Wolf Omega: Lykanos Chronicles 2

Sempronio led me through the castle down a maze of halls and doors.

“If you sense their excitement, know that it’s only from their longing to meet you.”

“Is there anything I shouldn’t discuss among them,” I asked, unsure if he meant his revelations to be solely for my ears.

“You have nothing to fear from anyone under my roof,” he remarked earnestly. “Say what you will or won’t. We have not had another lycan join us in some time. I think you will find them eager to enfold you into the pack, regardless of what you might say.”

Sempronio brought me at last to a grand dining room, as ornate as any church, set with a wide table down its length. The others had already assembled, including Duccio, who rose first when we entered.

“Beloved, I present your new sister, Gabriella of Dazio,” Sempronio announced.

Duccio, who sat at the nearest end of the table, moved to replace a footman and pull out my chair for me. I was grateful to see him again and glad to be seated at his side.

Across from me was Pompeia, who smiled with hesitation when I took my chair. I didn’t have feelings one way or the other about her bizarre intrusion earlier, and I smiled back as honestly as I could.

Taking his seat at the head of the table, Sempronio nodded that the other men should sit.

“You may introduce yourselves,” and he nodded to the other end of the table to start.

“We have already met,” Duccio said to the group. “This is my bride, Pompeia.”

“Welcome,” the lovely woman told me, and she allowed Duccio to take her hand.

Thank you, I told her with the silent voice, looking down at the exquisite gown she’d shared with me.

A smile came to Pompeia’s face, and I could tell our communication meant the world to her. The blonde beauty dressed in a red garment that was, if possible, even more stunning than the one she’d brought me. Its finery may have meant little to such a woman, but I couldn’t have brought myself to sit among these people in the rags I’d arrived in.

After Pompeia’s introduction came the others in succession around the room: Domenico, Ambrosius, Zacharia, Dionisio, and Maximo, who sat on my left. Each was a name I’d never heard before, save the last. From each man came gracious looks of welcome. This was a room filled with nothing but aristocratic, genteel manners, and it was both as dazzling as it was foreign to me.

Only Sempronio and Dionisio appeared to be older; the latter looked nearly fifty. The rest could not have been older than thirty, and even if they had not dressed as noble gentlemen, no one could dispute how refined and handsome they each were. It was just as true for Sempronio who, despite his closely cut white hair and weathered skin, was indisputably a striking figure. He was robust and limber when other men his age might seem frail and immobile.

Footmen, dressed in formal livery, presented us with three different wines, one white and two red. I hoped the white was the same Moscato that Francesca had given me in my room. Each was a unique vintage, Dionisio assured me, that he had selected to welcome me.

“I come from the Veneto,” he said. “Even after all these years, I know so few people in Lombardia. Won’t you share with us some of your experiences?”

I didn’t quite know what to tell him, but they had all gone to such trouble that I wouldn’t refrain.

“I doubt there’s much of my life that might interest you, I’m afraid, but I’ll try. I am the eldest of two daughters—my father was a farmer before he passed away.”

“So was mine,” Dionisio smiled. “He cultivated Glera and Garganega grapes in Vincenza. What did your father grow?”

His response stifled me. In his finery, the man appeared to be anything but the son of a farmer. Still, I answered without questioning him.

“Mostly wheat and vegetables, sir. He cultivated a small plot of grapes, though I couldn’t say what variety. They were red and my sister’s favorite.”

The footmen returned with fresh fish plates that smelled like they were prepared with lemon and light herbs. My stomach awakened at the heavenly fragrance.

“What is your sister’s name?” Pompeia asked.

“Savia,” I answered.

“That’s lovely,” she responded and raised her cup of white wine. “To your father, who is at peace, to your sister, Savia, and to your first night with us here in your new home.”

The others raised their wine in agreement, and I lifted my cup last to taste the sublime drink. It was not the Moscato I’d hoped for, but something just as satisfying that reminded me of springtime flowers, summer rain, and fresh butter.

Duccio dismissed the footman and bid them stay outside until he called.

“Father has by now better explained who we are,” he began. “And I hope he has answered the many questions you had of me during our journey. We are happy to answer any you may still have. But I first wish to explain why it was so important that you come here.”

