The Wolf King's Burden

The Falls

Silver Falls was breathtaking. Water dropped two hundred feet from a cliff into a pool of crystal water and you could look straight to the bottom. The falls got their name because the sun caught the water and it shone like liquid silver.

But it was not beauty that called to me. It was power. I could feel it emanating from the falls, an ancient power that set my wolf senses on high. This was sacred ground, a place where the veil between worlds had always been thin.

"This is it," Elara whispered, her gaze locked on the falls. "This is where we perform the ritual."

We came in on the night of sunset, having a whole night's rest before the full moon. I badly needed that rest. I was running on fumes, held together by raw will and terror. Elara was in worse shape than me. Dark rings under her eyes created the impression of bruises.

We set up a camp near the pool. We were far enough away from the falls to ponder but close enough to witness the enchantment. Elara unfolded her grandmother's journal and read the ritual instructions in the light of the fire.

"We'll need to retrieve the water at midnight," she stated without looking up. "When the full moon is in its highest position. The magic is strongest then."

"And what do we do then?"

"So we mix the three ingredients: your father's grave soil, the holy water, and place them in a ring around you. I'll hold the Moonstone and my own life force will seep out of it into you. The energy will be like threads, sewing your broken soul back together." She gazed at me. "It will hurt. A lot. You'll feel every part of your soul being reattached, every broken fragment being jammed back into position."

"How long will it take?"

"The ritual itself? Maybe an hour. But the pain can persist for days afterward as your soul acclimates to fullness." Elara closed the journal. "And there's one more thing you have to understand. With the ritual, you'll transform. The beast will emerge once again, resisting confinement. You'll have to stay connected to your humanity, keep your conscious mind despite the curse trying to devour you. If you give yourself over to the beast during the ritual, it may not be reversible."

"So I need to be careful while experiencing the most agonizing pain of my life, while being a beast that craves blood and savagery." I laughed, but there was no humor in it. "It should be easy."

"Damian…".

"I understand. I know it's dangerous. I know that maybe it's not even worth it. I understand that you're risking your life for this." I stared at the fire, the flames dancing and devouring the wood. "Tell me the truth, Elara. Don't give me the speech about correcting your grandmother's sins. There's more to this than that."

She was silent for a very long time. When she finally spoke, it was barely a whisper. "Because when I killed my mother during my first change, I woke up just as you do, with blood on my hands, no memory, filled with guilt. And I wanted to die. For three years, I begged each day for someone to end my misery."

"But you lived."

"I survived because I read my grandmother's diaries. I saw that the change wasn't my fault, that I was able to master it through training and knowledge. I discovered I wasn't meant to be a monster." She looked at me, and there were tears in her eyes. "You don't have the luxury, Damian. Your curse took that choice and control from you. You're trapped in this loop of violence and guilt with no escape. If I can give that choice back to you, if I can take control of your own life back, then perhaps my mother's death was something. Perhaps I can save someone as I want someone to have saved me."

Its truth hung between us, raw and painful. We were both murderers who had killed the persons we loved. Both of us were searching for forgiveness in a world that never gives a second chance.

"Thank you," I said. "For everything. For risking your life, for trusting me, for believing I'm worth saving. Whatever happens tomorrow night, I want you to know that having someone believe in me again means more than you know."

Elara wiped her eyes. "Let's make sure you survive to appreciate it properly."

The rest of the night was spent in peaceful silence, every one of us lost in our own minds. I was contemplating about my father, Marcus, and all of the wolves I had slaughtered over the past three years. I was thinking about Owen, who sacrificed himself so that we could take the Moonstone. I was contemplating the life I had lived prior to the curse and the life that might come after.

Tomorrow night, it will be over. I would be free, or dead, or worse than jinxed. No middle, no choice of safety. Just one last desperate toss of the dice for pardon.

When the sun started setting and night descended over the forest, I could hear distant howling. Kaine's wolves patrolled the edge of Corvus's lands, unable to cross, but making it known that they waited patiently. The instant Corvus's protection was removed, they'd be upon us.

"They'll come at dawn," Elara said, hearing the howling. "The day following the full moon, when the ritual will have succeeded or failed. Corvus's ward is only good until the moon sets."

"Then we'd better get it right."

"Yeah." She pulled out the Moonstone and held it to refract the light in her hands. "We'd better."

Midnight crept nearer, each minute throbbing like an eternity. When the full moon eventually cleared above the trees, its light silvery and unfamiliar to all, Elara rose.

"It's time," she said. "Let's get the water."

We descended to the pool at the foot of the falls, a silver bowl Elara had removed from her kit in our hands. The water was cold as ice, pure and untainted by human pollution, clean as it had been for thousands of years. Elara immersed the bowl in the pool, slowly filling it while murmuring in an ancient language that I didn't understand.

When the bowl was full, the water inside began to glow softly and quietly, in response to her magic words. Blessed water, consecrated by old magic and the soft rays of the full moon. The second ingredient was secure.

We carried it back to our camp, and Elara had already drawn a circle using my father's grave soil. The circle was approximately ten feet in diameter, etched into the ground with symbols from her grandmother's diary. There was a flat stone in the center where I would be standing in the ritual.

"Take off your shirt," Elara commanded. "The magic will have to be in direct contact with your skin, especially over your heart where Morganna laid the first curse."

I pulled off my shirt, the cold night air biting into my bruised flesh. Three years of living hard had marked me, old welts and new scars, evidence of a life spent surviving instead of living.

Elara approached me with some charcoal, drawing more symbols onto my skin. Her touch was coldly clinical yet tender. I felt the magic flowing in every stroke she made on my skin. They were not merely random strokes; they were protective incantations and paths for the magic to follow.

"Enter the circle," she told me when she finished. "And no matter what, stay inside it. If you cross out of the circle until the end of the ritual, the magic will kill you."

I entered the circle, standing on the center stone. The moment my feet touched the stone, a surge of power enveloped me, connecting me with the grave soil, the sacred water, and the Moonstone in Elara's hand.

"Ready?" Elara asked, perched at the edge of the circle.

No. I wasn't ready. Who could be ready for this? But ready or not, we were out of time. The full moon was climbing higher, Kaine's wolves assembling at the edge, and this was our only chance.

"Do it," I said.

Elara began to chant, her voice rising and falling on cadences that creaked my bones. She poured the holy water along the edge of the circle, mixing it with my father's grave earth. And she rose up, holding the Moonstone over her head, and it flared out with light, brighter than the full moon, brighter than anything natural.

And then the pain began.

It started in my chest, where Morganna had kissed me three years earlier. A burning, rending hurt, as if someone was burrowing within me and tearing out my heart. I gasped and stumbled, straining to stay within the circle.

Then came the shape-shifting. My bones broke and reformed, my body stretching and changing. But this one ached differently, slowly, more slowly than ever before, each second of the shift elongated to the very limits of time.

Throughout, Elara kept chanting, her voice my only connection to humanity.

The beast roared inside me, fighting for supremacy. It craved blood, wanted brutality, wanted to tear everything apart. But I held on, holding my consciousness like a man drowns clutching a rope.

It was the moment. Triumph or failure. Liberation or death.

I screamed, and the woods screamed along with me, as the magic burned through each cell of my body.

And in some element of burning, of pain, something began to change.