Night had fully fallen in Lunareth.
After what had happened that evening in front of Aldric’s house, everyone went back to their preparations for the night.
No one was bothered by Ruth’s words, except for Elara herself.
She was sitting on the porch steps when Xera and Riven came out from behind the trees, walking casually as if there was nothing to worry about.
“Are you still thinking about what Ruth said?” Xera asked.
She sat down next to Elara without being asked.
“She called me ‘Your Majesty’.” Elara stared at her own hands.
Riven shrugged, leaning against a wooden pillar near them.
“Ruth’s been like that for a long time.
The magic she’s been learning since she was young is too much for her body to handle, and it’s slowly eating away at her sanity.
Don’t worry about it too much.”
“But she knows my name, too.” Elara wasn’t going to give up that easily.
“Isn’t that strange?”
Riven replied casually, as if the question were no heavier than the weather, “Who in Ordovia doesn’t know you?
Everyone knows, at least, that there’s a human named Elara in Ordovia who has perfect blood.”
Elara didn’t have a strong enough argument to press the issue further.
She sighed, letting her suspicions settle for the time being, especially as the sound of the crowd began to drift in from the clearing.
Xera and Riven got up and spoke with Kael and Aldric inside the house; they were busy arranging something that Elara couldn’t yet understand the purpose of.
The villagers slowly emerged from their homes, one by one, and walked toward the circular clearing.
For the first time since arriving in Rhaen, Elara saw the entire village gathered in one place.
She recognized a few faces from brief encounters earlier that day, but what caught her attention most was Kael’s older brother, Shillah, who was sitting next to a woman in the front row.
Elara recognized that face, the same one as her teacher in the tracking and hunting class at Ravencrest.
She held back her curiosity for a moment.
Behind the others, set apart from the group, Ruth sat alone with her cane.
Everyone faced the clearing, waiting in an eerie silence.
Dozens of torches were lit one by one along the edge of the circle, casting a flickering glow among the shadows of the purple trees in the distance.
Right in the center of the clearing, stood a stone that had barely caught Elara’s attention when she arrived here earlier that afternoon.
The stone was neither a statue nor an altar, just a menhir with a pointed tip, its surface rough and asymmetrical, with cracks that indicated it was far older than Elara herself.
She stared at it for a long time, trying to figure out what made an old stone the center of attention for the entire village.
“The ritual is about to begin, so we’ll head over there for a bit.
You stay here,” said Xera, already walking away before Elara could reply.
Riven followed, leaving Elara by herself on the porch of Aldric’s house.
Elara watched their backs recede into the distance, then looked out at the clearing, which was beginning to fill with people.
She knew she couldn’t go near them.
She wasn’t a Rhaen.
Kael walked to the center of the clearing, his stride calm even though Elara could see something rarely seen on his face, a sense of burden.
An elder approached him, and as soon as the two stood face to face, the entire clearing fell silent.
Only the old man’s voice could be heard, speaking in a language Elara couldn’t understand.
His head would occasionally tilt back to gaze at the dark sky above, then he’d reach out to touch the ground, as if asking permission from something far older than all of them.
The elder was still speaking when Aldric stood up and picked up the stone vessel placed near Kael.
He began walking toward the villagers sitting facing the clearing, one by one.
Elara watched as each of them slit the palm of their right hand with the knife Aldric had given them, then let their blood fall into the stone vessel without the slightest hesitation.
Elara was shocked to see how the ritual unfolded, and how everyone, including the children, could so easily cut their own hands as if blood were something they’d been used to seeing since birth. Enjoying the story? Read on at g.com.
One thing that left her speechless was when she saw a boy, perhaps too young to understand what he’d just done to his own hand.
The child stared at his bleeding palm, and in just a few seconds, the wound closed without leaving the slightest trace.
The boy wiggled his hand cheerfully, as if nothing had happened.
Elara nodded several times, her eyes wide with wonder.
Werewolf regeneration was truly amazing.
If only she had that ability in her own body.
Aldric, having finished collecting all the blood, returned to the center of the clearing and handed the stone vessel to the old man.
The elder dipped his hand into the vessel, then began smearing the blood onto Kael’s hands, legs, chest, and back, his movements slow and solemn, like a ritual that had been repeated hundreds of times before.
Xera returned, walking toward Elara with a calm expression, while Elara’s gaze stayed fixed on the blood of the Rhaen clan that now covered nearly all of Kael’s body.
The elder applied more blood from the top of his head to the back of his neck, and finally, drew a circular line on his forehead.
No one spoke during the process.
Everyone watched in silence, as if holding their breath together.
“What’s that blood for?” Elara whispered to Xera.
“It’s a symbol of the entire Rhaen clan’s blessing for the prospective Alpha,” Xera replied softly, her eyes never leaving the center of the clearing.
“An Alpha stands with the entire clan.
There are no distinctions, because the Alpha is one of us.”
Elara didn’t answer.
She and Xera turned their attention back to the ritual.
The old man handed a knife to Kael, and without hesitation, Kael slit his own palm, letting his blood mix with that of all the clan members in the vessel.
