23. Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Two
Icrouched low against the tree, breath locked in my chest, dagger slick in my palm, arms shaking.
I had killed a mortal.
Tairngire stepped out of the shadows like he owned them.
The wolves stiffened, hackles raised, yellow eyes flashing. The white one snarled, teeth gleaming under the waning moon. Its pack pressed forward, twisted shapes of man and beast.
Tairngire only grinned.
His body somehow stretched taller, shoulders rolling as though the air needed to make way for him. Runes lit along his arms, molten gold over green searing his skin, the glow spilling like wildfire. Light bled through his chest. Sigils crawled over muscle and bone.
His eyes burned with divine light, no pupils anymore—just that impossible brightness, as if he created light itself.
The forest answered only to him, the trees whispered his vengeance.
I took in a sharp breath. This was the reality of him, the god uncaged.
“Come then.” His arrogant laugh rolled through the clearing, deep and taunting, echoing through the rotting trees. “Show me what leash your master holds you on. I’ll sever it. Easily.”
The wolves snarled, pacing, restless. Then one lunged, jaws snapping. Tairngire didn’t even flinch. Instead, he opened his arms wide, daring them. The God of the First Forest aglow with runes and arrogance.
Cernunnos made flesh.
I stood frozen, though my knees threatened to drop me with how much they were shaking. This wasn’t the smug male who teased me for tripping over roots, oh no, this was something else. The thing legends warned of.
I had killed a mortal.
The first wolf lunged.
In a blink, his twin curved blades burned in his hands. Runes carved along their edges pulsed like a second heartbeat.
Where had they even come from?
My eyes widened as I looked at the very blades that had killed three hundred half-born soldiers in Cindraloch without hesitation, all for trespassing in his forest.
Tairngire suddenly moved.
And he moved like water spilling downhill—fluid, unstoppable. A step, a twist, and his blade carved a beast’s throat. No hesitation. No wasted motion. The wolf collapsed into shadow before it hit the ground.
The others snarled, hackles trembling with primal fear. They weren’t the hunters here.
The god only kept grinning. Enjoying himself.
Another wolf barreled in. He didn’t even look at it. A backhand slash split it clean in two, his other blade pivoting into the skull of the next beast mid-lunge.
Steel sang. Sigils blazed across his blades, aglow with forest light. And all I could do was crouch there, dagger pressed into my hand, heart hammering so loud I thought the wolves might hear it.
I’d read about divines in combat before—pages of glorified ink. None of it prepared me for this. Brutal, effortless beauty. He wasn’t just fighting. He was playing.
The forest echoed his will. Shadows leaned into his glow. Roots groaned underfoot as if holding steady for his dance.
Yet the alpha stayed back. The white wolf. Its blood red eyes unblinking and silent. Its pack bled and died around it, but it still didn’t move.
It only watched from the shadows, never taking its eyes off the god that was killing its entire pack.
I should’ve studied it. Instead my gaze strayed back to him—the roll of his shoulders, the impossible strength, the divine light painting him like some living myth. This wasn't just the smirking god who plagued me. This was Tairngire, the Awakener. I couldn’t separate my wonder from my fear.
The second wave hesitated, pacing and growling, but none dared strike first. Their eyes cut to the alpha, waiting for a command. Still, it didn’t move.
Was it giving orders through some sort of mental bond? I couldn’t tell.
Tairngire straightened, blades dripping shadowed blood, his chest rising slow, his marks blazing brighter as if he’d only begun to wake.
“Well?” his voice carried low and taunting. “Are you beasts or cowards?”
One wolf snapped its jaws, stepped forward—then stopped. Another whined, ears pinned flat.
Relief didn’t come. The hair at the back of my neck stood up at the sight of him—lit by his own light, smirk taunting and dangerous.
Stagborn. Hunter. Predator.
My nails bit into the dagger’s hilt.
His gaze shifted past the pack to the alpha and he let out a savage chuckle. “Hiding behind your dead, are you? That’s a leader’s pride?”
The white wolf’s ears flicked. Its pack bristled as if the insult were theirs. Their growls swelled to a crescendo, and still, their master didn’t move.
Tairngire barked a harsh laugh, one sharp and wild. “I see. You send them to bleed for you while you rot on your throne. Fitting. Perhaps I’ll carve through every one of your curs before I take your head.”
It's entire pack flinched, their fear tipping into frenzy. The dam broke.
They lunged.
