The North

If this chapter is a bit of a mess, I'm sorry, it's been a rough week! But I didn't want to leave yous without an update

Have you ever had a dream that felt real?

Chapter 14

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I came to standing in the doorway of the courtyard hall, but there was something different. Nothing remained of the roof overhead, and though the night sky was clear of the usual snow clouds, not one star glittered in a blanket of oppressive black. The windows yawned into the abyss, some like jutting canines from where the wall had crumbled away.

I shuddered and moved slowly further in.

No fire burned in the hearth, the table was broken on one end, and the throne was charred black with glimpses of light brown where wood had cracked. It was as if a great fire had destroyed the place, but that couldn’t be possible. Where was Alpha Hati? Beta Caldar? Or Gerlac? Why did I get the unnerving impression nobody had set foot here in generations?

If this was a dream, it was like none I’d ever experienced before. The stone floor was icy beneath my feet, and I could feel the tickle of the thin white dress that rippled with my every movement. I didn’t own a dress like this, another clue to something off. I rubbed my eyes, certain the last thing I could remember was sharing blood with Alpha Hati. It had hurt, I’d passed out, and woken. . .here.

Wherever here was.

A gust of wind moaned through the derelict hall, causing wooden beams to creak dangerously overhead while brown leaves scattered across the floor. A scent came with it, burning embers and must.

“I know you’re there,” I whispered into the dark, and as I did, I became aware of eyes watching from the shadows.

The scittering of claws trailed down from my left, pausing nearer the table at the far end, though I still couldn’t see a thing. I backed away slowly, urging myself to shift to fur but it was as if that part of myself was locked away. My skin tightened, but my bones refused to reshape. Panic set in.

“You can see me?” a deep voice boomed out questioningly, and a darker mass moved against the wall, vaguely person shaped but distorted and hunched.

“No,” I croaked, trying to lift myself up taller when creeping fear made my bones rattle. “But I can smell you.”

The shadow chuckled suddenly from my right and I spun around to keep track of it.

How had it moved so far without me hearing?

Still I saw nothing, and I wished the strange sky would fix itself so stars or moonlight would give me something to use. My eyes hurt trying to make a single thing out but I knew it was in the far corner, could sense it’s presence.

“Clever, she-wolf.” High in the rafters now, dust and twigs falling to the ground as he, or it, crawled across. “What are you doing here? You don’t belong here. You smell far too sweet to be one of the dead.”

My heart skipped a beat. What on earth did it mean by that?

“I don’t think I’m dead. I’m dreaming.”

“Dreaming?” the creature asked, tone thick with intrigue.

I nodded slowly, trying to catch sight of it again now that I was sure it was on the ground once more. Bright eyes gleamed from beneath the table, a dark shape that slunk across the ground with eerie grace and precision. Not once did it come into the light, almost as if it couldn’t, like it was forced to stick to the shadows.

“There are souls here who know you, can you hear them?” it asked curiously.

At first, I opened my mouth to answer no, but almost as if the question made me suddenly aware, the hall became a barrage of sound that nearly forced me to my knees. Voices shouted and screamed my name, seeming to come from within the very walls around me. The creature began to laugh as I cowered away, a slicing sound that silenced the screams. Trembling hands fell away from my ears and the hair on the back of my neck prickled as instincts urged me to run.

Somehow, I knew that even though I could no longer hear them, the voices were still there, screaming into the dark.

“What was that? Who are they?” I cried, marching forward a few steps with a renewed confidence.

Claws slid across the tabletop, as if the creature had to haul himself upright. “If you can hear them, strange she-wolf, I might know exactly who you are.”

“Who?”

It didn’t answer, stared at me with those bright gleaming eyes while I shook my head and squeezed my eyes shut.

“Wake up,” I whispered, tugging at my hair only to feel the sting and open my eyes again to see the same eerie mirage of the hall.

“You should, if you can,” the creature agreed. “Linger here much longer, and word will spread fast. Those souls already know you’re here, if they don’t already have their eye on you yet too, they soon will. He won’t be happy Hati found you first.”

“I don’t understand. Who has their eye in me? Who are you?” I barked, stalking towards the table again only to watch in amazement as the shadowy mass stretched and flowed with the sound of scraping claws to take it further away from me.

