Echoed Steps - ON HOLD

Chapter Seven

For days, Deryn wandered through the trees surrounding the Snowdonian mountain range, naked and alone with only Gwynfor for company. The biting autumn chill had settled into the highlands, bringing with it a persistent mist that clung to the valleys and seeped into Deryn's bones. His feet were raw and bleeding from traversing the rocky terrain, his stomach a hollow cavern that occasionally emitted pathetic growls. His ribs had begun to protrude, and his once strong shoulders now hunched forward in perpetual exhaustion.

Gwynfor had offered many times to take over so that they could hunt and eat at least, but Deryn was too afraid–afraid of the pain, afraid of not being able to shift back, afraid of someone spotting a hulking, white wolf prowling through the wilderness. The throbbing memory of his first shift still haunted him; the sensation of bones breaking and reforming, muscles tearing and knitting together anew, his very consciousness being shoved aside to make room for another. It was unnatural and yet, illogically, the most natural thing his body seemed capable of doing.

The flashbacks to Vor’s previous lives had stopped, and initially, both Deryn and Gwynfor assumed it was because the immediate threat had passed. In the immediate days following their escape from the pack, Deryn had been bombarded with fragments of memories–flashes of ancient battles, faces of people long dead, the sensation of fangs sinking into flesh. But those visions had subsided, leaving only the persistent rumble of hunger and the biting cold in their place.

Deryn's first attempts at foraging had yielded little more than a handful of bitter berries and some tough, fibrous roots that he’d nearly choked on. He had no fire, no tools beyond what he could fashion from broken branches and stones. Each night, he huddled beneath the sparse shelter of fallen logs or shallow caves, shivering violently as his body fought to maintain what little warmth it could generate.

“You’re being ridiculous,” Gwynfor had said on the second night, his voice a frustrated growl in Deryn’s mind. “You have a perfectly good fur coat available to you. I could catch us a deer in a single night.”

“No,” Deryn had replied simply, hugging his knees closer to his chest as another shiver wracked his frame. “I can’t.”

By the third day, Deryn had developed a hacking cough that tore at his throat and left him gasping for air. His lips were cracked and bleeding, his eyes sunken and dull. He knew werewolves needed to eat more due to the amount of energy they burned, and Deryn was feeling the strain. Still, he pushed forward, driven by some primal instinct to put as much distance as possible between himself and the pack lands, between himself and the memories that threatened to consume him.

That was until one particularly cold afternoon, Gwynfor piped up, his voice laced with an urgency that Deryn had not heard before.

“D, we cannot continue like this. We will starve or freeze to death, and I’m not sure which is worse.”

Deryn sat on the riverbank, poised with a sharp stick and praying for a fish to come by soon. The water flowed crystal clear over smooth stones, occasionally revealing flashes of silver that darted away before Deryn could strike. His hand trembled with the effort of holding the makeshift spear steady, and his vision swam with exhaustion. He did not acknowledge Gwynfor’s words.

“Just yesterday you nearly passed out climbing that small hill,” Gwynfor continued, his frustration building. “Your body is consuming itself. Can you not feel how thin your arms have become?”

Deryn glanced down at his wrists, noticing for the first time how the bones jutted sharply against his skin. How long had it been? Four days? Five? The hunger had become such a constant companion that he had almost ceased to notice it as anything other than a dull, persistent ache.

“Deryn! We have to shift; the longer we go on like this, the weaker you will get until you’re unable to shift entirely. Please, Deryn…”

“I don't trust you,” Deryn said quietly, the words barely more than a whisper. The admission hung heavy in the air between them. It felt callous even to him, but it was undeniable, and he knew Gwynfor had to be aware of it.

“I know you don’t.”

There was no anger in Gwynfor's response, only a quiet resignation that somehow cut deeper than any argument could have. Deryn felt a pang of guilt, but pushed it aside. This was survival–his survival–and he wouldn’t surrender control again. Not willingly.

•º•º•º•

“I can’t imagine being so at odds with Elowen,” Halle whispered through the mind link, as the wolves chased each other through the trees. The waning moon’s light in the crisp autumn sky illuminated the forest floor in a silvery glow, lighting their path through the woodland.

