Violya

Chapter 13 Violya

13

VIOLYA

Two years earlier…

V had been moving for days. North-east, Sybilya had told her, and that was precisely what V had done. She had left Riaow on her eighteenth birthday and taken the North Road, trekking over the Meliok mountains and pausing to camp beneath the looming, snow-capped peak of Zyr Peq. It jutted into the sky like a spear, framed by swirling clouds. She debated whether to attempt to scale the highest mountain in Peqkya, but decided to press on.

At the Trequ Valley, V avoided the border warriors; this was her time, her chance to be alone, to adventure. She didn’t want to talk to anyone.

The great Trequ River marked the edge of Peqkya’s boundary. It flowed down from the mountains to the east and away west towards the Jagged Canyons. She looked out at the great expanse of dense forests, snowy tundra and mountains higher than Zyr Peq.

“Keep going,” Sybilya’s voice urged.

V had never ventured out of Peqkya, and her curiosity drove her on. It was a gloriously sunny, late autumn day, and the crystal-clear river looked crisp and refreshing after hours of jogging. The land beyond beckoned. The wolf lands, she knew, but she had her sword and daggers. She saw no sign of wolves on the other side.

She tracked upriver and stopped where it narrowed. The pace of the water was lazy, and she could see the stones of the riverbed. She tossed a twig into the water and watched it drift away.

Satisfied there weren’t any dangerous currents, V stripped off, bundled her clothes and boots into her pack and tied her weapons to the top. She slipped into the water, the chill making her feel more alive than ever. Holding her pack high, she waded across, her feet searching out solid footing on the slimy pebbles. At its deepest the water lapped at her chin.

V threw her pack onto the northern bank and hauled herself out. It was grassy and soft underfoot. She found a clearing in the trees and sprawled in the sun, head on her pack, to dry off. She noticed steam rising from behind some trees. V shouldered her pack and crept towards the source.

There, a rapid flowing tributary hurtled down over rocks towards the river she had just crossed. The steam wafted off a natural pool that had formed in the rocks, in the bend of the river. A hot spring.

Fantails darted back and forth into the rising steam catching the fat midges that drifted languidly above the water. The birds’ acrobatics were mesmerising. After twisting and turning to fill their beaks with a squash of insects, they would fly to a nearby nest to feed their squawking brood. When their cache was gone, they returned to the ripe hunting ground in the midst of the steam.

V edged closer. The air above the pool was not only steaming, it sizzled. The surface was still, the rapids rushing past it but not disturbing the water that gathered within the circle of rocks. She dropped her pack on the bank, and stepped onto a smooth rock, crouching so that she could lower herself in.

Movement in the trees. V froze.

A large brown wolf emerged from the shadows. It stood on its two back legs, its head low, eyes downcast. Its entire body seemed weighted down, and V was surprised at how human-like it appeared. It didn’t look around, didn’t see V as it stepped into the pool.

The wolf submerged itself, then popped up and sat against the rock V was crouched atop. The wolf sighed and soaked up the heat, watching the flying insects and the birds that swept down to pick them off.

“He is significant,” Sybilya’s voice sounded in her mind.

V hesitated. Significant?

But she trusted the great lady implicitly and silently eased herself into the pool with the wolf, cautiously circling around him to sit opposite. She dipped her hair back in the hot water but kept her eyes firmly on the animal.

He watched her with little interest. She splashed her face and felt all the aches and tension in her muscles unwind with the heat. She rubbed at her feet, massaged her calf muscles and thighs, enjoying the bath.

The wolf rubbed a paw across his nose. “A vision. Madness disease. I succumb, finally.”

V’s breath caught in her chest. She had understood his words, spoken in a language of growls and barks. The wolf blinked a few times at her and then looked back to the birds.

“My name is Violya,” she said in the wolf tongue, enunciating every word. She was convinced he wouldn’t comprehend, that she had imagined hearing him speak.

But the wolf’s head snapped back to her. “A furless vision that speaks. Truly going mad. But no fear of water yet.” He scrunched up his brow, brought his nose to the pool’s surface, sniffed and then lapped at it.

“What is your name?” V asked.

His dark eyes narrowed at her. Then he sighed again. “Darrio. Do not have pack. All dead from madness disease. Am last. But you here to claim me, too.”

“You are alone?”

“Yes, packless. Watched family die. Tried to help. Was only one who did not get sick. But, pointless. They all died, no matter what I did. Have been waiting for days to succumb. Must be my time. Seeing things that don’t exist.” Darrio slapped his paws on the surface of the water.

“Not a vision. Peqkian. Human.”

She touched his leg with her foot under the water. Darrio yelped, jumped out of the pool onto the grassy bank. Shook out his fur on all fours and snarled.

V jumped out too, beads of water rolling down her skin.

The wolf growled, lowered his head, hunched shoulders and crouched in an attack position.

He launched himself at her and they both fell to the ground. His jaws went for V’s neck but she fought him off, yanking his maw apart and ripping her hands to shreds on his teeth. His sharp claws scraped at her skin and her blood smeared onto his brown fur.

