Chapter 24
Avilyna
NOT A DREAM
It’s an unusual warm winter day. The kind that tricks you into thinking everything’s okay.
Snow glistens under the sun like scattered shards of crystal, and the market is bursting with energy.
Laughter, scents of roasted nuts and spiced cider, everyone’s gearing up for the Winter Solstice, the Grianstad.
It’s my favourite time of the year.
But even with all the noise, something feels off. That quiet hum of intuition is louder than usual, a bell ringing somewhere I can’t quite hear. I stay close to Alek; he’s my twin, but the resemblance only goes so far.
We share the same freckled nose, the same olive skin and peridot eyes, but where his hair is midnight black, mine burns red. I follow him, barely listening, my mind somewhere else. Thinking, maybe Mom will finally let me train at the Institute.
Maybe I’m ready.
That’s when it hits, a screech tears through the air, high, sharp, unnatural. For a second, I think it’s in my head. But then panic erupts, and people run. Elves, witches, everyone’s bolting like an explosion just crashed into the square. I spin toward Alek.
“What—what’s happening?” My voice cracks, dry and raw. Then I see him, my brother is standing still, too still.
And the intuition that’s been clinging to me all day burns hot in my gut. His hands are around his middle, eyes wide and terrified. Then, blood, coughing and spilling from his mouth. A gurgling sound follows, and crimson hits my face as he chokes and sputters helplessly.
No.
No, no, no.
I rush forward, desperate to reach him, but I don’t make it. Something slams into me, hard. Hitting the side of a cart, I knock over fruits and bread, before the world spins. Dazed, I blink up, and I see it, a demon—and it has Alek.
I need to get to him. I have to stop this, but my body won’t listen to the commands my brain is desperately trying to send.
It’s as though I’m stuck in time. Fear freezes me, forcing me to watch as his body goes limp in the monster’s arms, disappearing into the trees. I force myself up, knees shaking.
“Avilyna!”
Sam grabs me, and I latch onto my other brother like a lifeline, even if we don’t share the same blood; he’s my family. “The norous took Alek! We have to go after it!”
“We can’t! They are everywhere!” Sam yells as his hand tightens around my arm, his fear evident.
And then I see them, more demons, varkuuns, norous, and the scream of harpies echoing through the village cries.
Not just a few, dozens, maybe more. The demon’s stomps shake the earth beneath our feet, thunder made of hate.
They varkuuns charge from the shadows as a living wave of nightmares.
They’re massive, snarling beasts wrapped in crude iron and torn leather.
Their armour is hammered together from bones, scraps, and stolen steel.
Some wear skulls as trophies and their eyes. ..
Kvirr, their eyes are burning with hunger, but not for food, for suffering.
This isn’t war to them, it's a sport. Blood drips in thick, dark strands from jagged weapons, still warm from their last kill. They howl and bark in some harsh, guttural language, but the message is clear: they’re enjoying this.
One slams into a vendor’s cart, shattering it in a single swing, splinters flying around, resolute to reach the merchant. At an arm’s distance, the varkuun lifts the man by its head before the pressure becomes too much. I look away.
Spotting another snatching a witch by the arm and flinging her against a wall so hard the bricks turned red, left unmoved on the ground.
All efforts are useless…
I can hear people screaming.
Not battle cries, but the kind that comes from deep in your chest, guttural, desperate, the one when you finally admit this is it.
A child barely smaller than us runs past me, sobbing, chased by two orcs, and they’re laughing.
Laughing.
One of them pretends to trip, dragging it out, toying with her, a predator playing with its prey before the kill. Then the varkuun rips her in two. So easily, organs spilling on the stoned floor, as if it were nothing but dirt.
The brutality of it freezes me, and I throw up.
Bile burning, choking, coughing as I try to breathe while a cold hand holds my curls up.
Whipping my face with my cloak, I finally spot some legion soldiers, and they are losing ground.
One shifts mid-leap, claws extended, only for a spiked club to slam into his chest and send him flying.
He hits the cobblestones with a sickening crunch, the wolf coughs up blood before he stops moving, his fur matted. And still, the demons come.
“Run!” Sam shouts, voice shaking. “Now!”
I don’t look back, I can’t, and we run. Dodging overturned carts and broken stalls. My feet barely touch the ground, and we keep going, keep running, and make it to the forest.
Safe, for now.
We tumble into a meadow, huffing and puffing.
“I gotta go back! Alek’s still alive! That demon has him!”
“We will,” Sam says, but I see a small flicker of doubt. “But first, we need help. My brother… I wasn’t supposed to leave, but I had to find you. I knew something bad was gonna happen.”
“You knew?” I shout, unable to hold back that volcano of anger and fear.
“I didn’t really, I overheard stuff. A patrol came and informed my dad that a village on the western border had been raided. My belly felt weird, and I knew something was wrong.” I blow out a breath, the same foreboding feeling that overwhelmed me earlier.
It’s always been me, Freya, Sam and Alek, always. So I hug him. He didn’t know everything, but he knew enough to come looking for us. And that’s what matters.
The wind shifts, a shadow moves overhead, and the woods go quiet, too quiet. Then that scream again; soul-ripping.
“WATCH OUT!” Sam yells, pushing me to the ground. A whoosh of air stuns us momentarily while the creature flies back into the grey sky, the sun hidden by dark clouds.
A harpy.
The creature is horrifying, ancient. A monster with the upper body of a haggard, crone-like woman twisted with age and hate. Her skin is weathered and wrinkled, stretched tight over her bones. Her arms, powerful black wings and her legs are long with razor-sharp talons.
The harpy’s eyes are burning with a predatory intelligence as she comes straight for us.
But then, from the shadows, a flash of white.
A wolf throws itself between us and the demon.
Growling low and deep, warning it, before they crash together, claw against claw, tooth against talon.
She shrieks, but the wolf doesn’t budge.
Bleeding, battered, but unwavering. Finally, the demon flees, retreating into the clouds, and the wolf turns to us. And I am on guard, muscles tightening.
“I’m sorry,” Sam says softly, eyes on the white wolf. “I shouldn’t have left.” They continue their communication, but I'm deaf to it, using their lycan abilities. Except I don't have time to interrogate Sam about what his annoying brother is saying.
A scream tears from my throat as talons slash into my shoulder, and I’m ripped from the ground. Pain explodes through me, eyes watering. Sam’s face is getting smaller below me, and the white wolf howls its torment evident.
I try to fight, to scream, to cast something, anything, but the air is cold. Coming at me like glass shards cutting on their way, and my voice gets lost in the wind. The harpy is taking me, and wherever we’re going, I know nothing good is waiting for me.
I jolt awake, breath catching in my throat, surfacing from drowning. For a second, I’m not sure where I am, what’s real and what’s not. Then the images come flooding back, as an old film set on repeat, but it wasn’t a dream.
Not this time.
A memory, dark and jagged, burned into the back of my mind, a scar I can’t unsee.
My hand instinctively finds my right shoulder, fingers brushing over the mark, crooked, cruel, still tender.
It’s small, but it might as well be branded there.
A souvenir from the creature that ripped through my life, the day everything shifted. When normal became a distant concept.
I try to hold on to the details, push through the fog. I need to remember. But the pain hits hard and fast. White-hot, electric, and I can’t help the sound that escapes me, a grunt, raw and real. My vision swims, and time stretches thin like it’s about to snap.
Through the haze, I catch the shape of someone. Tall, moving toward me. Their voice cuts through the static.
“…lyna! Vi!”
And then, nothing.