“I was a fool. Gwynfor was doing all he could to save us both, and it took a stressful situation getting worse for me to realise it…”

•º•º•º•

Silence returned between the two of them, as Deryn continued watching patiently for a trout or bream to swim by. The water reflected dappled sunlight that filtered through the canopy above, creating dancing patterns that hypnotised his hunger-addled mind. Each breath drawn through his nostrils seemed to amplify the hollow emptiness in his stomach. At this point, he would even take an eel; the hunger in his belly gnawed and burned, but he could not bring himself to hand over control to Gwynfor.

This wasn't the first time he had tried to catch fish. The day before, he had stood in the same spot for hours, until his legs gave out and he collapsed on the mossy bank, empty-handed and defeated. The day before that, he had managed to catch a small minnow, barely enough to sustain a child, let alone a grown man. He had devoured it raw, gagging at the slick texture but desperate for any form of sustenance.

“There's one coming,” Gwynfor whispered, a note of excitement creeping into his voice. “Just to your left, near that submerged log.”

Deryn’s eyes darted to where Gwynfor had indicated, and sure enough, a fat trout was leisurely making its way upstream. His mouth watered at the sight, and he adjusted his grip on the spear, preparing to strike. His muscles tensed, his breathing slowed, and just as he was about to plunge the stick into the water, a violent coughing fit seized him. By the time it had subsided, the fish was long gone.

“That's the third one you’ve lost today,” Gwynfor observed, not unkindly. “Your reflexes are slowing.”

“I know,” Deryn rasped, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “Just... give me a bloody minute.”

He was so intently focused on the clear water running below him, willing another fish to appear, that he didn't hear the twig snap behind him. His senses, once sharp and alert even before the arrival of Gwynfor, had dulled with hunger and fatigue. But Gwynfor heard it, the unmistakable sound of someone or something approaching through the underbrush.

•º•º•º•

Halle gasped. “They found you that quickly?”

Elowen leapt gracefully over a fallen tree, her caramel fur rippling in the breeze created by her movement. For a moment, Gwynfor was overcome with love for his beautiful mate, and silently thanked the Moon Goddess for allowing him a life long enough to find the love of a mate this time around. He was thankful, too, for the human he was paired with. Deryn was tenacious, brave and strong, while also being gentle, understanding and measured. For the first time in all his lives, he truly felt like a blessed wolf.

“Well, in hindsight, I was naked and wandering around leaving my scent all over the place…” Gwynfor heard Deryn continue, bringing him back to the present.

“If anything, it’s amazing it took them so long,” Gwynfor interrupted with a laugh. “Were it not for my impeccable survival skills, I doubt we’d have made it out of Eryri.”

•º•º•º•

Without warning, Gwynfor surged forward. The shift happened so quickly that Deryn did not have time to register the pain this time. One minute he was on the riverbank, the next he was thrown to the back of his own consciousness and was watching the world through Gwynfor’s eyes. It was like being submerged in cold water, everything muted and distant, yet somehow clearer than before. Colours were less vibrant, but shapes more defined, and scents that had been imperceptible to his human nose now flooded his awareness with information.

Gwynfor had leapt over the river like a fine lady stepping over a puddle; graceful, quiet and swift. His powerful legs propelled them across the narrow channel in a single bound, landing with barely a sound on the opposite bank. The world through Gwynfor's eyes was a tapestry of scents and sounds that no human could comprehend; the musty odour of fox scat marking territory half a mile away, the frantic heartbeat of a vole burrowing beneath fallen leaves, the distant cry of a hunting hawk circling overhead.

He raced between the trees, desperate to get out of the sight of whoever had managed to sneak up on them. Paws pounded against the forest floor, expertly navigating around exposed roots and jagged stones that would have tripped a less agile creature. Each breath drawn through his nostrils brought a cacophony of information: earth and decay, the sweet sap of pine trees, the lingering musk of deer that had passed through hours earlier.

Gwynfor was surprised someone had managed to get so close without him or Deryn hearing them. Even with Deryn shutting him out, Gwynfor should have been able to hear something. The wolf’s hearing was exponentially more sensitive than a human’s, capable of detecting the slightest rustle of movement from considerable distances. The fact they had been approached undetected was concerning, suggesting either exceptional stealth or...

He thanked the goddess they were downwind of whoever it was, but the breeze that followed them carried with it a scent he knew all too well, and it explained how they had come out of nowhere. It was not a scent in the traditional sense–not something that could be described as floral or musky or pungent. It was more of a feeling, a wrongness in the air that made his hackles rise and his teeth bare instinctively.

The sparkling scent of magic.