Tairngire met them like fire catching dry kindling. His infamous swords flashed arcs of light, twin crescents striking in rhythm. He ducked low, one blade splitting a stomach, the other slashing a spine. He pivoted with impossible speed, slamming a pommel into a skull, burying steel in another.
Just speed. Precision. Brutality.
The trees swayed with his movements, each strike echoing like thunder through the roots. The ground shivered, and I couldn’t look away. Not from the way the wolves faltered, bound by some unseen leash. Not from the white wolf, silent at the back, red eyes burning hotter with every fallen packmate.
And not from him. The way his body moved, taunting death as if the fight had already been won, set my chest burning with terror, awe, fury.
I shuffled until my back was against the tree. The dagger was still slick in my grip, and I didn’t know if I wanted him to stop or burn brighter.
The last wolf crumpled with a sickening crack. Silence fell, broken only by the hiss of his blades as he wiped black ichor away, disgust twisting his face. His chest barely moved, as if none of it had cost him.
Dread rooted deep in my stomach, bile burned my throat.
I had killed a mortal.
And now, Tairngire was slaying them one by one as if their lives didn’t matter. Merciless.
The woman at the pyre flashed in my mind for what had to be the thousandth time tonight.
Her daughter in the flames. How easily it could’ve been her son out here, twisted into one of these things.
How easily any of them could shift back into human skin.
The bile rose, so close I could taste its acidity, threatening to spill vomit.
I’d read about gods cleansing realms before. Purges. Cold, factual lines in a tome. Necessary evils.
But this wasn’t ink on a page. This was flesh torn open, blood soaking into the soil. Lives ripped away, even if they were corrupted ones.
Tairngire just stood there, tall, unshaken, his swords humming with ancient magic.
The air stank of rot and iron. My hands shook. The dagger rattled in my grip. This was the god I was bound to. The god meant to train me, and I wasn’t sure if that terrified me more than the werewolves.
The alpha hadn’t moved. Its red eyes burned from the shadows, surrounded by the shadowed remains of its pack. It didn’t retreat, just waited.
Tairngire lowered his swords slightly, his presence filling the clearing. “Fucking coward,” he spat, voice cracking like thunder. “Hiding behind teeth and fur. Show yourself.”
The wolf only bared its fangs.
“Shift back,” Tairngire snarled, stepping forward. He was all emerald fire, searing the dark. “Let me see the mortal scum you really are.”
The words struck against me like a lash. I flinched. Gods.
I pressed into the bark, shaken. I’d never heard him spit venom like that—not even earlier when he had his hand wrapped around my throat. His disdain cut sharper than the blades in his hands.
The alpha rumbled, low and guttural, padding forward. Its white fur was matted with shadow and rot, but its stillness was wrong. Too knowing. Too human.
The air turned suffocating. This wasn’t predator and prey—It was something much, much worse.
“SHOW YOURSELF” Tairngire’s voice split the forest.
The ground rattled. Roots shivered. The alpha dropped to its belly, whining, its red eyes wide with fear. Tairngire had said earlier that these wolves did not answer to him. Yet the alpha of the pack was bowing to his dominance, unable to resist it.
Its fur rippled, bones cracked, reshaping with a stomach-turning lurch. White hide dissolved into clammy flesh, claws blunting into fingers. What crouched in the dirt was no longer beast, but man.
I sucked in a breath.
He was a ghost of the man I’d seen in my vision—kneeling in the shadow of that dark palace. Once lean muscle was now wasted. His ribs pushed against sallow skin. His chest heaved, and his hands braced against the ground as though being human again stripped him of all strength.
He lifted his head. Red-rimmed eyes met Tairngire’s.
“You First-Spun,” he rasped, voice raw, “think yourselves so righteous because you were born of the Old One’s hand. While mortals,” he spat the word like it was a curse, “suffer and rot. Claw through Fate’s cruel bonds, while you laugh and fight and fuck. Free of the burdens of choice and trial.”
He spat into the soil, his spittle dark against the decrepit roots.
Tairngire’s shoulders squared, swords glinting. Fury rolled off him in a tide.
My heart stuttered. Because I heard him. The shivering mortal crouched in the mud wasn’t just broken. He was bound. Bound to choices, to Fates that fed on pain while First-Spun divines and their spawn skipped trial.
I thought of the violet thread—souls begging for love. The golden threads—children tethered to fickle gods. And me, knotted to a god in a soul bond I’d never asked for.
I couldn’t help it, I took the alpha’s side.