CHAPTER 005
1234 Words
From Dmitry's perspective,
Though I hardly hear it, the fire cracks.
My fighters gather in the packed auditorium, staring at me. Some engage in conversation, while others find solace in laughter. None of it comes over to me.
I can just make out the space at the far end of the room. That's where she used to stand.
I should be at peace. I can't make the correct decision. She was both a source of embarrassment to the pack and a vulnerability. She rebelled. She misrepresented herself.
Why then does it still feel as though I cut out a piece of my chest when I sent her abroad?
Why the devil do I still hear her name in every whisper of the wind?
From my left, " Alpha," someone says. I glance up.
Nikolai is a tracker among us. Even in the strong firelight shadows, his face appears pallid. With his fingers shaking, he clutches a rolled-up note.
I mumble, snatching the note from his hand, "You look as if you saw a ghost."
He shows no smile. "You ought to see it."
The seal has been broken. Not wax; blood is more like the parchment reeds of death and moist soil.
I unravel it.
The word is spread in red.
Anastasia.
I am standing.
"Where did this come from?"
"South boundary. close to the old cemetery fields."
My skull starts to buzz with the name. I tuck the gently folded parchment paper into my coat.
"Get the troops. We are leaving right now.
By the southernmost point of our region, the wind is frigid.
The trees groan with lifelike vitality. The air tastes foul. I sense the presence of ancient magic. Bad. Antique.
I bend down next to a twisted pine's base. I see it right there.
a mark. dug well down into the bark. The lines seem sloppy and unprofessional.
But the name is just that.
Her address.
Anastasia.
I fix my eye on it; the blood is still wet.
My fingers glide over it. It's not paint; it's not color. It's not human blood, but animal blood. This is modern. Person. Possibly Wol She has vanished from sight.
seen. She would n't be so foolish as to turn back. Would she?
"This was not made by her," Sergei says behind me. "The magic's misdirection."
I slowly nod. That is correct.
Too, I sense it. I feel a chill that penetrates deep into my bones.
Anastasia sent no message like this. This is a message about her. I assert that we are under surveillance.
We are being monitored, I say.
The others straighten.
My wolf stalks beneath my flesh. Though I can't see the threat, I feel it slink down my neck.
A quiet whisper wanders among the woods.
She starts to stroll once more.
One of the male probes, "Did you hear that?"
"Stay sharp," I yank. "Don't respond to the trees."
—
We settle at the edge of the forest. We find ourselves without even a fire. There was no food available.
simply quiet.
My men are staring continually toward the forest. none sleep.
Neither do I.
This phenomenon does not occur when the shadows migrate against their proper direction.
I can't stop listening to her laughter echoing through the darkness.
However, she doesn't particularly enjoy her own laughter.
It seems...off. Bent. Bent.
a mocking of something that used to cause my chest discomfort.
——
Early morning arrives, pallid and colorless.
I bent once again next to the tree. The blood has not dried. It shimmers. Recently.
"That's a curse mark," Sergei explains. "Old." From before the packers came in rule."
"Explain."
"Once there was a queen. The Hollow queen was expelled from the Shadow Courts. She put their names where they might be discovered and marked her foes in blood. The moist mark indicated that the soul remained unclaimed.
Claimed by what?"
"By hers, via the Hollow Queen."
My mouth closes.
"You're saying this thing... marked Anastasia?"
"Nope. I am stating she owns her. Alternatively, wishes t"o.
We blaze the trail. Deeper into the forest, the stench of blood and ash guides us.
Dead animals lie undisturbed. Birds refuse to take flight. The trees slink inward as though they are whispering secrets to one another.
We then come upon the altar.
The tower was crooked and piled with blood-stained rocks. The base is adorned with dried and withered flowers.
Once again, her name was sculpted on the stone.
There's more to her than just her name.
Benefit is another word.
Crown.
My heart pauses.
She cannot join us in this.
She was born here. She was ours. Mine:
"What if it is not her doing this?" Nikolai backs off and says.
"Then who the hell is?"
Sergei starts to gulp. "Perhaps someone wants us to fear her. Alternatively, someone is seeking her back."
That evening I did not fall asleep. I keep staring at the trees.
I can hear whispering once more.
Dmitry…
Though not her voice, one likes hers. It resembles a mask, as if her voice were being worn.
"Get out of my head."
laughing, chilly and hollow.
She recalled.
Not.
She walks back.
"No, she does not."
She is ours.
I grab my knife and carefully carve a warning into the bark of a nearby tree.
The whispers stop.
The air feels neither lighter, though.
Half of my guys want to turn back by the third day.
One is hunting us right now.
Its steps in the dark sound to me. I saw eyes amid the trees. Death smells to me in the breeze.
Still worse than all that, though...
I had dreams of her.
Standing at the brink of a cliff, Anastasia has dark eyes. Her hands are bloodstained, yet her mouth is smiling.
She glances at me.
"Do you still think you were right?"
She then tumbles.
I get up sweating all over.
The trail's endpoint is reached here.
A split tree caused by lightning.
Its base was black from scorching.
She once again recorded her name in ash.
This time, however, things are different.
Something is different.
Beside it is also a fresh mark.
A crescent moon broke down right in the middle.
"Do you know what that is?" I probe.
Sergei nodded gently. "We have a strong connection here. Claim. Whoever marked that... they do not want her dead. Her crown is what they want.
"Called as what?"
"The Hollow Queen,"
My belly turns.
Not yes. No, she would not...
But a recollection starts to scratch upward.
She once shared a tale with me, back when she trusted me.
"They said I had shadows in my blood when I was little," she remarked under cover of darkness. "said I came from something not meant to wake."
It seemed to be only a narrative. Just dread.
But imagine if it wasn't?
We go back to the brink of the woodland.
I stand by myself where the first mark was created.
The blood has now disappeared. The tree appears to be unaltered.
Unlike all of it,
But I remember.
The murmurs.
Blood.
her name.
She's still alive.
Alternatively, anything wearing her skin is.
I open my eyes closed.
She lacks the Hollow Queen quality. She is unable.
But I really feel it.
She is no more the girl I let go.
She is shifting into something different.
Whatever is coming is already here.
- Writer
