25. Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Four
Irin
This is my last entry to “The Tragic History of Julra,” I fear. I willingly dedicated my entire life to the illustrious
view of this beautiful world. I have no regrets, only hope that Princept Morrette and their family found peace. Sinna, I
dedicate this book to you, my love. Thank you for sharing your mind, your culture, and your life with me. I look
forward to meeting you in Wira’s embrace.
-"The Tragic History of Julra," by High Scholar Yuret Wend, Year 100 of Ber's First Reign
M orrette and I stood in silence, just taking in the remnants of the battlefield below us.
Unable to maintain this beastly form any longer, I let go of the tight reins I held it in to allow my body to shift back to its smaller human form.
The relief that came with it was like taking off a heavy set of armor.
As fur shed and muscle shrank down, I felt so much lighter and flexible.
Morrette didn't seem disturbed by the transformation, with just a cursory glance my way before turning her head toward the towering wall of the Clifftombs.
Beolf hobbled up the side of the hill to my side on foot. Nursing a gash on his elbow, he ripped the greave off to staunch it with a bandage. By the time he made it over, I had reclaimed enough of my humanity to speak unhindered by fangs or a muzzle.
“I think it’s safe to say the Hollows population is well and truly decimated now.” Beolf's eyes jumped between us, silently measuring up Morrette's still form and the sword still clutched in her other hand.
“I want confirmation of Gennel’s whereabouts.
Have the trackers fan out and try to sense any concealment spells in the area.
” I turned my attention momentarily to where Behar was pulling himself back up onto his paws.
My steps were still a bit unsteady, getting used to walking on shorter legs again, but when I made it to his side I ran my hands ran over his chest and sides to check for any severe injuries.
He was a bit tender from the kick—his pained whines as I pressed against that spot told me as much—but otherwise he was free of broken bones or cuts.
“Good boy,” I praised the rinhound. “Thank you for your help, Behar.”
He seemed content with a copious amount of ear scratches for his service. Even when Behar appeared exhausted, his tongue lolled out happily at the attention. The reaction brought a toothy smile across my own maw despite myself.
“If she were truly dead, there would be nothing to sense,” Beolf continued. “How would we know she didn’t just run away again?”
My fangs ground together in agitation. “You’re right on that,” I finally admitted begrudgingly. “We could eradicate her identity as Gennel Rhen in Gilamorst, at least. If she does resurface, she would have to make a new persona and rebuild her influence.”
“Fucking rodent,” Beolf muttered.
I scoffed, but it was a nervous sound. “I suppose the party is over.”
“Yeah, and you better hurry to catch the host.” Beolf jerked his head toward Morrette’s retreating form down the hill's slope. “From what Dayer has been going on about the last four days, getting into the Clifftombs is impossible without her.”
We were close enough to the castle that her trek wasn't far, skirting around the edge of the cluttered valley toward the drawbridge, now being lowered across its moat.
The fluttering of dark fabric whipped from her lifted arm, as if she were the one controlling it.
Of all the things I'd seen since riding up to this mess, that felt like the least wild thing to happen this day.
"Gods damn it!" Twisting my neck and shrugging my shoulders as if to relieve some tension, I tried to push the rest of the beast down and snap the rest of my human form back into place.
If done slow enough, the process was mostly painless.
But I had an urgency that pressed me to revert back before I attempted to confront Morrette about… everything.
“Stay with Behar. Make sure he doesn’t run.”
I didn’t wait to hear his response before loping down the hill to catch up to Morrette, who had already stepped onto the drawbridge.
It was an exhausting effort, but by the time I made it within range of yelling I was entirely myself, tattered clothes draping from my smaller frame and leaving me exposed to the chill.
Steam wafted from whatever bare skin hit the wintery Julran air with the excessive heat my body let loose from the change.
“Morrette! Wait, I need to talk to you!”
Why I expected her to slow down was a slip in judgement.
The massive Tome of Wira was still tucked casually under her arm, but as I drew closer, it felt like I was being crushed from all sides.
The sheer oppressive aura that filled the air around her was almost enough to deter me, if I hadn’t already been so desperate to talk to Morrette.
