What The Law Forbids
228 Words
Chapter Four
What the Old Laws Forbid**
Alaric did not go to Elara.
That was rule number one.
Instead, he went to the elders.
They gathered beneath the Stone Howl, their forms shifting restlessly, half-man, half-beast. The air reeked of wet fur and old authority.
“She has been marked,” one elder snarled. “Kill her.”
“She is Unawakened,” another hissed. “Dangerous.”
“She is mine,” Alaric said.
Silence fell like a snapped spine.
“You would break the crown?” Morwenna’s voice floated from the dark. She stepped forward, eyes glinting. “For a human?”
Alaric met her gaze.
“For the truth.”
Morwenna smiled.
And in that smile was the promise of blood.
Elara stopped sleeping.
When she did, her dreams flayed her open.
She dreamed of running on four legs, of tearing flesh, of howling until her throat bled. She woke with dirt under her nails, bruises on her knees, once with a dead rabbit at her bedside—its neck snapped clean.
She did not remember killing it.
Her senses sharpened. Sounds grew too loud. Smells too sharp. The village began to feel small, cramped, suffocating.
One night, she caught her reflection in a basin of water.
Her eyes were no longer entirely human.
She whispered, “What am I?”
The forest whispered back.
- Writer