She kneed him in the genitals, and he whimpered, loosening his grip. V released his jaw and jabbed her fingers in his eyes. The wolf rolled off her with a high-pitched yap and she punched his face before finding her feet and kicking him in the ribs.

He turned and sank his teeth around her ankle, pulling her off balance and to the ground.

Her fingers scrambled in the dirt before finding a rock. She bashed it into his head, and he stumbled away, stunned. V clambered on top of him and raised the rock to bash him again, and he struck out with his back legs, forcing her backwards.

He leapt on top of her, snapping at her face then clamped his jaws on her shoulder. She screamed. The pressure slackened, and he let go, rolled off and sprawled next to her on the grass. Both were panting and bleeding.

“Want to live but should die. Have no one now. Take me, will not resist. Everyone else dead. No one to live for.”

V could’ve snapped his neck, found her daggers in her pack and sliced the creature to shreds. But she didn’t. Curiosity won out again; she wanted to learn more about him, his kind, his world. She’d discover why he was significant.

They lay side by side. The fantails swooped and dove overhead. Their breath gradually returned to normal. He turned and licked at the deep gash on her shoulder.

“You will bleed to death before I die. Cannot bear to see more death.”

V tried to raise her shoulder to inspect the wound, found that she couldn’t. He was right, she was bleeding heavily.

“Will you help me clean and wrap it?” she said.

Darrio huffed. “Why not. Nothing else to do, nowhere to go, no wolf to go to.”

So V told him what to do. And he did it.

***

“For you,” Darrio said and dropped three rabbits at her feet.

She grinned. “I’ll cook them for breakfast. But first, our daylight dances,” she said in the Shella language.

Darrio stood opposite and mirrored her movements, groaning as his body twisted in unusual postures or when he stretched out a tight muscle.

“Talk to me in Shella,” V said. She had been teaching him for months and the wolf understood her speech but struggled to form the words in return.

“Let us go back to den before breakfast,” he said in his own language falling onto all fours and attempting to nudge her towards their little cosy sleeping area in a small cave.

She had only just emerged, but Darrio had been up and hunting for hours. He liked to bring her breakfast. It was usually meat, but one day he had dragged back a fallen branch full of ripe berries. Another day he had taken her empty pack and returned with it brimming with mushrooms.

V laughed. “No.” She pushed him away. “Dances and Shella.”

Darrio rolled his eyes and stood upright again, copying her movements. “I am Darrio. You are V,” he said in stunted Shella as he flowed through the movements she had taught him.

“And where do you live, Darrio?”

But Darrio didn’t reply, instead he said in heavily accented Shella. “How many moons?”

V continued with her poses in silence for a while. Darrio counted the nights rather than the days. She had told him when they first met, how many days she had before she must return to Riaow.

“Two hundred and seventy-five days,” V said eventually. “I’ve been here for three months. I have another nine to go.”

“Stay here, stay with me. Don’t return to Riaow,” Darrio said in Shella.

V took his head in her hands. “I can’t, Darrio. This, us, it cannot last. You know this. I must return. I cannot disobey an order; it is warrior code. If I don’t return when I’m meant to then I can never go back.”

Darrio’s eyes dropped and he walked away from her on all fours towards the steaming stream. V followed him at a distance. He sat on the bank, lowering his head between his front paws.

She sat beside him, resting her head against his shoulders.

“Lost everyone. Cannot lose you,” Darrio said in his language.

She replied in Shella, knowing he would understand. “Sybilya sent me out to explore for a year, to see what I have never seen before. And I met you and have stayed here. I have let her down. I haven’t heard her voice since the day we met. I cannot bring myself to leave you. I do not want to see anywhere else, be anywhere else but here. But when the day comes that I must return to Riaow, I will go, Darrio. Know this, I will go. I have to.”

“I know. I understand. We enjoy what we can together. We enjoy each day until the day.” He nuzzled at her neck. “Now, can we go back to the den and start this day again?”

***

V gently woke Darrio, careful not to disturb the three babies that snuggled into his warm fur. She had fed them one by one, kissed them tenderly and then placed them next to their father. They slept contentedly; days old, still blind.

Darrio opened his eyes but didn’t move. Didn’t want to disturb the babies. He looked up at her. Tears streamed down V’s face. She gently kissed his forehead, on the smooth fur just above his eyes.

“Today is the day,” she whispered, her voice choked with emotion.

She had delayed her journey by a few days already, but she was out of time. She toyed with the idea of staying here with her love and her new family, but she was a Peqkian warrior and this pulled at her, wrenching her back to Riaow. She had an order to return on her nineteenth birthday. And she had never disobeyed an order.

“I’ll care for them. And when you can, come back,” Darrio whispered.

She backed out of the den, heart ready to burst. She shouldered her pack and ran. Ran all the way back to Riaow. Her breasts heavy with milk and her heart heavy with loss.

And shame.

Every step further away from Darrio, from the idyllic year she had spent with him, from the three children she had left behind, her shame grew heavier. How could she ever explain a relationship with a wolf? How could she tell Sybilya she hadn’t explored? By the time she had returned to the city, her soulmatch and her babies were buried deep. A secret she would never reveal.

She was a Peqkian, a warrior. Not a lover, not a mother.