The Steele Wolf

CHAPTER 13



The scream of a horse woke me a few hours after Kael left. This night was bound and determined to never end. I rolled over on the rug by the fire and noticed that it had died down to a mere burning ember. So if my fire had burned out, why was my room still alit with a glow? Then, the scent of burning hay reached my nose and the sound of another horse screaming made me jump up in panic. Something was on fire.

Quickly donning my clothes, I looked outside and could see flames in the distance through the trees, dancing on the rooftop of Aldo's house and barn. My first concern was my horse.

Faraway?

I'm okay, I'm in the field, he responded. I wanted to be near our new friend.

Breathing a sigh of relief that he was safe, I rushed into the hall and half slid, half fell down the steps and caught myself at the last moment, but not before spraining my ankle.

“Father!” I yelled through the house.

“He's not here,” a soft feminine voice echoed from downstairs. “He's already outside helping the others.” The voice became louder as it got closer and Siobhan turned the corner and came into view. Her eyes were red rimmed and puffy as if she had been crying. “I've come to help you.”

“Are you okay, cousin?” I asked in concern.

Shaking her head, she came closer. “I'm sorry,” she said. “Aldo's dead.”

“What? I don't understand.”

“It was the fire,” she cried, starting to hiccup. “He died while trying to save the stupid horses. Now the fire has spread to the next house, and everyone is trying to contain it. We must leave, cousin, because if they can't then your house is next. Your father wants you safely away.” She came over to me and I tried to stand but cried out as I put weight on my ankle.

Stupid, stupid stupid, I thought angrily at myself. “I'm gonna need help.”

Siobhan quickly wrapped her arm around my shoulder and helped me stand and walk towards the back door. It was when she was standing shoulder to shoulder to me that I noticed a fresh bruise on her face, but didn't comment on it as she deftly led me out.

The noise, light and heat from the fire were definitely weaker at the back of the house. I let Siobhan lead me away from the fire and into the dark. I could hear the sounds of people and animals crying out.

“How much farther?” I asked, as I limped along.

“I'm sorry, Thalia. Not much farther,” she went on.

“Siobhan, I never got a chance to apologize for how I treated you over the years. I really don't remember it too much, but Father says I was downright horrible.”

She froze mid step and listened. I quickly went on. “I was told I did it to prove my place as the next clan leader, but I don't know and really I don't care. I've had time to think it over and I was wrong, no matter what the reasons, no one should treat another poorly.”

Siobhan continued walking, although this time slower. I wished she would take faster steps so we could get to wherever we were going and I could sit.

“A lot of things have happened to me over the last few months and I've tried, I really have, to be the old Thalia that father wants me to be.” I took a quick intake of breath as I stumbled again, before finishing. “But I can't be her. I don't know her. I only know who I am now. And frankly, I don't want to go back to the way I was.”

Nodding her head in understanding, Siobhan spoke up. “You've changed. You are not the same power hungry, mean spirited cousin of before. You have grown. It's as if when you disappeared for months you grew and have emerged into a better person. Like a butterfly.”

I shivered at the comparison.

“Yes, Cousin, we do many things, good and bad, to try and please our fathers.” With her free hand she unconsciously touched her bruised cheek. “Thalia, you must understand... the need to make your father proud.”

“Unfortunately I do, Siobhan. So will you forgive me for how I treated you in the past?” We had finally quit walking and were at the edge of the village under a copse of trees.

“I...I can't.” She pulled her arm from around my shoulders. “I can't accept your forgiveness, knowing that in return you won't forgive me.” Two large figures stepped out of the shadows of the trees and came towards me. I tried to balance on one leg as my support walked farther away from me and turned back.

“I'm so sorry, Thalia. I had to. He made me.”

The he in question stepped forward out of the woods.

It was my Uncle Rayneld. The similarities in the looks between my father and his brother once again made me freeze in confusion. But I couldn't mistake the undertone of hidden contempt in Rayneld’s voice.

“Well, hello niece.”

“Hello, Uncle.”

“I’m so glad that you are safe.” I stared at Uncle Rayneld and had a moment of déjà vu. I looked around the dark forest in confusion.

“I’m surprised, really, that you don’t remember. I thought for sure when you showed up again that you would have called for my execution. I was surprised when you didn’t,” he said, taking another step forward. He paused and cocked his head as if to study me. “Well, I guess that works to my advantage.”

