CHAPTER 5
1782 Words
The transition from a medieval monarch to a modern corporate titan was not merely a change of clothes; it was a total reconstruction of a soul.
Queen Astrid, now moving through the world with the sharp, predatory grace of a high-end CEO, stood within the silent, marble depths of the Axel family mausoleum.
The air here was cool and smelled of ancient stone and cedar. Before her lay the tomb of the first Axel, the brother who had sacrificed his life to guard her slumber.
Beside the sarcophagus, she located the hidden mechanism he had described in his final journals. With a resonant click, a heavy drawer slid open.
Inside lay a fortune that had grown through centuries of compound interest and careful management. Two hundred sacks of gold bullion, deeds to sprawling city blocks, and artifacts of the lost Samarian culture. Yet, amidst the glittering hordes of wealth, Astrid’s hand trembled as she reached for a piece of faded, tattered fabric.
It was the dress of the little girl from the forest, Estelle. The child who had died so that a Queen might live.
Hot, silent tears tracked through Astrid’s perfect makeup. She clutched the small garment to her chest, the scent of the forest and the fire long gone, replaced only by the dust of time.
When she finally stepped out of the mausoleum into the blinding light of the modern world, her grief had hardened back into resolve. She faced the elders of the Samarian pack, the Alphas, who had waited three hundred years for their Queen’s return.
"Join me,"
She commanded with her voice vibrating with authority.
"Find my attorneys. I am shedding the name of the woman who failed her people. From this day forward, you will address me as Estelle Samaria. I am the Queen of the Astridian, and I have come to collect my debts."
Twenty years passed in a blur of digital screens, glass skyscrapers, and power plays.
Estelle Samaria proved to be a terrifyingly fast learner. She mastered the complexities of global finance and modern law with the same cold precision she had once used to master the blade. Under her guidance, the Axel bloodline's holdings transformed into a multinational conglomerate that dominated the tech and security sectors.
She watched over Axel XII, the current scion of her brother’s line, treating him with the protective fierce love she had once felt for his ancestor. But as the years pressed on, the supernatural peace she had enjoyed began to rot.
It started in her private penthouse, a sanctuary of glass overlooking White Lake City.
"Uugghhh…!!! Damn it!"
Estelle collapsed against her vanity with her breath coming in ragged, wet gasps.
She looked in the mirror and screamed. Her porcelain skin was erupting in patches of coarse, dark fur, not the pristine white of her royal lineage.
Her golden eyes were clouded over with a sickly, churning silver. Most terrifyingly, her jaw ached with a sudden, agonizing growth; fangs, longer and thinner than a wolf’s, sliced through her gums.
"This... this isn't the change,"
She hissed with her voice, a guttural growl. A monstrous hunger tore at her stomach, not for meat, but for the hot, copper tang of living blood.
The door burst open.
"Estelle? What is happening?"
Axel XII rushed in, but he skidded to a halt with his face turning ashen.
"Run!"
Estelle roared with her body contorting in a way that defied nature.
"Get out! Call Carmel... tell her to bring Alpha Brix! Now!"
Alpha Brix of Capul City arrived within the hour, flanked by Estelle’s loyal secretary, Carmel. They found the Queen slumped in the corner of her room, a shadow of the woman she had been. Her form was a grotesque hybrid, caught between three different natures.
Brix didn't hesitate. Seeing the madness in her silver eyes, he moved with a blur of alpha speed and struck a precise blow to her carotid artery. Estelle crumpled into unconsciousness.
When she finally awoke, the silver haze had receded, but the mark remained.
"I am sorry, your highness,"
Brix said, standing at the foot of her bed.
"I had to break the fever of the transformation."
"You know what this is,"
Estelle said with her voice raspy.
"I have seen a force like this only once in the old scrolls,"
Brix replied gravely.
"You are not just shifting, my Queen. You are being consumed. You have been marked by a dark, vintage spell, a curse that has been dormant in your blood since the day you fell."
"A curse? From who?"
"We must see Priest Beltran in the South,"
Brix advised.
"He is the keeper of the forbidden liturgies."
The journey to the southern pack was swift. They reached a secluded, ancient stone church that seemed to hum with a spiritual frequency. As they approached, a group of men in black soutanes, the warrior-priests of the old order, drew silver-etched swords.
Brix moved to defend her, but the church doors groaned open. An elderly priest stepped out with his eyes widening as they landed on Estelle.
"Queen Astrid…"
He whispered with his voice thick with awe.
"The prophecy of the sleeping wolf... You have truly returned."