Was it afraid of me? Surely not. For the terror I felt still allowed me to growl and stalk the strange creature and it seemed more than happy to taunt me.

“I am Narfi,” it hissed. “I am the dark, the night, and a watcher of the dead. I am one of the slain. I am meant to be here.”

“This doesn’t look like the meadows in the stories,” I argued, wondering why my mind would choose this place.

There was no life here. No light. No sense of peace. If this was what awaited us all, we should all be afraid to die. This was more like what my nightmares had become since hearing Yousuf. But normally I saw Mànas, or Aonghas. Not this.

The creature sighed, like I was a small pup ignorant of far too much but was old enough to know better. “This is not the place for souls worthy of contentment with their ancestors and loved ones. This is a place for the savage damned. Lost souls. Evil souls. Monsters and beings of twisted minds and murderous ways. Blood thirsty ways.”

The scratchy voice grated at my nerves, and I got the sense Narfi enjoyed my fear. Whatever tortured part of my mind was conjuring this, it made me fear perhaps I’d finally snapped. The pressure of everything had finally got to me. Again I closed my eyes and willed myself to wake, much to the amusement if the watching shadow who’s laugh resounded the crumbling walls like thunder.

“Go now, Eabha,” it chortled. “Daughter of the Vargr.”

My feet stayed in place and yet it felt like I was being ripped away. The stone walls shuddered and faded, the shadows crept in quicker and quicker, the dark pressing in around me. I covered my face with my hands, gasping at a sudden blow to my chest that sent my body flying backwards. Whatever surface I hit bounced slightly beneath me, and I snapped my eyes open again, sucking in a breath as if I’d been submerged under water for too long.

It wasn’t my bed, nor my room. Heavy smoke filled the air, earthy and sweet, calming my racing heart. The dream, or nightmare, drifted from my grasping thoughts, forgotten as my hand throbbed to life at my side. My fingers twitched. Even turning my head was draining, and it took a while for my eyes to adjust to the dimly lit room to focus on the palm of my hand. Wrapped in white bandages, the wound was hidden from view, but red had seeped through a few layers and copper scented it.

Pushing myself up against the pillow, I groaned as stiff joints protested. I could see better though, recognising the small beds across from me and the window on my right. Alone in the healer’s quarters, I stared at the wall opposite feeling more lost then ever. My tongue was thick and dry in my mouth, a horrible taste telling me at one point I’d bitten my cheek.

“What happened to me?” I muttered, rubbing my face with my other hand.

“That is what I’d like to know,” a dark voice growled from a shadowed part of the room. Unblinking orange eyes glowed in the dark, and I had to squint to make out the Alpha’s features.

My own voice was rough as I demanded, “What did you do to me?”

“Me?” He threw himself up and stalked forward to the foot of my bed, rage rolling from him in hot beating waves. “I have done nothing but help you, and you have done nothing but bring trouble and deceit.”

My mouth fell open in shock, confusion filling me. Had we not been over this before? “For the last time, I don’t know what you’re talking about!”

I didn’t dare flinch as he finished the few paces so he stood as close as the bed would allow. Despite how weak and overwhelmed I felt, I straightened my back and lifted my head, peeling back my lips to bare teeth.

Flaming eyes held mine as the Alpha lowered himself to bite off, “Did you know the Blood Drinkers were following you?”

Taken aback, I nearly hit my head off the wall behind me.

What did he mean by that? Wanted me. Why would they?

“Enough with the doe eyed act!” he snapped, hitting the table by my bed hard enough the wood creaked in protest, my flinch not enough to make him take pause. “I knew there was something different about you when my power could not heal your leg, and my suspicions grew when we came across the creature during our search for your family. It could sense and smell something about you that it was willing to go up against me to get it.

Then more began creeping close, and another killed Yousuf only last week. After tracking its movements and speaking to it, we found out it had been following traces of your blood first. I should have known there is no such thing as coincidence, and yet I overlooked it for you. I believed you were ignorant. I still tried to protect you. I kept you within our walls until I could figure out what it was about you. In doing so, I endangered my pack.”

