Chapter 17 Aylin’s Nightmare
The weight of the small, silver vial in my palm felt heavier than any blade I had ever swung.
It was empty now, its contents having already done their slow, cruel work inside my mother’s veins.
I stood by her bedside, watching the shallow rise and fall of her chest, her once-vibrant face now pale and hollowed by the poison.
The healers had shaken their heads, whispering of rare toxins and lost antidotes, but I refused to stand by and watch her fade.
I knew the signature of this venom, Aconite.
My most trusted Alcaemist, Asa, grew up with him.
It belonged to Kaelen, a man who traded in shadows and death.
Asa warned me that Kaelen was trained in not only Alchemy but is extremely fast moving and trained as a warrior for many years before finding his true calling as an alchemist.
But this man had finally crossed a line from which there was no return.
I leaned down, pressing a gentle kiss to her cold forehead, and whispered a promise I intended to keep with my life.
"I will find him, Mother. And I will bring you the cure."
Turning away from her bedside required a physical wrenching of my soul, but fury lent speed to my limbs.
I stepped out into the crisp, midnight air of the courtyard, where my horse stood saddled and waiting.
The kingdom was asleep, completely unaware of the silent war breaking out within its borders, but my own mind was ablaze with a cold, sharp focus.
Adjusting the straps of my armor, I checked the twin daggers at my waist and secured my sword.
This was no longer a matter of duty or crown; it didn’t matter that I stood for peace, this was personal.
As I threw my cloak over my shoulders and mounted, I looked back at the dim light of her window one last time, swallowing the lump of fear in my throat and replacing it with pure resolve.
I spurred my horse into a gallop, riding hard into the darkening horizon, chasing the ghost of the man who thought he could tear my world apart.
I traveled for two days to make my way to the Lions Keep, many people have suggested that this is where I would find Kaelen.
Asa also told me that the Lions Keep is where Kaelen used to hang out while in school.
I’ll start my search there, in the hopes that he hasn’t changed his ways.
The smell of rotting pine and old blood hung heavy in the air of the ruined keep.
I found him sitting by a low-burning fire, casually sharpening a curved hunting knife as if he hadn't torn my world apart.
He didn't even look up when my shadow fell across the threshold, his arrogance a physical weight in the small, stone room.
"I expected you yesterday, Aylin," he murmured, the blade catching the dying firelight. "Your grief must have slowed your horse."
The sheer casualness of his voice snapped the last fraying thread of my restraint.
I didn't waste breath on a hero's speech or demand a confession; the black veins on my mother's hands were the only confession I needed.
I lunged forward, my twin daggers unsheathed before he could fully rise from his seat.
Our blades met with a high-pitched shriek of steel that echoed off the damp stone walls.
He was fast, faster than the alchemist's warnings had led me to believe, but he was fueled by malice, and I was fueled by an absolute, blinding necessity.
Every strike I leveled at him carried the weight of her fading heartbeat, driving him backward into the shadows until his heels struck the crumbling hearth.
With a sharp maneuver, I disarmed him, sending his hunting knife clattering into the embers.
I pressed him back against the cold stone, holding him firmly in place as the realization of the situation finally reached his eyes.
I held up the empty vial that had contained the poison, the very one that still threatened my mother's life.
"You are going to give me the antidote," I whispered, my voice steady despite the adrenaline.
"Tell me how to stop the poison, or you will take your final breaths here with me over your body." I had no intention of allowing him to live, but I need that antidote so I will play his game as long as I can.
A low throaty laugh began to form in Kaelen, and then he burst out laughing.
“Kill me Aylin, I have nothing to live for.”
Kaelen reached over, grabbed my hand and thrust it into his abdomen.
“Now you will know what it is to watch your family die.”
I looked around the room frantically and found the antidote vial.
“You will never make it,” he said, coughing up blood.
The antidote vial was a cold, heavy weight against my ribs as I threw myself into the saddle, my horse already lathered in sweat before we even cleared the keep’s courtyard.
The assassin lay bleeding in the dirt behind me, but his parting words rang louder than the thunderheads building over the Whisper Ridges, “The venom claims the heart on the fourth dawn.”
That left me less than twenty-four hours, and it took two days to get home. Maybe I was counting wrong, maybe I could make it.
"Come on, girl," I hissed, leaning low over the mare's neck as we plunged into the black, jagged labyrinth of the mountain pass.
The storm broke over us instantly, a driving sheet of ice-cold rain that turned the mountain trail into a treacherous sluice of mud and loose shale.
Every stumble of her hooves sent my heart into my throat, a terrifying reminder that a single broken leg meant my mother’s death sentence.
Branches tore at my face and cloak in the dark, but I didn't feel them; my mind was locked on the image of Mother's shallow, ragged breathing.
I pressed the horse faster, pushing through the pitch-black woods of the lower foothills where the shadows seemed to stretch and grab at us.
My muscles burned from holding the reins, and my vision blurred with fatigue and rain, but I refused to slow down.
By the time the spires of the city finally pierced the gray, foggy horizon, the first pale light of dawn was bleeding into the sky.
The mare was wheezing, her chest heaving violently as we charged forward through the forest toward the Hutchens Burge Inn.
We burst through the trees in a blur of mud, flying through the cobbled streets until the horse collapsed beneath me in the Inn’s courtyard.
I scrambled up from the stones, throwing open the heavy oak doors and bounding up the stairs three at a time, my trembling hand gripping the glass vial.
But it was too late. Mother had died the day before and I knew it.
I dropped the vial beside her bed and cradled her in my arms.
I am so sorry Mother, please forgive me.
I cried to the Moon Goddess to bring her back.
There was nothing I could do, she was gone and I was alone, the last lycan.
I woke up panting with tears running down my face. I look over to Celest, she is sitting up clutching her chest and staring at me, “I was there Aylin, in your dream. I am so sorry you had to go through that.” She leaned over, pulled me to her and let me cry over the loss of my mother.