CHAPTER FORTY-ONE #3
I was in much the same state. I could hardly control my breathing as I stared at the wolf, slack-jawed and reeling.
I had wanted to hide from reality. I had wanted to pretend that Morwyn wasn’t the well of secrets and mysticism it was showing itself to be, if only to protect myself from the sorcery I was certain would lead to my grave.
Yet Vayen had just transformed into a wolf in front of me. And I wasn’t afraid.
The wolf—Vayen, I reminded myself—peered at both of us with those round, platinum eyes before shaking out her coat with a full-bodied shiver, sending a strange shimmer down her black fur as the sconce’s flame caught it at different angles.
After sparing a lick for her nose, wolf Vayen padded over to the bed.
She didn’t need to jump—instead, she reared up on her hind legs before placing her enormous paws at my feet, half of her body already taking up a vast majority of the mattress.
“Whoa,” I found myself saying again. “Whoa, wait, just—”
And just as before, she listened. She paused there, tail hanging low as she observed me, and Catrin observed us.
I still pressed myself into the wall as though I might escape to the other side of it at any moment.
It was clear she wanted on the bed, but my body warred with my mind and I needed to think.
I saw her devour a man before my very eyes.
I eased into unconsciousness as she licked me.
It was… a lot. But what about my life since laying eyes on the Threshold hadn’t been?
So I steeled myself with a breath of submission.
I could handle this.
I was capable.
“Vayen?” I asked finally, my attention skirting along the pronounced, elegant features of her long snout.
I wasn’t sure what I had expected, but she didn’t answer me outright. Instead, her large, sharp ears tilted forward when I spoke, and her brow raised. Slowly, she began extending her neck, presenting me with that wet, black nose.
I forced a controlled exhale, kneeling forward so that I could extend my palm in her direction, just as I had in the wood.
Without hesitation, wolf Vayen lengthened her body and pressed her cold nose to my palm.
She accepted my silent invitation immediately, lifting her hind legs up onto the bed and unceremoniously plopping herself down.
She curled up at the foot of the bed, just as I imagined a dog might, except she nearly took up the whole thing—there was barely enough room for me to relax into a seated position without my legs brushing up against her warm, exceedingly soft fur.
She snuffled out a massive breath, sending hot air all over my feet, before those luminescent eyes fluttered shut.
“Is she taking a nap?” I asked through my incredulity.
“Can’t blame her. She hasn’t slept at all since that morning. She couldn’t… not without knowing you were safe.”
I didn’t quite know what to do with that knowledge, or the way my heart squeezed at the thought. She’d been so consumed with worry that she couldn’t rest at all? That was… well, I wasn’t sure what that was, but I didn’t immediately take issue with it.
“Might need to request a bigger bed,” I muttered aloud, hoping to dampen the intensity of the moment. When Catrin offered only a strangled laugh, I drew my attention away from Vayen’s massive wolf form to meet her watery eyes.
“Hey, hey,” I coaxed, reaching out a hand for her. “Are you okay?”
Catrin sat in the chair Vayen had occupied, her whole throat bobbing with a swallow. “It’s silly,” she said, swiping at her cheeks. “It’s just… it’s been decades since any of them were able to phase.”
I clicked my tongue as her words sparked my memory. “Vayen said the bloodlines from Grenloch, that most of them share an imbuement. Does that mean—all of the exiles are Moonkin?”
Apparently Vayen phasing in front of me gave Catrin the confidence to speak freely, because she wasted no time in answering my question.
“Most of them, yes.”
“But they haven’t been able to phase since…?”
I already knew the answer, given Vayen’s outburst when I’d told her my birth date, but even still I held my breath.
“Since the Threshold,” Catrin confirmed.
I adjusted myself on the bed more comfortably, letting my legs unfurl even though that meant they rested right up against Vayen’s fur. The vibration of her breath, and the ever-present heat emanating from her, were equally soothing against my bare calves.
I cleared my throat softly, hoping not to disturb her. “Their inability to phase is the true curse, then? And the reason they believe their connection to Naeno has been severed?”
Catrin leaned in closer, resting her palms on her knees. “Precisely. Their imbuement stems from Naeno, so what other reason could there be?”
I chewed on my lower lip. “Is it really so bad not to be able to phase? To just… live as a normal person, without an imbuement?”