He sneered then, his body shuddering as though he fought some war within himself. Electric currents crackled in the air as he demanded my neck, grew more furious still when I refused. “I thought you would see that I was honourable, and worthy of your honesty. Maybe you still doubt me and that's why you remain quiet, but you are a member of my pack and my council now; you will submit to me. You will tell me everything so I can keep my pack safe. Did one of them send you? Is that it? To toy with me, make me think that you’re-”

“Alpha Hati!” a stern female voice bellowed from the door. “We do not interrogate wolves on their sick beds. Especially females who’ve done no wrong; as I’m sure you’ve already come to realise because you are not a stupid male, son of my sister. Do not lash out instead of assessing exactly what has you so upset, for I’m sure it’s not because you think the female has been lying to you.”

Eirny’s violet eyes burned with fury as she stormed towards him. He straightened up before her but didn’t berate her for speaking to him as she had. I was in awe of her. She wasn’t frightened of him at all, and stared right into his equally angry eyes.

Afraid to make a sound and draw his attention back to me, I held my breath and kept still while his angry words went round and round in my head. The Blood Drinker had been following me, and had stumbled across Yousuf instead. I shouldn’t have felt guilty, but I did. Yet why this made the Alpha mad, I didn’t understand. Blood Drinkers hunted wolves, that was my pack had learned. Why was he acting as if this was out of the norm?

I stared at the volatile male who could blow up again at any second.

“Forgive me. But when it comes to the safety of the pack I must do my duty,” he said, though his power lessened so I could suck in a proper breath.

“I heard her tell you she knows not of what you speak,” Eirny spoke once he’d calmed down, gesturing to me. “Look at how you’ve frightened her, does she seem like someone who has ulterior motives? Have her actions given you any cause to doubt her?”

Mouth pressed into a firm line, his fiery gaze flicked down to me, seeing far more than I felt comfortable with in one sweep. “No, her actions have given no cause to doubt, but there have been too many coincidences for my liking."

Tense seconds stretched on, and all the while I stared into his eyes and silently pleaded for him to hear the truth. Eirny was right, he’d already decided I was ignorant of whatever he was accusing me of. Perhaps what happened to me had shocked him as much as it had me.

The heaving male deflated slowly, then rubbed his face and stared wearily up as I’d caught him doing before. Was it guidance from his gods he sought when he did so? Or his ancestors? Whoever it was, he didn’t make it clear if he found the answer he wanted.

“Very well. Perhaps this is a secret we will have to uncover together. Starting with your father.”

“My father?” I squeaked, relief a fleeting emotion.

He nodded solemnly, unable to meet my gaze. “He knows more than he lets on. Tell me you think otherwise?”

Slumping against the pillows, I stared at the rough dark blanket covering my legs. I could hear Eirny moving about, placing her tray on the table by my bed but otherwise trying not to disturb us.

“What do you think he knows?” I muttered. “That I was leading Blood Drinkers here as you claimed?”

Alpha Hati sighed and guilt pained his features. Not that he could feel anywhere near as bad as I’d felt when he’d accused me of such an act. He’d asked if I’d been sent by someone, which meant I’d been right about him hiding something too. Just who was the they he referred to?

“I shouldn’t have said that. I don’t know what I thought. Your story of the reasons for your journey here struck me as odd. It is true enough that Blood Drinkers won’t let any wolf cross their path without bloodshed, but to hunt a wolf?” He shook his head, causing blond hair to fall across his eyes. “Believable, but unheard of. Especially to the extent you described. To chase you from the West Coast all the way to the North, for two members of the same pack to be killed by them in a matter of weeks, for yet more to catch onto your tracks and decide to follow. . .it doesn’t make sense.”

A chill went down my spine.

There could be many reasons for such a thing, but something niggled in the back of my mind and I found myself relenting to Alpha Hati’s wishes. Father had acted off when asking about my trips beyond the wall, too eager to know I was never alone, and then acted odder still when he finally met Alpha Hati. He’d agreed there was a conversation to be needed. . .

“Very well, when I’m allowed to leave, we will talk to my Father.”

“You won’t be leaving for a while yet,” Eirny cut in, tutting as she placed the back of her hand against my head. “Not until I’m sure whatever you suffered has not caused any damage, nor likely to happen again. You stopped breathing. We couldn’t hear your heart-“

“What?” I glanced between them both, feeling increasingly panicked. “I. . .are you telling me I died?”

Eirny bit her lip, sharing a glance with Alpha Hati before offering, “You were in a very deep sleep. Unresponsive to outside stimuli.”

