A Warrior’s Fate (Wolves of Morai #1)

Chapter 18

CHAPTER 18

W hatever had been on that blade had to be some kind of liquid fire. It seared through every bend and curve of Isla’s body. Had her cursing anything and everything in the universe.

At how she was jostled with every step Adrien dragged her down through the stairwell. At the glow of the lights they passed on their descent. At how loud it all seemed around her—his footsteps, her heartbeat, his breathing, the echoes, the opening door. Whatever was on that knife was working through her, poisoning her mind, driving her mad.

But she’d take it because the pain, the odd sensations, distracted her from what lay above.

What she’d done.

The hallway Adrien had brought them to was just as dark as the one they’d left. Either the third or fourth floor, she assumed. Not her room.

He pushed open one of the doors and brought them inside, clicking on the light on the wall. Isla cringed at the sudden brightness and groaned as he placed her on the cold surface of an examination table. She dropped all she’d taken on the metallic tray at its side, the items clanging as they met it. The ring of the blade hit her hardest, making her wince.

“How bad is it?” Adrien asked, ignoring the lot, sounding more panicked than she’d thought he’d be. He’d seen her much, much worse very recently.

“I’m fine,” she tried to abate him, though she wasn’t entirely confident in the statement. She inched up the table on her own accord. “It just hurts.”

“Because you were stabbed, Isla,” Adrien said. “He attacked you. I should’ve never let you—”

She let out a strained sigh. “He just nicked me.”

“How did he even get to you? I thought he was restrained.”

“I thought so, too, but they were—cut.” Her eyes went to the dagger, and right at that moment, the door flew open. Her heart leaped into her throat, expecting guards or her father.

But it was only Sebastian, who was somehow able to find them.

His eyes widened when they fell upon his sister, shirt bottom torn with blood smeared over her stomach and hands. “What the hell? What happened?” The door slammed behind him.

Isla made a movement and sound for him to quiet down while Adrien answered, “He stabbed her.”

A look of murder took to her brother’s face.

“He didn’t stab me.” Isla fought to sit upright and failed. “It’s a graze. There’s just something on that blade.” At her words, Sebastian brought his eyes down to the glinting metal. Isla painfully threw a hand up as he reached for it. “Be careful!”

Her brother took hold of the weapon and held it up to his face. Malice still shone in his eyes, and the same lividity flashed in Adrien’s at the sight of it. Now Isla could really see what it was. Beneath its coating of blood, the hilt was entirely ivory, from the guard to the pommel. The grip was made up of studs and corded patterns, but they were so steeped in crimson she couldn’t make much of them from afar.

As Sebastian examined it, he turned it in his hands, catching every angle and balancing it to test its weight. “How the fuck did he get this?” He brought it back to the table, and his eyes flitted over the book and the marker carelessly. He didn’t bother reaching for them. “And why the fuck did you take it?”

Isla wished she could’ve grabbed all the items and hid them away, wished she had some method of washing their existence from the boys’ memories. At least, until she knew exactly what she was looking at. Until she could gather her bearings and have a handle on the situation.

The writing in the book was the same kind as on the marker—that was simply her theory until she could confirm it. And if that happened…well, she didn’t know what she’d do.

Of the several known dialects in their ancient history—native to each original pack before the Common was developed with the rise of Io to centralize the continent, then the realm, to aid in the relations of the world—none used an alphabet like this. That creation was over a millennium ago. But the Ares Pass wasn’t so old that it predated those primeval records…was it?

“I wasn’t going to leave it there with him,” she said before her mouth snapped shut.

With him —Lukas—who she’d left unconscious and bleeding out on the floor.

Whose body she’d clawed into.

Whose blood was on her hands.

Chest heaving, Isla looked down at the stained palm not holding her side. A crimson concoction of them both. “Oh, Goddess,” she breathed before looking up at the boys. “Did I kill him?”

Sebastian’s eyebrows shot up, not having been clued in on the entire story yet. He looked to Adrien, who wouldn’t look back, but the shift in their friend’s facial expression was enough to tell her brother not to interrogate her.

Neither had asked her to rehash the entire situation yet, she realized. Adrien had seen what he’d seen and dragged her out. Sebastian just accepted what he saw, ready to do whatever had to be done with as little information as he’d been given.

“He’s probably fine,” Adrien said.

“He survived over a week in the Hunt and the bak,” Sebastian offered blindly. “ You , of all people, aren’t going to be the one to do him in.”

Now Adrien turned his way, flashing a look that said, are you kidding?

Isla would’ve matched it if she wasn’t so horrified by it all. If she couldn’t feel the weight of him on her chest, the tip of a blade on her side. She shook her head to rid herself of it. To compartmentalize as she’d been taught in training .

She had to be focused and calm. Maybe not for the rest of the day, but a few hours, at least.

With determination written across her face, Isla finally got herself into a sitting position.

Adrien moved a step closer. “Let me see it.”

Reluctantly, Isla removed her hand, cocking her head away to focus on her friend and not whatever lay beneath. She hissed at the removal of pressure and watched as his eyebrows shot up. Horror flooded her. “What is it?”

Adrien blinked, and Sebastian joined him in observation. She winced as Adrien’s fingers brushed over her skin while her brother said, astonished, “You’re healed.”

“What?” Isla snapped her attention to her side, gazing a few inches below her ribs where the pain was worst. Just as Sebastian had said, the area was smooth and free of any injuries. But she still felt it. Her body battling. Her—

“It still hurts,” she said, brushing her hand over the planes of the skin. “My wolf—it’s—something’s wrong.”

