Chapter 5 – Dark Coven
1768 Words
As if by chance, the moon was full the following night. Samuel shifted quickly into his wolf form while already outside the castle walls. As usual, his clothes were hidden under the bushes. His coin purse also served another thing, other than appeasing a lover, bribing the night guards, Ambrose and Dunstan, with gold. It had become a regular deal, though the prince could tell that his mother’s men looked unnerved every time he asked to pass the castle gates at night. There was no way Samuel could be looking for women outside the walls when they came to him inside, anyway. The village would not have been a welcoming place for the prince at night, either, though Queenspell was primarily peaceful and the people content. Therefore, they knew that the prince was up to something else, possibly something worse.
Samuel did not run at first. He padded on as he went through the first thick cluster of trees, sniffing around to find Carolina’s scent. He could still smell traces of it, but he was not sure if it meant she was not that far away or if she had left a considerable trail.
That trail ended on a clearing. There were beautiful yellow flowers right in the middle of it, seemingly calling on to the prince. He noticed that he had not seen those blooms before in his life. And yet, they felt equal parts familiar and strange.
Suddenly, the wolf prince felt a presence. He noticed the scent first, and then there was a voice.
“Wolf prince,” it said.
He turned to see a she-wolf watching him with glowing eyes. A shifter. How could she speak so clearly? He realized that her muzzle had not moved. So, he tried to talk to her with his mind.
“Do you know who I am?”
“Yes, Your Highness. I know who you are. We know who you are.”
“We?”
“The shifters of the forest.”
Samuel pondered the fact, deciding that it was not his most urgent mission for that night.
“Have you seen the witches? The coven that had been meeting here?”
The she-wolf did not answer. Then, she bounded off.
The prince did not know what to think about that, but it seemed that he had met a dead end. He could not smell the coven witches, but the she-wolf’s scent was familiar. He had encountered it before.
Feeling defeated, Samuel turned to head off home. As he was doing so, however, he heard some growling in the distance. Were these the wolves that the continent had started fearing? He did not run. Instead, he waited for the pack, or whatever it was to follow him. None of the snarling animals came closer, but they were still there, not too far away, and the she-wolf’s scent remained close.
“I can sense you. You are still there, somewhere. Show yourself. Come with your pack if you need to,” the wolf prince projected his thoughts.
He could almost feel the hesitation. For some reason, he felt another emotion. He did not realize that he could do that – sense another shifter’s thoughts and feelings. His sister was still missing, but he found some pieces of the puzzle that was his identity.
She padded towards him, hesitant but not afraid.
“Your Highness, the forest is dangerous.”
“I am a shifter like you. What’s the difference between us?”
“Your title. Your worth. I am one with the shadows. This is where I belong.”
“Have I seen you in your human form? Do I know you?”
“Yes, you have.”
To demonstrate, she shifted into her human form. She was crouched on the ground to hide her nakedness, but Samuel could see hints of her voluptuous form.
It was her.
Melinoe.
The prince was tempted to shift to his human form but did not know if it was proper. She could be a maiden for all he knew, and before he could even try anything, she shifted back to being a wolf.
“You are Melinoe.”
“You remembered.”
“Yes.”
Samuel’s three black crow companions fluttered down to the forest floor. One of them headed towards him. It was the one that felt the most familiar, almost like a mother – always guarding. The other two flew right in the middle, chirping at Melinoe as if they knew her.
“Do you know them? These crows?” asked Samuel, intrigued. Inside him, he felt a little guilt about no longer searching for his sister. But somehow, he had to know.
“Yes. I know these crows. Ismelda, Veronica, and Demetria. The one closest to you is Ismelda.”
Ismelda cawed at Samuel. The prince had finally discovered his guardian’s name after all this time.
“I see only two most of the time.”
“Yes, Demetria is my crow.”
“How does a wolf have a crow?”
“I am not just a wolf,” Melinoe explained as she shifted into a crow herself.
The wolf prince backed up. He remembered how Melinoe smelled like both witch and wolf.