No wonder I'd caused yet more unease about my intentions. Even I was deeply unsettled to hear I'd been closer to death than many could claim. Especially with no reason for it.

“It was difficult to encourage you to drink Eirny’s draft to try and bring your body temperature back up,” Alpha Hati added tightly, as if that fact infuriated him. “Don’t worry, Eirny is the finest Healer there is. She will find out what happened.”

At that moment, finding out what happened fled from my thoughts as I studied the way he suddenly refused to look at me.

“You stayed with me?”

Orange eyes flicked up and he stared hard before clearing his throat and stroking his jaw. “I should go to your Father and ask him to accompany me back. Your parents have been informed you took a bad turn and I doubt they will wait much longer to hear news.”

I nodded, when all I really wanted to do was scream, no. No! Because whatever my father had to say, my gut told me it could hurt far more than having to settle for a life within these walls.

Alpha Hati lingered, watching me with an unknown expression that made me squirm and duck my head. I didn’t realise he’d come any closer until rough fingers gripped my wrist to lift my bandage bound hand. I didn’t dare look at his face as he lightly traced along the red smear over my palm.

“Before I go, it will help Eirny to know what you remember of what happened.” His voice had dropped low, as if it hurt him to speak and I found myself unable to while his hot skin touched mine.

“I don’t know. When our hands joined, nothing felt wrong at first, not beyond the expected sting. Then it was like a rush of. . .of. . .” I struggled to find the word in any of the languages I knew but settled for the best. “Energy. It was overwhelming. Like I could suddenly see and hear everything, things began to move in the shadow, and I thought a heard loud voices. Then, well, I guess I fainted? There was nothing after that.”

Nothing? I frowned. No that wasn’t right, something else had happened, but what? I closed my eyes to try and remember but, though I could sense it in the back of my mind, I couldn’t bring it forth. It was like trying to capture sand, but the harder I grasped, the more it slipped through my fingers.

When I opened my eyes again, Eirny and Alpha Hati both watched with a mix of concern and, unfortunately, wariness. The healer spoke in an older tongue but one word I knew. Seidr. Magic.

“I’m not a witch.”

She gave me a gentle smile. “I don’t think that you are.”

I slumped back against the bed, running a hand through my hair. Maybe blood was just a trigger for me now and the sight of it had made my mind shut down? But even as I thought that, it felt like a hollow comfort. Thankfully, Alpha Hati decided to leave it at that for now.

“I won’t be long. Do whatever Eirny asks you to.” He turned on his heel and marched out with both hands fisted at his side.

A scream built in my chest and it took all my will to keep my lips sealed. This was too much like a nightmare, too many things swirled in my head, and it all settled to point in a direction I dreaded.

Eirny mixed herbs and water together at the table beside me, leaving me to my thoughts though I could feel her eyes lingering on me sometimes. Who could blame her. My arrival had brought nothing but one outburst or drama after another and this was sure to finally tip the scales.

“He asked if someone had sent me to make him believe something; do you know what he was talking about?” I asked the healer, opening my eyes to look at her.

Busy hands suddenly stilled and violet eyes lifted slowly to meet mine. “We have made enemies along the way, some who have in the past tried to use the Blood Drinkers, but most of those creatures don’t have the thought capacity to follow orders. Scents however, they can track nearly as well as us, so wolves lead them this way, and should a member of the pack happen to cross their path, their instincts are to kill.”

“That’s awful,” I murmured, wondering if it was these outside wolves he believed had sent me. But then why would he not have simply asked? He wasn’t one to shy away. And what would that have made him think? No. The healer wasn’t lying, but she hadn’t told me the truth.

“Here.” She thrust a clay cup against my lips and jerked her head before I could ask more. “Drink.”

Obeying, I was surprised to find the flavour quite sweet. Mother’s tinctures had never tasted so good, though she said the more bitter the taste, the better for you. I felt the effects as soon as I swallowed the last drop. My headache began to ease, and the throbbing of my hand lessened to allow me to relax further.

“I believe you when you say you don’t know anything, pup. So does Hati; don’t fret about that. He was upset you got hurt and he doesn’t react well to those in his care suffering, especially when he doesn’t know how to help.” She winked and whispered, “If he forgets again, I will happily put that male in his place. Alpha or not, he needs challenged when he crosses the line as much as any other in the pack. He shouldn’t have confronted you in that manner.”

