Page 79 of The Wolf and Her Shadows

At first nothing else happens, then one of her hands leaves my back and she calls out, “Hey, Stephan. Wanna go for a ride?”

“Fuck yes, I do!” A moment later, Stephan’s familiar muscular arm wraps around my shoulder.

Vannaria chuckles, clutching me tighter as she says, “Not sure if this is gonna work, but no harm in attempting it. I hope.”

With that, my boots lift off the ground, and, for a moment, the world falls away. Nothing exists beyond the strangeness of being consumed by shadow. Of being shadow.

And then it’s over, a lingering feeling of vertigo the only proof that the experience happened at all. Well… I open my eyes, squinting through the remaining shadows swirling around us. Once they recede fully, I see that Vannaria was indeed able to shadow all three of us right outside Old Greyva’s home.

And that same old woman is currently standing in her doorway, attempting to hide her smile behind a forced scowl. “Took you three long enough. I was about to start without you.”

“My apologies,” Vannaria says, releasing her tight hold on me and Stephan. “I’d gone to check on our horses and had made the foolish mistake of not telling anyone where I was going.”

Waving away her apology, Greyva turns and disappears inside the house. Excitement bubbles up in my chest as I follow, grabbing Vannaria’s hand to tug her along with me. Stephan brings up the rear, shutting the door behind him.

The majority of the living room is now filled with children, all sitting cross-legged on the floor with their own excitement clearly written on their smiling faces. Many of which I recognize from when we’d first entered the village, yet a few of them seem vaguely familiar. At least the ones old enough to have been toddlers when I’d…last seen them.

Glancing over at Vannaria, I can’t help but to laugh. Her expression is an adorable mixture of anxiousness, anticipation, and excitement all rolled into one. I give her a quick kiss on the cheek before carefully leading her through the sea of children and over to the sofa.

Stephan attempts to follow us, but he only makes it two steps before realizing he’d likely step on someone and plops onto the floor at the back of the group instead.

Old Greyva holds both hands up in the air, and the children’s whispering instantly ceases, all of them giving the woman their full attention. She and I make brief eye contact, and she gives me a small nod before moving her gaze to Vannaria.

“Alright everyone. Today, I’m going to tell you a story about a fearless hero. Not just any hero, though. For this particular hero was a Fragmented Soul, many individuals sharing a mind and body alike. And this is the tale of how they saved our forest, and the entire realm, from certain destruction.”

Vannaria tightens her grip on my hand, and I watch as her eyes slowly change from violet to a sort of warm brown. As if all three of their eye colors are blending together. Apparently Old Greyva notices as well, because there's a knowing grin on her face when I glance back toward her.

She takes a quick sip from the cup of tea on the table next to her before continuing, “Long ago, when this village was nothing more than a few make-shift huts amidst the trees, a child was born. Not here in the forest, but in a cave at the top of the tallest mountain that makes up what we now call Wylmer Peaks.”

A small half-elven girl near the front of the group raises her hand. “What did they used to be called? And why are they called Wylmer Peaks now instead?”

Lowering her gaze to the girl, Greyva hums. “Well, they’re called Wylmer Peaks now because King Wylmer, King Warvin’s great-grandfather, was a narcissistic bastard and wanted to name something after himself. But, they were originally known as The Hellspires.”

“Why were they–”

The girl’s next question is cut off with a stern look. “History lessons are the day after tomorrow, Sirena. Now, where was I?” Our storyteller clears her throat before taking another sip of tea. “Ah, yes. The child, born on the coldest night of the year, at the top of a mountain, nearly froze to death. But the gods had other plans for him. The baby’s mother had nothing but the clothes on her back, having fled from a horrible situation in hopes of keeping her child safe from the cruelties she’d endured.”

She pauses, glancing over all the children as she gives them time to process her words. “That is, until a strange man with horns growing from the top of his head and a long tail stumbled upon her small cave. He was one of the first devilkin, and he’d offered to assist the child’s mother. For a price.”

I close my eyes, already knowing how this particular part of the story goes, and dreading hearing it again.

“You see, this man wasn’t like the devilkin that live among us today. No.” Greyva sighs, lowering her voice. “He was a selfish trickster. But, he’d agreed to get both child and mother down the mountain and escort them to the nearest town. Where he assured her the child would be safe.”

The elf beside me sucks in a breath and the cushion beneath me shifts, their hold on my hand tight enough I fear it may soon cut off my circulation. Hoping to offer them a bit of comfort, I lean over and rest my head on their shoulder.

The clattering of porcelain fills the silence as the old woman no doubt takes another sip of her tea, and then, “When they make it to the bottom of the mountain, there’s a group of slavers waiting for them. They lock both mother and child in a cage and set off for the nearest town, as the man had promised. Also as he’d promised, none of the men touched the child. The same couldn’t be said for his mother, however.”

“What did they do to his mommy?” a boy asks, likely no more than five years old.

“Nothing suitable for children’s ears,” Old Greyva answers, her tone making it clear that whatever it was had been unpleasant.

I, of course, know what the men had done to her. And, unfortunately, I also know just how painful it had been for her to endure. Night after night…

She continues on with the story.

“When they made it to the town, they sold the woman, and her child, to a rich man who’d wanted a family, but was too impatient to go about finding love first. And so he married the woman, intending to raise the child as his own. The trouble is, the man had no idea what raising a child was truly like. And he had a bit of a temper.”

Exhaling a shaky breath, I carefully open my eyes. At least this part isn’t quite as intolerable.