Chapter Thirty-Seven
Iturned away from my grandmother and stepped back to my body. I looked at her over my shoulder. “What should I do?”
She smiled. “Wrap your hand around the chain. It can't hurt you any more than it already has. And follow it to the end. Find out who is hurting you, find out their intention, and save your wolves.” She looked towards my body. “You don’t have long. They are already so very weak.”
“I’m afraid.” I whispered, and her smile was sad but firm.
“I know. And that’s perfectly fine, but don’t let fear stop you from doing something necessary. Don’t let your fear hold you back from who you were meant to be.”
Her words repeated in my mind as I stepped up to my body on the ground. “Okay.” I grabbed my hand around the chain and started walking. The chain in my hand thrummed. I could feel the intent in its black links.
Whoever cast this hex was intent on one thing. Killing my wolf. They would have succeeded if I had only one. But I had two, and thankfully they supported each other until I realized something was wrong.
It took me entirely too long to realize the truth, though. I needed to be more in tune with myself in the future. I couldn’t neglect my power, or my wolves like I had.
I shook my head when I realized I was too focused on everything else. School, training, my friends and Rowan. Everything else that should have taken a back seat to my wolves, the very beings created to share my soul with, had slipped between my fingers while I focused on the things around me.
But maybe that was a piece of the spell as well. I felt a jolt go through the chain as I realized I was right. This spell attacked my wolf, but also made the mind shift away when thinking about the wolf, so that it wouldn’t be caught before it was too late.
Whoever is attacking me is smart. It feels like the cleaving, but different. Maybe they changed it or added onto the spell. Either way, I’ll follow it back until I find out who it is.
I walked through the world all the while staying apart from it. The streets blurred as I hurried past. Something in my chest was burning and as I grew closer to the other end of the chain, then more the pain in my chest increased.
The chain veered off, and I followed. Through the trees that grew familiar, into a clearing I had seen before. A clearing that sent chills down my spine. No one should be here. This ground was sacred.
The chain yanked me past the grounds where I found my power, the place I met my grandmother and out the other side. I was near my father’s pack grounds, and the thought made my insides clench.
The chain, which I had been following, had taken control. I was sucked past the pack grounds and further down the hill. I tried to release the chain but my hand was stuck to it, as if the chain was taking me the rest of the way, because it knew I would turn away.
I felt the ground shift, the light darken, and the air thicken.
I paled as I realized where we were headed.
I remember my father telling me as a child to stay away from the dead caves.
But the chain yanked me towards them. I felt the ground crumble beneath my feet, and rocks shift as I stumbled to keep up with the pull of the chain.
The dead were the only ones supposed to be here.
A place that my father said was haunted by our ancestors.
A place where we used to lay our dead before it was corrupted by something dark, something unknown.
A call went out, deep from within a cave, and my blood froze. This wasn’t a normal call. This was from some beast deep inside the walls. I felt the ground tremble with it. This place was my death.
But the chain yanked me inside, and the darkness closed around me.
My panic peaked, and I yanked my hand back from the links in my hands but it wouldn’t release me.
I nearly cried out when my grandmother’s words came back to me.
‘Don’t let fear hold you back.’ Like she knew I would panic, she knew I would fear this place, and she was trying to tell me to stay calm and keep my head.
So I took a deep breath and allowed the chain to pull me deeper and deeper into the caves. I was warned to stay away, the caves that have been haunted for thousands of years.
I stayed tight to the chain, pulling me deeper until a light sprang up in the distance. The closer I went, the brighter it became until I found myself right outside the ring of light. “What the fuck?”
I was frozen in my spot outside of the light. My words seemed to bounce back to me, almost as if to mock me. “What the fuck is going on here?” I couldn’t stop the words from leaving my mouth again. But I was invisible to those in front of me, so it didn’t matter.
Another call went out, but being so close this time, now I understood. It was a normal howl. A call from a shifted wolf, that the walls bounced back, echoes layering onto it, making it sound like some deranged beast.
But it was just wolves, a lot of wolves, in the circle of light. And now everything I knew about the dead caves, or thought I knew about the dead caves, seemed to be just the horror stories of a child.
There were no dead here, no specters of the wronged flying around these caves. Just a pack of wolves, desecrating the land of the dead.
Tombs were smashed open, robbed of anything good, the bones of the deceased thrown about. I walked closer to the light, and I saw one man drinking from a skull.
I froze as someone caught my eye. Someone I never thought I would see again.
I followed behind them, weaving through the people as if I was truly there and I didn’t want to touch anyone.
But someone stumbled into me and they passed right through me.
I watched as their skin pebbled and they paled, as if they felt something, but it was just a passing change.
My soul touched theirs and they didn’t like it.
I continued behind the person and it wasn’t until they turned around that I realized that the chain I was holding tight ended around their neck. They sat down on a sofa that was bright and fluffy, something that didn’t look like it belonged down here. And then she called out. “Garren.”
A man walked from inside a tent nearby. “Yes, my love?”
She smiled as she laid back against the side of the sofa. “Bring me a blanket…I want to nap.” She pulled a necklace from her neck, a black chain that matched the one I had my hand wrapped around. It had a black stone hanging from a link in the center.
“The spell? Is it still draining you?” He slipped inside the tent and came back with a blanket and a pillow.
Aurora nodded. “She is still fighting. And it’s getting on my last nerve.” She groaned as he slid the pillow behind her head and tucked her in. “Why won’t she just die?”
“She’s an Alpha. Killing her wolf will take longer.” The man, Garren, offered. But Aurora pouted.
