The Wolf's Queen Vows

Chapter 189: Stories To Surrender

Marek sat on the wooden platform covered in furs that had become his bed over the last seven nights, his back against the cold wooden walls, knees drawn up enough that he could rest his forearms on them. He looked better. The hollows beneath his cheekbones had softened, and when he moved to help with the horses earlier, brushing down the grey mare that kept trying to eat his sleeve, his hands had barely trembled at all. He had even cleared the snow from the front yard without stopping to catch his breath every few minutes, though he still didn’t understand why it was falling at all.

Marek had asked why it was snowing at this time of year, but Odhran had only smiled and told him that the Mourning Peak kept its own calendar, its own seasons, and its own rules. He had stopped asking questions about Mourning Peaks after the fourth day.

But every morning since he arrived, he had asked her the same question. What price? What would he pay to find Drakwyne? And every morning, Odhran gave the same answer: she was still thinking about it and still weighing. And since he had proven useful—mucking stalls, hauling water and chopping the wood she seemed to conjure from nowhere; she saw no rush.

So Marek had decided to let her take her time. He had nodded each time, biting down on the impatience that coiled in his chest, because what else could he do? She was a witch. Witches moved at the speed of soil and seasons, not the frantic pulse of a man who had spent several months trying to find a woman.

But the nights were harder to swallow. Strange dreams came for him again as they always did, sliding in sometime after the cabin grew still. A man. Tall, broad-shouldered, with a smile that never quite reached his eyes. He never spoke. He just stood there at the edge of some dark wood, beckoning to him with one hand. And Marek woke each time with the name Drakwyne lodged in his throat like a stone.

And sometimes, from somewhere in the cabin, always in the hour before dawn, he heard them. Odhran and Elian. Chanting in a language that scraped against the edges of his mind. He couldn’t tell their meaning.

He had told himself it was nothing.

A witch must chant. Odhran and Elian spoke in an old tongue that had long been forgotten. So he had shrugged it off, rolled onto his other side every time, and told himself that relief was close. Rowena was close.

Elian rose from her chair by the window. She grabbed her bow from the hook by the door, a quiver of arrows fletched in crow-black feathers, and a worn leather hunting bag. Then she crossed to Odhran, bent low, and kissed her mother on the cheek.

But Marek caught the way Odhran’s fingers brushed her daughter’s wrist before letting go.

The door opened. Snowflakes tumbled in, and then Elian stepped out, boots crunching, and the door swung shut behind her.

Marek was already standing before he fully decided to. "Where is she going?" He walked to the door.

Odhran didn’t look up from the bundle of dried herbs she was untangling. "Hunting."

"Hunting? In that? She’ll freeze. Or get lost. Or—" He stopped himself.

"She won’t freeze or get lost." Odhran sounded so sure.

Marek was unconvinced. He swallowed hard. "I should go with her. It’s not safe out there alone."

Now Odhran looked at him. "Elian can handle herself," she said. "She grew up in these peaks. The snow knows her. The dark knows her. Sit down, Marek."

He wanted to argue. His body even leaned toward the door, boots scuffing against the floorboards. But something in her voice, not a command, exactly, but a calm so absolute it left no room for negotiation, pulled him back. He went back to sit on the bed.

Odhran dropped the herbs and stood up. She dragged the brazier to the center of the room, close to where his bed was, and the iron legs scraped a low growl across the floor. With a snap of her fingers, the coals inside caught flame. Then she settled onto a stool across from him.

"Would you like to hear the rest of it?" she asked.

"What’s that?"

"The story I was telling you." She answered.

He arched his brows. "Which one? You’ve told me about a dozen in the last few days. The baker’s wife mated to a sorcerer. The knight who forgot his own name. The—"

"The steward," she interrupted gently. "And the lord’s daughter."

Marek went quiet. He remembered that one. A steward who loved above his station. A lord’s daughter who loved him back. A pregnancy. A flight into the wilds. And death.

"You said the girl survived," Marek said slowly. "The one with the child. But you never said how."

Odhran was quiet for a long moment. She reached back for the knife on the table and turned it over in her hands.

"I left something out," she said finally. "An important detail."

"What?" He asked.

"The youngest daughter was a witch," Odhran answered.

"Oh." Marek mouthed. ƒrēewebnoѵёl.cσm

"She inherited magic from her mother," Odhran continued, still turning the knife. "Who died a few days after she was born." freewebnσvel.cøm

Marek frowned. "Then why didn’t she use it? When the lord’s men found them, when the steward was dying...why didn’t she burn them all where they stood?"

Odhran stood up and set the knife inside the Brazier. "The girl didn’t know at first that she had magic. Her father didn’t tell her because he hated magic," she replied. "He hated it because it couldn’t save his wife. Magic couldn’t pull her back from whatever door she had walked through. He tried every healer, every charm, every desperate ritual the servants whispered about in the kitchens. Nothing worked. And so he decided that magic was not a gift but a lie. A false promise." She paused.

Odhran continued. "And he passed that hatred onto the child who had survived when her mother hadn’t." Her voice did not waver. It did not soften. "Even after she found out the truth, he forbade it. He never allowed her to practice. Never allowed her to even speak of it. He told her she was clean of it, that the sickness had died with her mother. And she believed him. For many years, she believed him."

Marek’s throat tightened slightly. He didn’t know why. The brazier glowed unusually. The fire was too warm. And the pressure in the room also shifted into something he couldn’t name.