“Enlighten me. What exactly should I remember?” I asked. I couldn't ignore the hidden meaning and aggressive body language of my uncle. But, at the same time, I wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt. He was family, after all.

“They said it would work and obviously it did. I never would have expected the effects to last this long. Otherwise I would have waited a bit longer. But Siobhan says you’re starting to remember things.” He stopped walking towards me and turned to the side, walking slighting away from me.

I hobbled on one foot and tried to keep him in view as he talked. “What are you talking about?”

“You have to understand niece; it was just a simple error in birth order. I should have been born first, not second, and rightly be the clan leader, not your father. I can uphold the laws just as well as Bearen. I'm even a more ruthless fighter than he is and I would never have married your outcast of a mother.” He spat out those last words and his eyes lit up with revulsion.

“She may have fooled your father, but I refuse to take that chance. Her bloodline must end. And I can never allow you to rule as the clan leader; I won't allow you to infect the clan.”

Turning on me in anger, he pointed one large ugly finger at me. “No more lies.” His upper lip curled and showed his teeth in a feral gleam. “Is it true?”

Looking at him square in the eye I raised my shoulder and chin and firmly stated, “Yes.”

“How much of it?” he declared angrily.

“All of it.” I wasn't about to back down from him. He didn’t need to know that I wasn’t really a Denai; the alternative, I thought, would be worse if he knew I was something else entirely.

I saw his shoulders bunch up and fingers curl as the look he gave me was filled with hate. “I knew it,” he smiled cruelly. “I was right to drown the mother. I only wish I would have drowned the pup with her.”

“What?” The news staggered me and I fell to my knees and grasped the dirt as images and memories flooded my mind.

Memories of a loving beautiful woman with long gold tresses, holding me in the air, laughing and spinning in circles. Pictures of us rolling and playing in the grassy meadow and swimming in the lake. I remember sitting on a blanket playing with a toy while my mother sat at the edge of the lake with her feet dangling in the water. My father called to her and she rose and walked out of sight while motioning me to stay where I was. I remember waiting patiently for her to come back, but she didn't.

Hours later, Odin came to find me still playing on the same blanket and he asked where Thelonia was. I pointed to the water and told him she was swimming. Sure enough, he looked and saw her golden tresses floating in the water.

My mind blanked and then skipped ahead a few years, to Bvork teasing me, throwing dung at me and calling me a pig among many other names. There were rumors about my mother, and where she had come from. Some said she was a Goddess, others a ghost, because she appeared out of the morning mist, walking cold and barefoot out of the mountain pass. No one knew who she was and she refused to speak of her past. My father found her, fell in love with her and married her, refusing to believe the things the people said about her.

They were secretly relieved when she died and I remember my father telling me that I was teased because of her. He told me that I would have to be strong and prove that I was different.

It was then that I became the strong, uncaring Thalia. I had to prove myself to everyone and close off any emotion. I became the strongest advocate against Denai and impure bloodlines, even though deep down there was always the fear that I would always be different, mistreated like my mother.

The memories, one by one, flew back as if I was reliving my life from childhood to adulthood in slow motion. I felt myself gag, as I was overwhelmed with the knowledge of how much self-loathing I had for Denai and myself. The hatred was strong and deep. My eyes couldn't focus and I grabbed my head and waited for it all to stop.

Breathing in a deep breath, I looked at my uncle. “It was you at the river that day, not my father.” I stated, feeling myself go nauseous at the thought that I was there when my own mother was murdered. “You killed her.”

Rayneld’s eyes opened in disbelief and then he chuckled in pleasure. “Ah, so you do remember.” He turned back towards me. “Yes, I killed her and I tried to get rid of you. But you came back.” My neck hairs went on end as he talked and I let him, because I needed to know everything he knew. “They promised me you would experience great pain and wouldn't live through the process. They lied, because here you are, back to plague me again.”

“Who?” I asked him. “Who was it that you gave me to?”

It was coming back; I remembered everything from the night that I disappeared months ago, or almost everything. Bvork had refilled my tankard of honey mead for me during our feast. An act that made me raise my eyebrows in question, but one that made him throw his head back in laughter.

“Relax, cousin.” He gestured to his own in an offertory salute. “A toast to the future clan leader, I heard Fenri talking to your father. Your future looks secure.”