It invaded his nostrils like embers from a fire, burning and acrid, leaving a metallic taste at the back of his throat. This was old magic, powerful magic, the kind that bent the natural world to its wielder’s will with little regard for the consequences. And suddenly, Gwynfor was not just running through the forests of Snowdonia anymore, he was somewhere else, somewhere from long ago.

~~The air was thick with incense and magic. Forbidden incantations echoed through the cold night air. He was hunted. Cornered. Trapped. Gwynfor whimpered. He was surrounded by dark figures in hooded robes, their faces obscured, but their intent clear in the cruel curve of their lips and the merciless glint in their eyes. They had bound him with chains of silver that burned his flesh, carved symbols into the earth around him that pulsed with an unnatural light.

One of them stepped forward, a woman with hair as black as midnight and eyes that reflected no light. In her hand, she held a dagger whose blade seemed to drink in the darkness around it, leaving a void in its wake. She spoke words in a language long forgotten by the living, and as she did, the blade began to glow with an otherworldly blue flame. He knew what came next, he'd lived this thrice before. Pain. Pain like no shifter could ever endure without death. The fracturing of the mortal soul.

"Hwyliau, Afan" (Goodbye Afan)~~

The memory was so vivid that Gwynfor momentarily lost his footing, stumbling over a protruding rock before regaining his balance. The name struck a chord deep within Gwynfor–Afan, the name of a young man he had been paired with by the goddess in a previous life. A life that had ended in blood and fire at the hands of those who sought to harness the power of the shifter for their own dark purposes.

Gwynfor shook his head violently, dispelling the memory before it could consume him entirely. He couldn't afford to be lost in the past, not when the present danger was so immediate. His keen ears detected the sound of pursuit, the heavy footfalls of at least two wolves crashing through the underbrush behind them, the harsh rasp of laboured breathing, the occasional yelp as they stumbled over obstacles in their path.

Gwynfor looked ahead and saw a lesser-used path up the mountain. It was barely visible, little more than a game trail that wound its way through particularly dense vegetation. He decided that if it was not commonly used then that was for a reason and it was all the more reason for him to use it. The path was treacherous, steep in places with loose shale that threatened to give way beneath his paws, narrow in others where one misstep would send him tumbling down the mountainside.

He ignored the sting of the buckthorn tearing at his limbs and ears, pushing forward with all of his might. The sharp thorns caught in his thick fur, pulling painfully at his skin, but he pressed on, driven by a primal fear that transcended physical discomfort. Blood matted his coat in places where particularly vicious thorns had pierced deeply, leaving a trail that their pursuers could follow if they were skilled enough.

The elevation increased rapidly, and soon he was panting heavily, his tongue lolling from his mouth as his powerful heart worked overtime to supply his straining muscles. The air grew thinner, colder, and the greenery more sparse as they climbed higher into the mountains. Below, the forest stretched out like a green carpet, and somewhere in its depths, their pursuers continued their hunt.

After what seemed like an eternity of running, Gwynfor finally slowed his pace, confident that they had put enough distance between themselves and the threat. He found a small outcropping of rock that provided some shelter from the wind and settled down, his flanks heaving with exertion, his paws raw and bleeding from the harsh terrain.

It was then that Deryn's voice sounded through their shared mind, hesitant at first but growing stronger with each word.

“I’m sorry, Gwynfor. You were trying to protect us.”

The admission hung between them, a peace offering of sorts after days of strained silence and mutual distrust. Gwynfor’s ears twitched, acknowledging Deryn’s words even as his eyes remained vigilant, scanning the mountainside for any sign of pursuit.

“Yes, I was. We needed to keep moving. But I cannot change that now. I can only be the awe-inspiring wolf I am and outrun them.”

There was a note of playful arrogance in Gwynfor's response, a deliberate lightening of the mood that belied the gravity of their situation. Despite everything–the hunger, the cold, the fear and the memories of lives long past–Gwynfor maintained a certain irrepressible spirit that Deryn couldn't help but admire.

Deryn chuckled, the sound manifested only in their shared consciousness but genuine nonetheless. With all he had seen of Gwynfor's past he wondered how the wolf still had such a cocky way about him, but he was glad to have such a good natured and funny counterpart.

Perhaps there was something to be said for living multiple lives–a perspective that was deeper than the immediate dangers of the present, an understanding that all things, good and bad, eventually passed into memory. Gwynfor certainly seemed to want to hold on to the beauty and lessons that rose from the ashes of his past lives.