The elder moved toward the stone in the center of the clearing, walking up a few stone steps to reach the top of the pillar.
He paused there for a moment, gazing up at the sky once more.
The full moon hung directly overhead, large and bright, as if it were there to bear witness.
After a long silence, the old man lifted the vessel and poured all the blood onto the top of the stone pillar.
Nothing happened.
Elara held her breath, waiting for something more dramatic, as she had always imagined about magic.
But the clearing remained silent.
Only the soft crackling of the torches and the night breeze that blew through her hair from time to time.
“Kael looks nervous,” she murmured, almost inaudibly, more to herself than to anyone else.
In the middle of the clearing, Kael lifted his face, as if the sound had reached him despite the considerable distance.
Elara almost forgot that a werewolf’s senses were never quite like a human’s.
This time, Kael didn’t shoot her his usual scornful glare.
He merely looked at her briefly, then turned his face toward the elder who was coming closer.
Then the vibration came, without warning.
A low growl rumbled from beneath the ground.
The wind, which had been calm, suddenly swept across the clearing, causing the torch flames to sway wildly, nearly going out before flaring up brighter than before.
Xera rose from her seat and took a few steps forward, though she did not step inside the ritual circle.
Her face was filled with panic, and for the first time since Elara had known her, Xera looked completely at a loss.
“What’s going on?” Elara asked too, her voice barely a whisper, drowned out by the roar of the wind.
The vibration stopped at the same moment she spoke.
For a moment, Elara felt as if the world had answered her on purpose, but she didn’t have time to think about it further. New chapters come out on g.com first.
Everyone, including Xera, immediately bowed their heads as soon as the torch flames settled.
“Nature has given its blessing,” Xera said softly, her hand reaching out to touch the leaves of the plants in front of Aldric’s house, as if that gesture could soothe something that had just been shaken.
Elara’s gaze returned to Kael.
The man was looking down, both hands slightly raised in front of his body, as if examining his own hands.
There was a pause that felt like an eternity before he lifted his head, and when his gaze met Elara’s, there was a look of unease there.
Something Elara wasn’t used to seeing in Kael.
Just as Elara was about to ask another question, the stone surface suddenly cracked.
The sound was loud, echoing across the clearing, causing everyone to look up in panic.
“Impossible!” Xera exclaimed, loud enough that she had to cover her own mouth.
Kael’s massive body staggered.
For a split second, Elara thought she’d seen wrong, but his body really did collapse to the ground.
“Kael!” Elara shouted, her feet already moving forward before her thoughts could catch up.
From a distance, she could see Kael’s open hand, and the wound on his palm hadn’t healed like everyone else’s there.
Xera had already run ahead, back to the center of the ritual circle.
Elara ran after her, but her steps came to an abrupt halt at the edge of the clearing when she realized that she wasn’t one of them.
She could only stand there, watching as several men, including Aldric, rushed to revive Kael, who was still unconscious.
Elara grew increasingly worried.
It wasn’t like Kael to look this weak, and the wound on his hand that wouldn’t heal felt off.
But she couldn’t ask right away, not in the middle of a ritual that wasn’t even fully over yet.
Amid the panic, there was another movement that escaped everyone’s notice.
Ruth slowly rose from her seat, leaning on her cane, then began walking toward Kael in the center of the clearing, one step at a time, each step feeling longer than it should have.
Ruth stopped right in the center, looked up at the moon, then lowered her gaze to the ground beneath her feet.
Her body began to tremble until her cane slipped from her grasp and fell silently to the ground.
With her hunched back, Ruth turned to face the entire Rhaen clan gathered around the clearing.
For a moment, no one spoke, as if everyone were holding their breath, waiting for what would come out of her mouth.
Then she cried out, her voice trembling but piercing the silence of the night.
“Something is wrong among what is right.” She raised both hands toward the full moon, which was beginning to be partially obscured by dark clouds.
Beside Ruth, Kael began to revive, helped by Aldric and the elder.
Elara couldn’t hear what Kael was saying to Aldric, but both looked panicked as they watched the fresh blood still flowing from Kael’s palm, dripping onto the ground drop by drop.
Ruth walked toward Kael, her voice loud as if she were possessed.
“The land never forgets what it has known from its beginning!”
Kael took a few steps back, his eyes fixed on Ruth, as if those words were directed specifically at him.
The old man immediately forced Ruth off the clearing.
Ruth struggled in his arms, still shouting like a madwoman.
“Let those who sleep keep dreaming.
Don’t wake them!” Ruth threatened, pointing randomly around her, until her voice faded away as she was carried out of the circle.
Elara watched it all from behind, her body still standing stiffly in the same spot as before.
The people around her shook their heads, sighing tiredly at Ruth’s “possession,” as if this weren’t the first time they’d seen something like this.
But in that moment, Kael’s gaze met Elara’s, from across the clearing still shrouded in torchlight.
They stared at each other in silence; Kael’s expression was unreadable.
Then, slowly, he gave her a slight smile.
Elara couldn’t understand what that smile meant.