was having a nightmare. I was–
“Your father has hidden you from these dreams for a long time, Dion. You believe you have never dreamed, that you have never had anything more than an ordinary night’s sleep. But you have always been watched over. It’s time for you to wake up. To your true self–”