“You are a witch!” his mind screamed.
“What do you have against witches, you who was born of two of them?”
She did not really answer the question.
“No. What you have – it’s dark magic.”
“It is not, Your Highness,” protested Melinoe.
“But some shifters are evil.” It was a cackling voice, but it was not frightening.
The voice was different. It sounded older, even ancient, but it was definitely a woman’s voice. Samuel looked down at the crow closest to him – Ismelda – and realized that it was she who spoke to him.
“Did a shifter take my sister?” Samuel asked, finding a way to get back to his original mission.
“No,” was the terse reply from the other crow, Veronica.
“The shifters have nothing to do with this,” reaffirmed Melinoe.
“Witches?”
All four crows were quiet for a moment.
“Yes. Witches,” said Ismelda. “But we had not witnessed her disappearance. She is no longer here, Samuel. Not in the form that you know.”
The prince’s chest tightened at the thought of not being able to see his sister again. What would he tell his mother and father? The other witches?
***
Samuel headed home with a heavy heart. Back in his human form and wearing his crumpled clothes, he entered the castle gates. The guards watched him warily. Dunstan, the older one in his forties, looked at the prince’s clothes pointedly. He had been working for the Albrecht-Beckett family since he was a little boy. The royal family had always treated their staff as family, and Dunstan could well pass for an uncle.
“Your Highness, I know you give us coin and extra meals, but we need to know where you have been going. It is for your safety and ours, too. We need to know how to answer the queen’s questions and where to look for you if you don't come back in time.”
“I will tell you in time, Dunstan. I promise,” was all the prince said.
As the prince was headed to the castle door, the older guard called out, “Your mother has some, erm, guests or prisoners. I am not sure.”
The prince turned around and looked at the guard. “Prisoners?”
“Yes. It seemed that way. Your mother’s coven had brought some witches. Forest ones.”
“Oh. Are they in the Great Hall?”
“Yes, Your Highness.”
The prince walked quickly, heading straight for the hall. Had they found the culprits?
As he got close to the hall entrance, he could hear his mother.
“Can anyone tell me where my daughter is?”
“I am sorry, Your Majesty, but your Princess Carolina is no longer in this realm,” said a witch who looked like his mother’s age. She had long bluish-black hair, and she wore a black dress in lace and tulle.
“Where is she then?” the queen’s voice rose a pitch.
“She had some dealings with some dark witches. It was not us, Your Majesty. And these witches are no longer here.”
“How do you know that?”
“A coven had begun their own rituals in the forest. Each member was promised something that they craved the most. Isn’t that true, Xavier?”
Samuel gasped. Xavier, the half-lamia, was there. Tall, gangly, and perpetually cocky, his sister’s friend seemed to cower in front of his petite mother.
“Yes. It’s true. I wished to get rid of my scales. So, they took me in and made promises. So far, I had not gotten what I asked for. Not completely.”
“What do you think Carolina asked for?” inquired a genuinely perplexed King Adrian.
“I do not know, Your Majesty,” replied Xavier. “But I will do everything that I can to find her. I will find her and bring her back.”
The king and queen looked at each other.
“How do you propose to do that?” asked Queen Soraya.
“I will do whatever I can - even sell my soul,” Xavier said.
“Do you love her, my daughter?”
“She’s my friend. Yes, I do.”
“Who is the head of this secret coven in the forest?”
“This coven has no clear leader because it is always in hiding. But a beautiful woman with black hair and brown skin sometimes visits. Everyone is enthralled by her. We do not know how old she is, but she said she had always been there in the forests.”
It was quite a speech, done in just two breaths as if Xavier had been waiting to say those words for a long time. Samuel had a feeling that his mother knew who the woman was. Her eyes had flashed in both anger and fear, and her hands clutched the arms of her throne.
“Erishkigal,” she hissed.
The woman who had cursed Samuel had also banished his sister into another realm. The prince vowed that he would take revenge, for himself and for his family. If Erishkigal had any family left, then they would be part of his revenge, too.
- Writer
