Page 27 of The Wolf and Her Shadows

Thrashing his head from side to side, Razoni spears the two nearest wolves, and I have to clutch desperately at his mane as his powerful hind legs thrust behind him, dispatching two more.

Four down, six to go.

Sir Rynheim removes a scabbard from his back, tossing it to the ground as he pulls his large jagged blade free. The one symbolizing his title of Captain. He slashes it down towards a grey-furred wolf chomping at his heels, cursing when the beast dodges his strike.

This is the part where my whimpers and screams usually leak into current reality as well. Based on our previous experience at least. Also, based on what occurred during Rayne’s last nightmare, I have no doubt that Mariane will try to wake us.

If only she were able to. Rayne is more fortunate than I in that regard.

I hear Sir Rynheim take a shaky breath, although in my memory I had only felt his breath tickle the back of my neck on his heavy exhale. He lifts his free hand, clad in the same leather my father’s had been, and ruffles the short hair on the top of my head.

“Don’t die, kid. Got a lot riding on those shoulders of yours.”

The same words he’d spoken after every sparring practice I’d had, each one he’d personally overseen. Every hunting trip. Even spoken as a joke before each formal dinner I’d been forced to suffer through. Each one he’d been standing at my father’s side for. Him and my mother both.

I hadn’t gotten a goodbye from her.

With a guttural roar, Sir Rynheim leaps off Razoni’s back, sword already thrusting towards the nearest wolf. Try as I might, I can never get my eyes to obey my command to close. He takes down two before the wolves abandon their previous target for the smaller one now offered. With one last slash of his sword, he decapitates a wolf so black that it looked to be made of darkness itself.

This is the part where I lose the ability to discern dream from reality.

Sir Rynheim falls to his knees, blood pouring from a wound on his unarmored inner thigh. The snow around him turns grey. The same grey as ash left behind by a fire. Fire. Fire like the ones that destroyed my home. My people. My family.

My chest begins to heave.

Having claimed one victim, the remaining four wolves turn back to Razoni, intent on finishing what they’d started. The beast of legend, likely the last one of his kind, stamps his foot, impatiently awaiting their next move.

They don’t make it a single step closer.

A heat more intense than any of the fire we’d fled from surges through my veins, causing me to feel as if I’m boiling from the inside out. Instead of a cry of pain, I unleash a primal roar rivaling that of any beast I’d ever come across in our hunting trips. Tendrils of green flames come bursting forth from the runes carved on my body. The same color as my mother’s favorite dress. The one she’d been wearing the last time I saw her.

When she’d sung me to sleep the night before.

At the reminder of what all had been taken from me, I will the flames forward, wrapping them around each animal so tightly that they have no chance to escape. Somehow, my fire knows to avoid Razoni, the flames dancing across his onyx fur harmlessly.

The wolves are not so lucky.

It isn’t until my agonized cries have quieted, the magical fire I’d miraculously summoned extinguished, that I dare look at carnage around us. No longer are the bodies littering the ground that of wolves. In their place are those of humanoids. Charred and burned beyond recognition. Had they been wearing clothing, it would have been burned to cinders as well.

The only body untouched by flames is that of my savior, Sir Rynheim.

As if able to sense my desire, Razoni lowers himself to the ground, making it easy for me to slip off his back. I have to step over several other bodies to get to him, my bare feet nearly turning their true color from the soot now covering them. I don’t feel the impact as I fall to my knees next to the warrior. With trembling hands, I reach out and close his eyes.

“Every life is sacred. Every bond unbreakable. Every slight against either returned. Every soul responsible snuffed out. Rest well, warrior. Amzarath is forever in your debt.”

As the last whispered word of the Warrior’s Oath passes from my lips, a sense of calm washes over me. My vision blurs for a brief moment, at first thought to be caused by my tears, but then it clears just as quickly.

*Don’t worry. One day we’ll get vengeance on whoever did this to our family,* a faint voice in my mind tells me. The voice becomes clearer, more distinct. *And I’ll be with ya. Every step of the way.*

*As will I,* another voice says.

This is the part when I’m finally allowed to wake up.

I bolt upright, years of practice the only thing keeping my flames contained. Inhaling a shaky breath, I glance around, making sure we’re where we should be and that no danger is nearby. My eyes fall on Mariane, also sitting upright, her own eyes filled with concern. And looking like she’s about to attempt to hug me.

Knowing that our glamour only changes when we will it to, and that it’s likely too dark for her to see our current eye color, I hold my hands out in the air between us and mutter, “Just so you’re aware, I’m not Vannaria.”

“I know.” The assuredness in her voice gives me pause. After a moment of silence, she holds up her own hand, our shadowsight allowing me to see the way the flesh has reddened. As if it had been burned.