Warily, I clanked mugs with him and drank down my drink. A few minutes later, I began to feel light headed and fuzzy.

Something was wrong with my drink and I stumbled out of the main hall and tried to make my way home. Bvork met me and led me into the woods, where Rayneld was waiting. Slowly, my limbs felt like lead and my body began to go numb. Even my consciousness began to fade in and out.

There were more men in the forest and I remember seeing red robes and horses. A gag was placed in my mouth and a bag that smelled faintly of flour was placed over my head and tied around my neck. I could still hear and I heard the sound of a moneybag exchanging hands and Rayneld and another talking.

“She won't remember anything,” a low voice injected. “As long as she drank all of the serum.”

“Are you sure she's what you’re looking for?” Rayneld asked.

“If she's from the bloodline you think she is from, and she carries any of their blood, then she will do,” the low voice replied too low to determine actual gender.

“That's fine. Just as long as you promise that she will never show up here again.”

“That would be inconvenient for your plans, wouldn't it?” The gender-neutral voice chuckled. “Few rarely survive our...how can I put this, um… delicate process.”

Deftly, with my hands tied and feeling weighted down from the drugs, I was hefted over someone’s lap on a horse and the saddle pommel dug painfully into my rib cage. I gasped for breath as the horses took off into the woods and my head slammed against the side of the horse and everything went black.

I awoke a good deal later; it could have been hours or days, because I was still in a drug filled haze. But I opened my eyes to the putrid smelling laboratory, as I was being strapped into the iron butterfly for the first time and had my first glimpse of the Raven wearing the silver mask. All of the hated and suppressed memories came flooding back.

Tears burned my eyes and dripped onto the ground and I screamed in rage at my Uncle Rayneld. “How could you?”

“It was easy. I did what I had to do to guarantee the succession of our clan to be untainted. With you gone, that only leaves my bloodline left to rule. There were rumors that you had been found and when Bearen went to bring you back, I couldn’t let that happen. The men I hired at the pass were supposed to kill all of you, but you survived. Imagine my surprise to learn you didn’t remember anything. Siobhan noticed it first, so we changed tactics. Bvork would have been willing to marry you if he won the Kragh Aru and rule in your stead. It would have been such a simple solution. Of course no children would be allowed from the union. And if you ever regained your memories an unfortunate accident would have to occur.” He sighed dramatically and shook his head. “But your antics at the arena, by fighting in disguise... How stupid. You’ve disgraced yourself and us. Now he refuses to marry you, the fool.”

Rayneld came forward and pulled a knife from a sheath. The moonlight glinted off the sharp blade, and I stared, mesmerized by the beauty of a weapon so deadly. Shaking my head from the trance, I glanced up from the blade. Standing up and precariously balancing myself, I squared off for battle.

“Did it hurt, Thalia? Were you in pain?”

“No,” I lied.

“You know if your father really knew what you have become, he would kill you.”

“You lie. My father wouldn’t.”

“That’s why he is weak and will be killed next,” Rayneld promised.

“Who was it that took me?” It was my turn to change the subject and surprise him.

“What?”

“I want a name. Who approached you to kidnap me? How did you get involved with the Septori?”

“What good would a name do you now?”

“I need to know.”

“It’s not who you think it is, and there are more than one. The master always has an apprentice. If you cut off the head, the snake can still bite.”

Quickly I started to pull power to me so I could try and attack him. But I needed to keep him thinking and distracted. This was the last bit of information that I needed from him.

Casting a quick glance over my shoulder, he looked at me hesitantly before answering. “Yes, I think I will tell you. The leader is one of your precious Denai.”

I looked at him in confusion, but I had no time as he lunged forward with his blade. I grasped for power to defend myself and felt Faraway jerk awake at my onslaught for power, but I was too weak and too slow. Too slow to realize that the whole time he was talking he was moving in a circle to make my back face the forest. I had forgotten about the second person. I was too slow to realize the glance over my shoulder was to signal Bvork to attack from behind.

I saw my power connect and send Rayneld flying backwards into a tree with a loud crack; his huge form fell forward onto the ground with a thud. It was the same time a club hit me in the side of my face and I heard more than felt the cracking of my jaw. Only one thought consumed me before I fainted.

“Again?”