Chapter 3: Towards the Citadel
The glade echoed with Aethel's tortured breathing. The black viper venom was not just poison, it was a curse that "eats" light. The skin around her right eye had swollen, turning a sooty black that throbbed unsightly.
"Draco!" she cried, her voice breaking with spasms. Take the silver daggers. Run to the river! Wash them in running water, so that no trace of the assassin's blood remains on them. The silver must be pure!"
The boy grabbed the blades and disappeared into the night. His speed was inhuman; his feet struck the ground with the force of hammers, and the distance to the river, which would have taken an ordinary man fifteen minutes, was covered in a few heartbeats. In the water, the silver glittered under the moon, washing away the foreign death.Meanwhile, in the cave, Davos worked with silent efficiency.
"Davos… make the fire," Aethel ordered, collapsing onto his back. Seek out the dakini and the propodilla in the shadows of the oaks. Hurry! I can feel the snake climbing toward my brain…"
When Draco turned, panting, his daggers gleaming with cleanliness, he found a scene straight out of a nightmare. Davos was tending a live fire, and Aethel lay there, her face contorted.
"Draco, listen to me," she said, looking at him with the one eye that was still clear. Bendis's magic keeps me alive, but it cannot heal what is already rotten. The venom has taken hold of the eye. If we don't get it out now… I will be dead by dawn."
The boy turned pale.
"I… I can't." Aethel, I am a monster, I will crush you!
"Shut up!" she cried, gripping his hand with her thin, now cold fingers. Put the blade in the fire. Heat it until it is white as the moon. Then… you will have to cut. Remove everything that is touched by the blackness. Davos will hold me, but you… you have the sure hand and the strength to finish quickly."
Draco felt himself becoming sick. He, who had torn Romans apart without mercy, was now trembling before a wounded woman. He thrust the silver blade into Davos's hot embers. The metal began to sing, turning from red to blinding white.
"Now!" Aethel whispered, biting into a piece of leather that Davos had placed between his teeth.
Draco raised the dagger. The savage force concentrated in the tips of his fingers, turning his trembling into a rock-like stillness. With a precision that its owner had never known, he brought down the hot blade.
The hiss of burning flesh and the heavy smell of venom filled the cave. Aethel arched in pain, but Davos held her with the weight of his massive body. Draco didn't blink. With a short, surgical movement, he removed the dead tissue and the missing eye, letting the hot silver cauterize the wound instantly.
When it was all over, Draco fell to his knees, dropping the dagger onto the stone. He was covered in sweat and ash. Aethel had fainted from the pain, but her breathing had finally become regular.
The wound was no longer black. It was a clean, burned cut that stretched across the eye socket. Davos chewed the herbs and then tore off a piece of Aethela's cloak and covered the wound, then cut a piece of leather from his own belt and wrapped it over Aethela's head.
"You saved her, boy," Davos said, wiping his forehead with a trembling hand. But I don't think you'll ever forget her look.
Draco looked at the silver dagger. A gray shadow had been etched on its blade. That night, the boy understood that his magic was not made just to destroy armies, but to carry the heaviest of burdens: that of doing the harm necessary for life to go on.
"I will let no one suffer because of me," Draco whispered into the darkness of the cave.
Dawn was breaking pale across the clearing of the massacre, but the three of them were no longer there. They had sunk into the belly of the mountain, on paths known only to black goats and earth spirits. Aethel walked ahead now, a makeshift bandage of white linen covering half her face, but her back was straight as a spear.
"We must reach the Silver City before the sun sets three times," she said, without turning. There, the walls are hallowed by Deceneus the Elder, and no Roman shadow can penetrate.
Draco walked behind her, silent. Davos, still panting under the weight of his tools, was finishing the line.
"Aethel…" Draco asked, his voice low, harsh now. "Are there others? Others who… feel the wolf scratching inside?"
The priestess paused by a thick moss-covered rock. She turned to him, her single eye, her left, gleaming with bitter wisdom.
"There have been others, Draco. Our history is full of heroes whose songs do not tell the whole story. Every hundred years, the Wolf's Blood awakens in a child. But… none of them remained human to the end."
She gestured toward the distant ridges.
"The last was Berkan. He had the strength of ten men and could break down the gates of a fortress with his shoulders." He saved three villages from the Sarmatians, but one night the beast took possession of him. He could not change back. He became a huge wolf, with human eyes, who began to hunt his own pack. He had to be killed by his own brothers.
Draco felt a cold shiver run down his spine.
"And he left nothing behind? No way out?"
"Yes," said Aethel, taking a small, weathered lead tablet from his bosom. Each of them left a lesson, written in blood before losing their minds. These are the "Laws of the Beast":
The Law of the Mirror: "Never look into the eyes of the beast when you are alone. If you recognize yourself in it, you are lost."
The Law of Sacrifice: "The power you wield is not yours, it is borrowed from the earth. If you do not give something back—a drop of blood, a prayer, an act of mercy—the earth will take your soul as payment."
The Law of Silence: "When you feel anger flooding your mouth, be silent. The first word spoken by a beast is the last word spoken by a man."
Davos came closer, resting his heavy hand on Draco's shoulder.
"Boy, iron that is too hot becomes brittle. It breaks at the first blow. So is this power. Those before you thought they were gods and melted in their own fire."
"I do not want to be a god," Draco whispered, looking at the scar on the priestess's face. I only want to be the one to stop the Romans.
"Then you will have to learn to be more than a fighter," Aethel said, setting off again. You will have to be a Keeper. The fortress we are heading to hides the tombs of those who have failed. There, under my watch, you will swear on the altar of Bendis that if you feel your mind drifting to the forest, you will ask to be killed before you become a monster.
Draco nodded, but in his mind, the beast's voice whispered something else: "It fears you. Everyone fears you. Why listen to the weak when you can crush mountains?"
The boy clenched his fists until the skin on his wrists turned white. The fight had only just begun, and the most dangerous enemy did not wear Roman armor, but lived right under his ribs.