“She isn’t that strong. She should be dead by now.” She pulled the necklace out again to stare at. I felt the chain throb and the burning in my chest became excruciating. I felt the chain links sear into the flesh of my hand, but I refused to let go. I wasn’t sure what would happen if I let go now.
I pulled my magic to me. I needed to fight against whatever this was. But I needed to be smart about it. I thought through the entire Book of Shadows, and I kept coming back to the cleaving, but it wasn’t a perfect match.
“You can add to a spell.” I turned to face my grandmother, who seemed more substantial here.
“You knew?” She nodded. “Why didn’t you tell us?”
“Because there are rules. The goddess allows us to guide, not interfere.”
“They were attacking us, killing us.” I pointed to the huge rogue encampment.
“And I wept every attack, but I cannot go against the rules or else I won’t be allowed to come and help when you need me to.”
The truth hit me in the chest. “You held your tongue because of me?” She nodded again.
“I knew you would need me to fulfill your path. And no matter how much I wanted to tell your father about the filth in our caves, I could not.” She walked over to me. “You needed me more.”
I felt her kiss my brow. “Grandma…I don’t know what to do.”
“Start with the cleaving. And think about what you have done so far. The problems you have overcome already.” Then she was gone.
I turned back to the sleeping Aurora and all the problems her family has caused. Her sister and grandmother were dead, a fact I knew, after I ripped the necklaces from their necks, breaking the spells held there.
I want to say the realization was instant, but it took far too long for my brain to catch up to what my memories held. The key to breaking the hex Aurora laid on me was in the memory of her grandmother, and the way the power shattered the moment her necklaces did.
“If I wanted to break the spell, I needed to shatter the necklace. But how do you shatter a talisman from so far away?”
“Who says you’re too far away? You are right here…
” My grandmother walked over. “You might not be able to touch anything, but you still have your power. It’s connected to your very soul.
” Her hand came to rest on my shoulder. My power is connected to my soul.
I turned away and headed away from the light.
I needed to be alone to see if this would work.
As I walked, I mentally scrolled to the page in the book I needed. A shatter spell. It was pretty simple. But it had rules attached. It could cause no physical harm. If it did, it would rebound three times stronger back to the caster. So practice was necessary.
I picked a big rock, and with a flick of my hand and a quick mumbling of the spell, it violently shattered, sending shards everywhere. Well, that would kill Aurora. I turned to the next, but someone had come running, and I froze.
“What the hell was that?” The rogue looked off into the distant dark, trying to see if anyone was around.
But when nothing moved or breathed, he turned back around to the light.
“These fucking caves are creepy. I need to get out of here.” His mumbled words carried back to me, hiding in the shadows as if he could see me.
I stepped out of my hiding place when he turned the corner and readjusted my shoulders.
This would take longer than I expected.
I tried over and over, doing my best to adjust the power level each time.
Once I mastered one rock size, I got smaller and smaller until I could shatter the smallest rock in two without exploding the shards.
Once I was confident, I turned to head back to Aurora, but I stumbled to a stop when something in the shadows moved.
“Grandma?” I called out, thinking it was just her coming to check in on me, but the way the shadow moved, I knew it wasn’t. “Who are you?” I started towards the light and the shadow shifted.
There was a whisper, a grating along the back of the next that had my feet moving quicker. “So cold.” The words were a soft, lilting song that called from the darkness and I turned away. I ran as fast as I could away from the shuffling form in the darkness.
I had this sinking feeling that if I was caught, I would be stuck here, in this cave forever.
I ran back to the light, following the dark chain back to where Aurora slept, and the figure standing over her. “Grandma?” I sounded a little panicked, so I steadied myself as I stepped closer.
“Did you see her?”
“See who?” I walked next to her and my grandmother turned to me with a knowing look in her eyes.
“The lost soul calling out from the darkness. She walks here.” Her voice held a well of knowledge I was too afraid to face.
I gave a tiny nod. “Who is she?”
“One of our lost.” She turned to face the darkness, and I swear I could faintly hear the soft whisper from the black.
“She spirit walked without anchors. And when she went to return to her body, she couldn’t find it.
” My grandmother turned back to me. “If you let her find your shell, she will take it. Leaving you down here alone for the next foolish girl to leave her shell open and alone.” She turned back to Aurora. “Do you know what to do?”
I nodded. “I think so.”
“Well, do it, and return to your body before someone finds it vulnerable.” She kissed me and then was gone.
I shivered at the thought of that soul entering my body, but I couldn’t focus on that right now.
I got closer to Aurora and thought of the spell I needed to stop the cleaving.
I thought of my wolves and the power sucking them dry and I felt my power swell.
I would not allow this to go on any longer.
“Alta nim for cle de nagh.” I repeated the counterspell for the cleaving as I moved closer.
I watched the stone around her neck flicker as I tried to break the hex.
I leaned down and as I repeated the counter spell; I focused on the stone and sent a tendril of my power down into the inky jewel. I shattered the rock, repeating the cleaving counter spell, and Aurora sat up with a scream.
“No.” She clenched the chain around her neck, but with the stone gone, the links of the chain broke apart. “How is this possible?”
Garren came running. “What?”
“She broke the spell.” The metal was crumbling in her hands as she screamed her frustration. “Stupid fucking bitch. I’m going to kill her.”
I smirked as I turned away from the screaming woman. “Not today.” I started out of the cave, trying to remember my way out, when I heard the scrape of a foot on stone.
“So cold.” The words were whispered right over my shoulder and this time, I screamed.