The wind howled overhead, whipping the trees around him. The moon was dark — veiled by the storm.
Prince Valen stood at the ready, the light from the campfire cast harsh shadows against the stone. He was completely surrounded by wolves, hungry and savage, and carrying the heavy, permeating scent of rotten death.
But there was something wrong with them. They're eyes which should have reflected in the dark, instead glowed in the night with a vicious, craven yellow.
Valen watched the circling beasts, his mind racing with possibilities and movement. He was anticipating their attack, readying himself to act faster than he ever had before.
The storm howled, furious as it raged below the heavens. If he fell here, nobody would hear his screams. Nobody would find his body for days. All it would take was a single wound. A bite mark in an unlucky place.
And he would be doomed.
He held his great sword in one hand and a flaming torch in the other. While he was resting, he hadn't even heard them approach him. Valen underwent the Rite of Malice many years before, just days before he turned fifteen.
Every soldier in Wildburn underwent this vicious week-long trial in the woods — man or woman. You were hunted, stalked — forced to fight, hide and run from trained soldiers until your week was up.
It was a hunt designed to strengthen you. To sharpen the senses. It was difficult and bloody, but he'd done it and come out victorious. Valen was used to being hunted. He could sense a person's presence — their intent to kill — even with his eyes closed.
So why didn't he feel them?
They were so quiet, he only caught sight of them in the shadows, alerted by the sudden scent of something foul. He'd spared one last peak into the darkness before closing his eyes for the night.
That's when he spotted its crazed eyes in the shadows. When he fully opened his eyes, dread spread over him like a veil. He was surrounded. The beasts could have attacked at any moment, but they didn't and Valen learned why very quickly.
It was the fire that burned beside him that kept them at bay.
He swung the live flame at the beasts who stalked him at the edge of the shadows.
Valen thought it odd.
Most creatures would react to the flame the way they did, but it was the mannerism that put him off. When he swung the fire, they reacted in a wave, one after the other. As if each reaction depended on the one before it.
He didn't understand why but he was satisfied to at least be able to anticipate their moves. It was enough to react.
Suddenly, one of the wolves on the side that he held his blade lunged from the shadows. Blinded by wet hair clinging to his face, Valen struck it down midair, ending its life with a clumsy, brutal swing of his blade.
Its limp body fell to the ground beside him. His breath was heavy with adrenaline, his senses alert.
It was dead.
At least, that's what he thought.
The others growled in unison — not varied growls as a group. They growled in a wave.
The same low, flat tone.
The same unhurried consistency.
The same deep reverberation, in perfect unison.
Valen's skin crawled at the sound, when suddenly, he heard another just beside him. The shadows were too dark and the rain that whipped around him distorted his sight too much to see it without light.
He jerked the torch toward the movement, and his eyes widened in horror.
The wolf he'd struck down was standing on all fours, a great gash sliced across its neck, nearly severing its head clean off. Crimson pooled at its feet, dripping down its body. If not for the force of the strike, then the blood loss should have done it.
The damn thing should have died.
So why was it still moving?
Saliva poured from the beast's maw, thick, discolored and dripping slowly. Too slowly for it to be natural. Valen had known dogs in his life. He was the master of several he called family. He knew them well enough to know what saliva looked like, and this consistency like half-curdled cheese, this scent like infection and rot, was certainly not it.
The wolves growled in unison once more and stepped forward just like their growl.
One step, not even a second after the other, in a wave of simultaneous perfection — and then another.
Valen's breath shuddered, and he stepped back as well.
They were no longer afraid of the flame.
The beasts closed in. Valen stepped back again, and his stomach coiled with dread when it happened.
His back met the cold, unforgiving mountain side.
He knew then, it was over.
Valen did not want to die by their will, but he knew a lost cause when he saw one. He was outnumbered and outpowered. And so, he took his last shuddering breath, lifted his neck, exposing his jugular.
If he was to die by the jaws of a wolf, he wanted it to be quick.
"By the light of the Goddess, I thank you for all you've given me," Valen whispered.
He squeezed his eyes shut and swallowed hard.
"My mother. My father. And my sisters."
The growling came in more intense now, and louder, more excited.
"I pray," he said, his voice shaky, "that you protect them, in exchange for my life."
Closer now, he could hear the drip of their fluids.
He took in a sharp breath, and continued still, letting his torch fall to the wet ground.
"And I pray that my body is enough to sate the hunger of the immortal monsters."
His fingers curled at his sides and a tear fell from his eyes as he whispered.
"Blessed be."
Suddenly, a frigid chill ran across him like spiders.
It was different from any cold he'd felt in his life. Similar only to the spirit he met in the abandoned tunnels of Valeforte. Its aura — just as bone chilling and intense.
Then, whispers lapped at his ears, circling all around him.
Valen's eyes flew open, and what he saw before him — he almost couldn't believe his eyes.
The monsters cowered at him.
But their eyes were unfocused, gazing past him.
Horror ran down his spine, feeling the cold hard stone against him. His body shuddered with fear, his eyes wide.
Then, a woman's voice echoed in the dark, over the cacophony of environmental howls.
"Tua manu pereas."
Her tone was low and calm yet reverberated all around him.
Valen knew its meaning from its tone but felt he could no longer trust his senses.
It was a command.
He was sure of that.
And then, he watched as the beasts turned to one another, slowly. There was an empty pause as they stared at one another.
And then, they tore themselves apart.
Valen fell to his knees, unable to make sense of the chaos before him.
He couldn't move — couldn't breathe.
And they didn't stop the carnage until every last one of them was dead.
He didn't know if he should be thankful or horrified, but right then, he couldn't feel anything. All he could hear was the sound of his own breath, muffled by the wailing gusts, and relentless, needling rain.
With the flame of the torch completely snuffed, darkness swallowed him whole, and soon, his eyes became fixed to the shadow. His gaze lifted, slowly. Compelled by an unknown force of the night, his eyes met two, piercing red orbs in the void.
They settled in a face he knew rather well.
She stood tall — slender and graceful. The wind whipped her hair around her like a beautiful, cursed gorgon. Her expression was wild, with a grin that curled in malevolent amusement. But he'd never seen this kind of expression on her before.
Valen's stomach dropped.
A great shadow stood behind her, enshrouding her shoulders, gripping her arms with its talons. It was massive and curled over her like a father grasping its child. Its presence was unnaturally still — like it was moving in and out of reality.
It clung to her back, looming and menacing. And though it was made of nothing but shadow and evil, Valen could make out the shape atop its head.
Sharp, pointed peaks and curves like ones he'd seen all his life.
Then, the shadow was gone.
But Valen had seen it.
A black crown of shadow.
"Lexi…" Valen whispered, his voice shaking.
Her fingers twitched, and she gasped softly like she'd forgotten he was there. Her lips parted and she wrapped her arms around herself, staring at the massacre between them.
He couldn't hear her voice over the sounds that filled the air, but he knew what she was saying.
"I'm sorry," she whispered, eyes wild, with lips that shuddered.
Valen's eyes widened in realization.
She was a Darkwood, and with that came horrors he would never know.
Her apology wasn't for him.
Lexi was apologizing to the wolves.
She was the one who'd commanded them to die.
"It was the only way."