Chapter 2: Rhylen Duskborne
934 Words
1. ECHOES: Fragments of her
It happened again.
He saw her — not just glimpses this time, not just fragments drifting through shadows and fire. This time it was clear. Vivid. Like he could almost reach out and touch her. The soft curve of her face, the freckles dusting her cheeks, the way her fire-colored hair seemed to glow even in fiery brightness of the dream .
Rhylen shook his head, trying to banish the memory, but it clung to him stubbornly.He had long since woken, yet the image burned as brightly as the morning sun, insistent and impossible to ignore.
The fields stretch before him, dewy grass brushing against his boots,horses stamping impatiently in their stalls.He had come out here to tend to them to clear his mind , but every movement felt hollow as his thoughts kept looping back to her — to the dream — to the inexplicable pull he could neither name nor resist.
He ran a hand over his face, squinting at the horizon, replaying the fire -colored hair, the distant look in her eyes.. eyes that no matter how hard he looked he couldn’t see them, like they were hidden by something unnatural.
Was it really a dream or something else?
Something deeper?
Father had been forced to act once before, on a night when Rhylen had awakened fully transformed, eyes blazing, claws glinting, mane alight with fire. Tavric Duskborne had to shift into his direwolf form and, with a few housemaids brought Rhylen back to his human self. A diviner was called, voices hushed, worried looks exchanged, whispers murmured.
Rhylen wasn’t told much, just handed a bottle to drink from before bed.
And last night he hadn’t taken it. And it happened again.
The horses snorted breaking the spell and he gripped the reins forcing himself back to the work. Yet even as he led them through the fields, every step, every movement, his mind returned to her. That face. That pull. That impossibility.
Somewhere inside Rhylen knew that this was more than coincidence. He didn’t know how or why, but he knew that this was inevitable. And that thought sent a thrill — equal parts dread and anticipation — racing through him.
2. TSAMYRAD: Awakening
The air simmered with his power, and even the stones of Tsamyrad seem to hum beneath Ryhlen’s feet. From the northern spire, he watched the city sprawled beneath him — walls carved from black obsidian, towers that caught the sun like sharpened blades, and streets that bowed to his commands long before he arrived. Loyal subjects moved silently, shadows flitting at the edge of his gaze, and yet no loyalty could mask the whisper of fear that follows him like a shadow. His hand itched with the power he wielded effortlessly, a force that could crumble mountains or ignite sky — but even in the Heart of his domain, a storm brewed inside him that no high chair, no army could contain.
Rhylen was Tsamyrad’s young lord, a formidable hybrid , unwanted and unheard of.
Yet his father’s status, will, and love pushed back the backlash, forcing the people to accept, revere him, even love him — though always with a hint of caution.
Rhylen did his part, earning their respect slowly, deliberately.
Still the hints of destiny pressed against his young shoulders, heavy as stone.
******
His mother had been of the were-panther realm, high-born Celestial panther blood flowing through her veins. One of the most hunted races during the Battle of Realms nearly two decades ago, she had fled—wounded, exhausted and at death’s door—when Tavric Duskborne found her.
He nursed her to health, and love blossomed between savior and survivor.
Then Rhylen was born: a rip in time, a hybrid, an abomination in the eyes of many, cursed by prophecy, destined to shake the foundations of the world.
The day he turned seven, should have been ordinary-another lesson at the Hunter’s Hall, teaching the younger wolves how to skin and flay their prey. A bear lay before him, its life fading under the relentless motion of korin’s amethyst knife.
He felt it.. every cut, every stab,every pang of pain searing through him..the bear’s pain, his pain.
A scream tore from his throat, sharp and raw, and the world shifted.
He fell on all fours, his body convulsed as ethereal, shimmering fur—starry blue, almost as deep and infinite as the night sky, sprouted along his arms and back. Claws extended, long, and gleaming; fangs sharpened to deadly points that could pierce iron and his eyes ignited a fiery green, burning with something ancient and untamed.
Without a conscious thought-and to the horrors of his teachers and other younger wolves present-he swept the bear off the table and ran, disappearing into the dense woods.
All afternoon the hunters searched, calling his name, dread thick in their throats. Tavric joined in when the news got to him, berserk he couldn’t find even the faintest scent of his son.
Rhylen was found only by Nyla and Myka, his childhood friends-the werewolf twins-by their favorite clearing.
He lay asleep with the bear cradled in his arms, completely unharmed. Its wounds healed as if they never existed. And when Tavric approached the bear lifted his head and met his gaze — calm, trusting, no hint of fear.
Only peace.
That was when Tsamyrad knew.
The prophecy, whispered a thousand years ago, had come knocking.
A hybrid of impossible power — born of fire and shadow, destined to reshaped the world — had awakened.
3 THE HIDDEN HALF
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