Chapter Thirty #2
“We brought you all here to this island, where we each lived our long lives, so that you can learn to be an alpha. To be a leader that is going to shape the world, and to make sure you are strong enough to handle the gift we bestow. Every trial we’ve put you through has been for you to learn skills, to bind you as a pack, to grow feelings between each other.
Because what is a pack without love? It is destruction and chaos.
This is the ultimate test, and we are fair rulers… You have a choice.”
I don’t feel like they are being fair at all.
The Crone goddess speaks next. “You can leave here. I will turn your creature back into a human and break the magic marking on your bodies as your reward. You will be safe, hidden away in the fourth pack lands to the far east. You and your friend will live long lives, never worrying about the heirs of the packs or the courts. You will be untouchable until you die of old age and join us in the skies.”
My knees feel weak as she pauses. The Mother fills in the rest of the choice I have.
“That is one choice you can make. The second choice is this—you give us three parts of your soul, and we will give you a power. The parts of your soul will be given to these heirs, linking you as a true pack. All four of you will be linked forever, and your lives will change. You will be a champion and immortal alongside them for a thousand or more years. Death will not chase your soul because it will be destroyed. But heed my warning with this choice.” Her voice softens.
“There will be no rebirth for you, no other life than this, no other body free of scars and pain. There will be no peace in the stars, no family to be reunited with when you die. You will be alone with them, and no one else will be waiting for you except for darkness. You will be fallen and soul-cursed, Meredith Crone.”
My soul? Her words vibrate through my mind, and I fall to my knees in the leaves with a whoosh. “Can I speak to them?”
“No. This choice must be yours, and your soul must decide to be either mortal or given up freely,” the Crone goddess answers me.
I can’t look at the heirs; I stare at the leaves on the ground like they will have the answer.
My monster warned me not to give anything up for the wolves, warned me not to trust them…
but I already trusted them long before he warned me.
Trust and giving up three parts of my soul are two very different things.
I don’t remember my life before I was eight, and I always knew that when I died, there would be a chance I’d see my parents.
If they are dead, they might have been waiting for me, and if I do this, if I save these three, I am giving up that chance.
I am giving up my soul for the heirs. She’s asking if I’m going to give my soul up for these three psychotic wolves and link myself to them forever.
Or…do I take the other option? I could leave with Tannith and see her turned back into a human.
We could have a new life, away from the past horrors, and eventually I might forget the heirs and my monster.
We would be free. We could have everything… but I would lose them.
Tannith, forgive me. Please. I can still get her back to being a human, but I know my soul would be destroyed if I left them here and took the goddesses’ first choice.
The second choice means I get everyone out alive, and that is all that matters.
I’m lying to myself if I ever thought I even considered the first option.
I already know what my answer is because it is too late for me.
I let them into my heart, and they dug their claws in.
They bled for me and, now, my soul is going to bleed for them too.
“I choose them.” I whisper the words, but they hit like a punch in the air.
All three of the heirs’ heads rear back like I hit them.
Like they didn’t expect me to choose them at all, and Blackfire shakes his head from side to side.
I raise my voice and stand up. I will not make this choice on my knees.
“I choose them, and I will pay the price for it with my soul. You have gotten what you wanted and created a pack. Now take what it will cost and let us go home.”
The heirs struggle against the binds like they can free themselves from the goddesses, but they can’t.
They aren’t more powerful than the goddesses.
The gold mark we all received glows on their chests, and it changes, the marking swirling up their necks and leaving a crown in the centre.
Each one is different: Orion’s is a crown of vines; Reed’s is a crown of water and ice; and Blackfire’s is a crown of skulls with their heads on fire.
I feel my own skin burning with a mark on my neck, and I wonder what mine looks like.
The Crone goddess purrs into my mind, “It is done. You are our champions and we now take what is given and share our power with you, Meredith Crone.” Gold beams of light shoot straight out of each of the goddess statues, and they slam into my chest at the same time.
I cry out in agony as the light bursts through my skin, through my bones and blood.
I know the moment it finds my soul, I know the moment something is taken from me that I can never get back.
Three parts of my soul are torn from my chest, and I cry out again.
My back arches, my feet leave the ground, and all I can see is blinding gold light.
The goddesses tear me apart in the forest and fuel me with their power.
The power settles into my bones like a binding, and I wail as I resist it, pushing it away from me, but I can’t.
I don’t know how much time passes or how long I scream, but my voice eventually gives in, and I pant as I collapse onto the leaves.
The world pauses as I open my eyes, and everything is different.
The colours are brighter, I can taste scents in the air, and all the sensory input is overwhelming.
I lift my hand, seeing that my skin is paler than before, and my nails are black now.
I run my tongue over my teeth, noticing two fangs have appeared from my teeth.
Just like my monster. What have they changed me into?
“You tricked us!” the Mother goddess roars in my mind, and I let out a piercing scream.
The Maiden snarls words I can’t understand into my head, but one sentence I get. “Oblivion-touched and cursed. It is impossible! She cannot exist, how did we not see? How did they do it?”
Finally, the Crone goddess speaks, and she isn’t screaming at me like the other two.
I can finally focus on what she is saying without feeling like my head is being split in two.
“She was protected by love, and she will fall to it in the end. Oblivion will ruin her, and her wolves will tear her fragile heart apart. I see it all, and we need not fear this girl. He will not want the broken. She will still be ours.”
“In time,” the Maiden’s voice echoes last.
The world spins in front of my eyes, and the forest disappears, leaving nothing but clear night skies as I kneel in snow on the mountaintop.
The bloodstone is right in front of me, and the mountain range stretches for miles in every direction I look, and above is nothing but endless stars and the moon right above me.
The silver light makes my skin glow as I stand up, staring at the heirs, who are on their knees a few feet away.
They aren’t bound anymore, but they don’t move.
Blackfire’s gaze burns with devotion—raw, absolute, and almost frightening. “We are fucking hopeless, don’t you see? We have been from the very start, but Meredith?” He said my name. I didn’t know how desperately I wanted him to say my name. “As long as the stars burn in the sky, you will be mine.”
The wind picks up around us, and I hear a thud in the snow.
I turn around and find Tannith convulsing, blood pouring out of her drake mouth.
I don’t know what I am now or how I can, but I can hear her heartbeat in her small chest and smell decay and death pouring off her tiny drake body.
I know without a shadow of a doubt that my friend is about to die.