Even so, I had to clench my teeth to keep them from chattering out of fear.
This had to be what it felt like to be in the presence of a god, being so brutally reminded of a mortal's inferiority. Maybe Wira herself lived in that tome.
Finally—after what seemed like an hour of running—my bare feet hit the planks of the long drawbridge. The slapping of skin against the frigid wood was enough to make her slow to a stop and glance over her shoulder.
“You look a little underdressed for the weather, little princeling.”
The pet name made me stop short, the ragged breaths seizing in my lungs. Only one person I knew called me that.
"Haron?" Her name fell from my lips in a whisper. "I can't… this isn't… You can't be Haron, right? You're the Princept Hilj, aren't you? But you're…"
A small smile pulled her full lips up, but it wasn't a happy expression.
"You're right on both accounts. I was Haron Val Toric.
But beyond that, I am Morrette Hilj. I know it's…
" She huffed a weary sigh, turning her gaze to the still water beneath the bridge we stood on.
"It's probably unbelievable to you. I'm sure you figured out my little trick when you found my old body, otherwise you wouldn't have suspected I made it here. You would have thought I was dead, no?"
My head bobbed, but my mind was whirring so fast I could hardly find the words to spit out.
It was truly a miracle, seeing Morrette in the flesh.
Now it made complete sense why she always called me princeling, or seemed overly reckless with how she lived as Haron.
However she was able to accomplish it, she was practically immortal.
To her, I was a child. And I felt even more childlike, running after her with these pants that were tattered and a shirt barely clinging onto my shoulders in shredded strips.
As if I didn’t feel wildly unprepared to face off against someone who had lived over a hundred years, I couldn’t rely on a royal presence either.
Morrette waited for me to collect my thoughts, her weight leaned into a hip with the tome propped on it.
The swords she’d just slaughtered a quarter of the Hollows with peeked out from over her shoulders in their sheaths.
Up close, she was an exquisite play of light and dark, of masculine and feminine, in how she held herself tall and unwavering.
Blood stained her skin in varying shades, flaking off in some places where it had dried.
The dark blue trousers and vest hid the majority of gore not covering her skin, hugging every defined muscle along her chest and stomach.
Another layer of lustrous silk—silver and bound tightly across her chest—peeked out from the vee of the stiff vest. And the very distinct Julran collar made popular during Morrette’s lifetime wrapped around her shoulders and extended up to the bottom of a sharp, pale jaw, making her long neck appear even more so.
True, she looked exactly as she had in the portrait recreations, but at the same time was nothing like the stoic noble that stared back at the artists.
The only difference between the princept standing before me and the one from my history tome was the length of her hair.
It had grown from its short style after decades under whatever spell preserved that body, still long even after she’d roughly chopped it off at the hip.
And those eyes—bluer than the water crashing against the cliffs—pierced straight through me as if I had been impaled by an icicle again.
Now it made sense why her eyes were two different colors as Haron.
It had to be a side effect of whatever advanced necromancy she used to reanimate those people with her own soul.
I could not imagine living so long outside my own body.
Living borrowed lives to hide and plot, to resurrect a whole kingdom so long after its people left it in ruins.
And yet it saddened me, that a part of Haron I thought beautiful was the consequence of reanimating a corpse.
“You look…” My tongue fumbled with the words I wanted to say, either from exhaustion or disbelief, I couldn’t say for sure. “You’re… my gods. Your body looks like… it’s like you haven't aged a day.”
One black eyebrow lifted on her forehead. “ That’s what you chased me down to say? Excuse me if I don’t take that as a compliment.”
Shit, shit, shit! I was fucking this all up!
“No!” I lurched forward a half-step, afraid she would turn her back and leave me here.
“No, I’m just… shocked. And I’m relieved you’re alright.
Watching you throw yourself into the fight like that—” Another shudder racked my body.
I wrapped my arms around myself in an attempt to disguise it as a chill, instead of fear of what could have been.
“Ber’s balls, Har…Morrette. I thought I was going to watch you die out there. ”