I didn’t doubt her. And I didn’t doubt if she and Alpha Hati came to blows that she would put up a good fight. Healer’s often needed to remind wolves to back down, mated pairs especially got testy when their partner was in pain.

“It’s alright. I’m used to being on the receiving end of his disgruntlement,” I said with a wry smile that slowly fell. “Am I going to be alright?”

She leaned over and cupped my chin in her warm hand to study me, tipping my head slowly one way then other, a motherly hum in her chest when I groaned at the stiffness in my neck. “You seem to have recovered, so I should say so. We will find out what it was soon, and perhaps that knowledge will stop Hati barging back here like a god of vengeance if it happens again”

I laughed at the image it conjured, then covered my mouth with a blush. Eirny grinned, sitting on the bed beside me to take my hand in hers and squeeze. “I helped Hati come into the world. I watched him grow during a time when Gods warred here on Midgard.” She cleared her throat as my eyebrow flew up. “In the sense that Christianity was beginning to spread like summer wildfires. Such unrest hit us hard. I watched him be betrayed by family and friends, those he trusted most, and it casts a dark shadow over all strangers. Astrid and I are the closest thing to family he has left, but even we can’t bare the burden of prophecy that hangs over his head.”

“I don’t believe in prophecies, we make our own fate,” I stated. “Whatever magic you and Hati, and the others of your kind wield, I don’t believe it comes from gods. They’re not real.”

How could they be? What being could ignore the many of us who’d been crying out to them for help?

Eirny scowled all the same, flicking a cloth against my arm with a surprising sting. “Do not be so ignorant, Eabha. You are too smart to deny what is in front of your very eyes, and too strong to be unable to handle Hati if that’s what you’re worried about.”

Handle him? I wasn’t so sure about that. Why would I even want to in the first place?

I barely noticed when Eirny began to peel the bandage off my hand, not until she lifted the last layer. A hiss sliced past my teeth as stinging needles prickled across the wound, blood soaked skin sticking to the fabric. She washed it first in water, and I was grateful for the soothing sensation. Then a gloopy paste that smelled sweet like honey and yet bitter at the same time was smeared across before a clean bandage was wrapped around it once more.

“It didn’t heal overnight then.” The words came out sharper than I meant them to, and Eirny looked up with teeth on show.

“Your leg did not begin to heal until your body had recovered from the cold and hunger. If by morning the skin has not stitched itself back together, I will allow this second show of denial.”

It wasn’t denial, I told myself, it was logic. Common sense. Living in reality. Wasn’t it? But I was in no mood to argue, not with one of the few wolves on my side.

“Father will be upset I am up past midnight,” I mused in an attempt to ease the tension between us. Everyone must have been so worried, and I felt bad for adding the pressures already on them.

Eirny chuckled. “You father is already quite upset. If he didn’t see how much it tortured Hati to tell him what happened, and that he felt at fault, our Alpha might have had to endure the teeth and claws of your parents for longer “

My breathing hitched, eyes going wide. They’d challenged him? “Are my parents okay?”

“Of course they are!” She laughed heartily and patted my thigh. “They had every right to confront Hati after your father made it clear he was leaving you in his care. Beta Caldar brought you straight here while Hati accepted his penance and convinced your family you were being cared for. Fionnlagh wasn’t for returning to his room but your Father sided with Hati and told everyone crowding you would only hinder my work. Your Sire is a smart male too. Once that was done, Hati came straight here and volunteered to keep an eye on you.”

It was a relief to know Alpha Hati had accepted the wrath of my parents, and that nobody thought less of them for doing so. Satisfied with the answers I had about what happened while I’d been unconscious, I was left once more alone with my thoughts as Eirny retreated back to her small room at the end of the hall to clean her implements.

Sliding down the bed, I wrapped the thick blanket tight around me, rolling to face the chair Alpha Hati had been watching me from. His scent was still in the air, lingering like spice on my tongue. It was soothing, allowing my head to clear and my eyes to close so I could steal a few more minutes of rest.

Whatever my father had to say, it couldn’t be any worse than anything else that we’d been through. I told myself this over and over, and yet I still wanted to squeeze my eyes shut and pretend I wasn’t awake when I head footsteps coming down the hall.