The priests immediately sheathed their blades and knelt in the dirt. Inside the sanctuary, Beltran took Estelle’s hand.
He poured a vial of consecrated water onto her palm. The skin began to hiss, and a blackened, intricate mark, a sigil of a serpent entwined with a wolf’s skull, burned itself into her flesh.
"Celia,"
Estelle hissed, looking at the mark.
"She whispered something to me before I lost my crown. A spell... but she’s been dead for centuries."
"In the world of Black Witches, 'dead' is a relative term,"
Beltran explained.
"If the soul is not bound or destroyed, it lingers. This curse is a Parasitic Summoning. She didn't just hex you; she stained your blood with that of another predator. You are being forced to host the essence of an ancient Vampire. Your silver eyes, the hunger for blood... the curse is turning you into a hybrid monstrosity."
"How do I stop it?"
"You cannot stop it yet."
The priest said.
"But you can stabilize it. You must consume the blood of an Old-Blood Vampire, one whose lineage predates the Great War. It will act as an anchor. But for a permanent cure, you must find a Living Oracle. Only their blood can wash away a witch's soul-stain."
The search led Estelle back to the very place she had first encountered the modern world. Allamore Street.
Her informants had pointed her to a derelict, high-rise tenement that served as a neutral ground for the city's supernatural underworld.
As she walked through the dimly lit halls, the scent of Wolf set the local vampires on edge. Hissing shadows darted behind closed doors.
"I am sure the Queen of the Wolves is not here to start a war,"
A calm, melodic voice echoed.
An old man with skin like translucent porcelain and eyes of deep violet stepped from the darkness.
"I am Victor, of the Royal Vampire line. I knew the moment you entered the city, Estelle Samaria. Your blood speaks a language of both our houses now."
Inside his study, Victor looked at the mark on her hand. He didn't show fear; he showed pity.
"Celia’s work is unmistakable. She has woven your fate into the end of all things. I will give you my blood; it will buy you a month of sanity."
He took a silver spear, drawing a deep line across his forearm. Estelle drank, the ancient, potent ichor chilling her veins and silencing the silver madness in her mind.
"Why are you helping me?"
She asked.
"Because a storm is coming that will drown us all if the Wolf is not whole,"
Victor said. He handed her a slip of paper.
"This is the address of the last Oracle bloodline. Go. But know this, the Oracle does not hide from the world because they are weak. They hide because they are the prize everyone wants to steal."
The address led them to the southern edge of Allamore, in front of a modest, weather-beaten wooden house. It looked entirely ordinary, yet Estelle could feel a shimmering pressure in the air that made the hair on her arms stand up.
As they stepped onto the lawn, a group of local tough men Jamie had grown up with stepped out from behind the fences, brandishing lead pipes and knives.
"We come in peace!"
Carmel shouted, but the men didn't listen. They were under a trance-like protection.
Estelle moved as her new hybrid speed was a blur. She didn't kill them, but she disabled them with surgical precision, her movements a terrifying display of wolf-strength and vampire-grace.
Just as the last man fell, the front door of the cottage flew open.
"What the hell is going on out here?!"
Jamie stood on the porch with her eyes widening as they locked onto Estelle. The Queen and the waitress stared at each other, the echoes of their previous encounter in the car clashing with the reality of the present.
"You!?"
They shouted in unison.
Estelle stepped forward with her intent clear, but she slammed into an invisible wall ten feet from the porch. A shimmering blue barrier rippled like water where she touched it.
A woman appeared in the doorway behind Jamie. She was no longer the sickly, bedridden mother Jamie had spent her life protecting.
She stood tall with her eyes glowing with a quiet, terrifying white light.
"You carry the blood of the forbidden."
The woman said, with her voice echoing from a thousand ancestors.
"No predator may enter this sanctuary of the Sight. If you seek help, you must approach with a broken spirit and a humble heart. If you seek force, you will find only your own destruction."
Jamie looked back at her mother in shock.
"Mom? What are you doing? How are you walking?"
Estelle pressed her hand against the barrier with her silver eyes flaring with a flicker of the old, vengeful Queen. She looked directly through the shimmering light at Jamie, the daughter of the Oracle.
"I will get to you,"
Estelle whispered with her voice carrying through the barrier.
"I will have what I need, whether you give it freely or I have to tear it from this world."
The Queen turned and walked away with her mind already spinning a new web. She had found her cure, but she had also found the one thing she hadn't expected.
A girl who might be the only person left alive who could truly see her for what she was.
- Writer