He gestured to the table that they should dine while he spoke, and I lifted my fork to follow them.

“My father built Castello Palatino as a permanent home for our kind. It is a sanctuary where we may find peace and refuge from the dangers of the world. Here you will learn the discipline and balance crucial for many of us to survive.”

“The darkness?” I asked. “The beast I saw in Sempronio’s mind—in the dream you called to me through?”

“Indeed,” he smiled. “Within each of us lies the beast you saw. Vovkulaka—our guardian, which protects us from danger. It is a predator; a wolf. It lends us strength, its fearsome power, and we use it to survive the dangers I spoke of. The price of its strength is that we surrender to its immortal bloodlust.

“Immortal?”

“The beast lives dormant in all lycan, but if you choose to call it forth, even once, it will ensure that you never perish from old age,” Duccio confirmed.

“Not never,” Sempronio corrected him.

Duccio looked to his father and nodded in deference.

“Nothing is forever,” he began again. “Time ends all things. But the vovkulaka extends our lives longer than most can fathom. Our minds continue on, growing in wisdom, though the normal changes in our bodies stop, or seem to. The alterations are identifiable only after great swaths of time have passed.”

The purpose of his words absorbed me, and I thought deeply about their meaning—their implication.

“How old are you?” I asked, setting my fork down to hear his answer.

“At the end of November, I will be one hundred forty-seven years old.”

Duccio’s eyes bore not the slightest deception. Still, they appeared to be no older than twenty-five.

“I am the eldest here, save Sempronio,” he continued. “Only Dionisius is as old as he looks to your young eyes.”

“Careful,” the man offered a mock threat.

Duccio laughed and put up his hands in surrender.

“I was fifty-seven last June,” Dionisius confirmed.

“He has never called upon his wolf,” Duccio clarified, “and so his aging has never slowed. Though he is lycan, just as we all are, his natural path remains unaltered. He will live a normal, mortal lifespan and leave us when nature sees fit to claim him.”

It all astonished me. The oldest person I’d ever known was not that much older than Dionisius--perhaps some sixty-five years. But Duccio claimed he was more than twice that age.

The idea absorbed me, and the table remained silent as I grappled with the implications until my eyes fell to Sempronio.

“Sire?”

A warmth fell across the lord’s face, and he too stopped eating.

“I was fifteen when my wolf was first summoned,” Sempronio began. “My parents were both lycan, and we lived in Rome, five hundred leagues south of here. It was a Rome ruled by different people than those who hold it today. We lived in a time you know nothing of, save the artistry of its architecture. We spoke a different language. You’ve no doubt heard bits of it. The priest you showed me—the mass he spoke to you.”

The magic language, I thought. It accounted for the strange accent in Sempronio’s voice.

“Indeed. That tongue was ancient before his mass was ever written. It gave birth to many languages. My home stood at the heart of an empire so vast that it controlled most of the known world. And to every corner it spread, it brought with it that tongue.”

My eyes remained fixed on the man, pleading silently for the answer I sought.

“I was born in midwinter, fifteen hundred seventy-eight years ago,” Sempronio said.

I shook my head instinctively, and my eyes fell to ponder. It was not a real number to me. I could count to one hundred aloud, and my mother had taught me to multiply; to see sets of a hundred in my mind and duplicate them. One hundred multiplied by three was three hundred; by five was five hundred. But I had never attempted to see fifteen of the sets together at once. I couldn’t do it, really. The number he suggested was meaningless in any tangible way to me.

I looked back at Sempronio to study his face again: the deeply etched lines in his brow, his loose skin, and perfectly white hair. It had taken that unfathomable stretch for a fifteen-year-old to appear seventy.

“I’m not aware of any lycan who has seen the breadth of time I’ve witnessed,” Sempronio added. “My father died nearly to Duccio’s present age. But by that time, he had instilled in me the courage and dexterity to survive the savage demands of time. Survive not with this flesh, but in here,” and he placed the tip of his hand on his forehead.

“And that is what we offer you,” Duccio broke the silence that came. “The means and guidance to choose any of the paths that lay now before you.”