Catrin’s faraway gaze was sad. “The wolf isn’t separate from the person you see and interact with, Lyssa.
It’s a part of who they are, in their very core.
To be unable to phase is to be permanently divided.
Not only does it section them off, it puts a stopper on the power that allows them to protect themselves.
In more ways than one, the curse forces them to live a half-life, never able to reconcile their two sides and blend them together as was intended. Can you imagine?”
“I can’t,” I admitted, looking back at wolf Vayen’s face.
She may have been a large animal, a trait that in and of itself I was not particularly fond of, but depths—she was gorgeous.
Her eyes remained closed, but her large ears twitched in a way that made me want to reach out and stroke one.
I denied that particular urge. Finally, I tore myself away only to catch Catrin observing me.
I could feel my cheeks heating with self-consciousness, but I held my chin high all the same and asked, “Who would want to curse the Moonkin?” I lowered my voice further, barely allowing for a whisper as I breathed, “Was it Gavner?”
Catrin shook her head, her strawberry-blonde hair shifting with the movement. “I thought so, too, at first. How else could he have been so prepared to take power after the chaos ensued? But it doesn’t make sense, given that he would have also stripped himself of the ability to phase.”
“Hollowmire, then? You mentioned that the veil would protect the village from Hollows, so—”
Catrin held up a finger with a quick, “Ah, ah, ah.” She wagged it back and forth at me. “I did not say it would protect the village from Hollows. You very astutely intuited it, and I neither confirmed nor denied.”
“Well, would you deign to confirm or deny now?”
Catrin studied me skeptically with crossed arms, a small smile bracketing her lips. “Fine, yes. That is its main purpose.”
“Why do you need protection from the Hollows, then?”
“That is a short question with a long and complicated answer, but suffice it to say the Hollows have an imbuement passed down through their bloodlines, same as the Moonkin. But their imbuements are… at odds with one another, to put it mildly. It’s as if nature destined them to be enemies.
They worship Zimphet, the sun Goddess, so I wonder if she and Naeno perhaps did not get along very well when they were on Morwyn. ”
It was still startlingly odd to hear people speak about anyone other than the Creator and the stars and comets they’d placed.
I wasn’t sure how I felt about it, but this wasn’t the time to decide, so I refocused myself.
“Well, if opposition is woven into them, it must have been the Hollows who enacted the curse.”
“A natural conclusion given that Moonkin are practically helpless against the Hollows without the ability to phase,” Catrin said, but her lifted brow and inclined head betrayed that she was mere moments from telling me why they absolutely were not at fault.
“Except, the curse and the Threshold are clearly connected, and the Threshold effectively protects the Moonkin from a Hollow assault. Which means that even though the wolves are neutered, for lack of a better term, the Hollows can’t exactly take advantage of it. ”
“Well then why have the veil at all, if the Hollows are unable to cross?” I challenged.
“It’s merely a precaution,” she explained. “If the Threshold were to fall, but the curse on the Moonkin wasn’t lifted in the process, they—and everyone associated with them—would be hunted down and killed. The Hollows want nothing more than to eradicate every last one of them.”
“Senseless,” I muttered beneath my breath, sinking deeper into the bed.
The way Catrin freely answered my questions had quieted a storm inside of me, one I hadn’t realized I’d been subject to for the better part of my life.
Still, I was hesitant to ask the question at the center of my mind, knowing full well that its answer could potentially unravel my rage at the situation I’d found myself in.
I wasn’t sure if I was ready for that, yet I didn’t stop my lips from parting as the words came.
“Earlier, you said Vayen has been on the verge of phasing since…” I swallowed the rest of my sentence, avoiding the gaze that Catrin pinned me with.
“Since she carried you into my shop, yes. The moment I saw her face, I knew.”
“Knew what?” I chanced a look only to see a knowing smile pulling at the edges of Catrin’s lips, but the sadness in her dark brown eyes hadn’t lifted.
“That she was different. She left Grenythwood Village the same Vayen I’ve always known, but when she returned, cradling you to her chest, that frantic look in her eye as though the whole world might crumble beneath her any moment—I knew that she had been changed.
By what? Well, I have my theories, but I’m not quite ready to wager my coin just yet. ”
I bit my tongue, leveraging what remained of my self-control to not press her. Instead, I pivoted.