Sebastian was examining the knife again, his jaw tight. “Is it wolfsbane?”

Terror coursed through Isla again.

It would take copious amounts of the poisonous root to kill her, but it could severely hurt her wolf. In archaic practices, it was used to aid those who couldn’t control their shifting, but now, it was outlawed throughout the continent.

Adrien shook his head. “You could smell wolfsbane if it was on something like that. It would mess with her healing, too. There would be a scar.”

Sebastian looked away from the weapon. “Then what is it?”

“Maybe you re-aggravated something from the Hunt.”

That wasn’t the answer. Isla knew what that felt like. This was entirely different.

She recalled how Lukas had also recoiled at the blade’s touch, but she wouldn’t speak on it. She wanted them to drop the subject. For now. Just for now.

Sebastian went to sit in the chair meant for a physician, letting out a frustrated sigh. “Did he say anything worthwhile, at least? Before he attacked you. ”

Isla swallowed. The most meaningful words had come while he was attacking her.

“They said if I killed you, they’d let me out…”

Isla replayed everything that he’d said to her. Everything she’d said to him. Looped over her name said with grit and—disdain.

Had he actually remembered her…or had he just been told who she was? The girl with wheat-gold hair who’d spoken with him at the feast, who’d been with him behind the Wall, who would, without a doubt, try to visit him.

Her blood hummed with a mix of rage and fear.

Whoever had given Lukas these things knew her . Had told him to kill her .

But she found a twisted comfort—she had to, to maintain any even keelness—in the notion that whoever wanted her dead was too much of a coward to do it themselves.

They. Who were they ?

The only person who knew—who knew many things she’d been seeking—was Lukas.

It would be horribly idiotic of her to try getting back to him. Hands down, the worst, least thought-out idea she’d ever had—and she’d had many of those. But there was that clearness in his eyes before he’d gone limp. Something had been…different.

“Isla?”

Isla snapped her head up to find Adrien and Sebastian eyeing her expectantly.

“He just said a whole lot of nothing,” she explained. “He doesn’t remember a thing from before the hunter shifted and woods that emerged from the darkness. Not me, not the bak, not the m—” Isla cut herself off before mentioning the marker. “It’s all nothing.”

Isla had told the boys that the marker and the book were hers. Not exactly what they were , but simply describing them as her “things”, saying she’d dropped them when Lukas had jumped her.

They’d accepted the explanation, though with some suspicion, but weren’t as agreeable with her aversion to their plans of turning over the dagger. Their proposal had come with the realization that they may have been screwed anyway, with Isla’s scent flooding the room and her blood on the floor. At least something decent could come of their attempt at helping him, and they could figure out what had been on that blade.

But Isla wasn’t ready to hand it over. It felt important—all these things did—and she had to keep hold of them. So, she’d convinced them that she had been able to keep her scent masked and that her blood hadn’t gotten anywhere but on her own person, never mentioning that Lukas had known her name. And that was enough chance for them.

But she didn’t dispose of the weapon as she’d told them she would.

No, instead, she’d gone back to her room. She’d compartmentalized. Told herself that everything was fine—that Lukas was fine, even though she had no idea what was going on—and washed the blood from the dagger with a rag, careful not to touch the blade’s surface. Then, for the first time, she took the opportunity to truly examine it. She felt the ridges of the hilt along her palm—a near-perfect fit—and tested the weight in her hold. The metal seemed to sing, eliciting a hypnotizing hum as she moved it through the air.

When Isla had brought it closer to her face, her reflection in the silvery metal had been kissed by flecks of gold, dotting like faint stars on the blade but appearing as freckles on her nose and across her cheeks. She’d noticed something like crystal weaving beneath her fingertips that she’d overlooked before.

There were many more fine details she’d missed, every pass of her eyes revealing something new. It was a beautifully crafted piece of weaponry.

Even if it had been used to try to kill her.

Afterwards, she’d shoved it, wrapped in one of her shirts, along with the marker and the book, to the bottom of her travel bag, which had already been packed with her things from her hotel room by Adrien.

And then she was discharged, and life went on as normal.

Nurses made their rounds through the halls. The occasional visitors to see patients. No extra security or guard.

It was as if nothing had happened at all.

Isla wasn’t sure if she should’ve been unnerved or grateful for it .

She did know that it took everything in her not to turn back. Not to scale those stairs until she reached the fifth floor to behold the aftermath. To repent for—

No, Lukas was fine .

She repeated those words over and over until she reached Callisto’s Hall because it was noon and time for her to leave this pack and as many memories of it as she could behind.

Many of those from Io who’d come for the feast and to witness the descent of the hunters had already returned to the pack and their duties. The only few that Isla knew remained were she, Adrien, Sebastian, her father, and a few other members and officials. They were supposed to depart today, but as Isla boarded the scarcely populated transport vehicle parked in the hall’s long driveway, she realized her father was nowhere in sight.

“Where’s Dad?” she asked Sebastian, who’d made a home lounging in the back, spread across two seats, prepared to sleep for as much of the journey as possible.

“He still has things to take care of here,” he told her.

“What kind of things?” she asked, knowing the answer she’d receive.

“Things he won’t even tell me about.”

Isla ran her gaze over her brother’s face. A skilled liar through and through—but she could tell he was being honest. A selfish part of her liked that they were both clueless, but the rest had gone rigid as her mind ran wild. She glanced out of the windows towards the infirmary in the distance.

Maybe they were screwed.

“I’ll see you in prison.”

She whipped around to glare at her brother and his ill-timed quip just as he closed his eyes and leaned further back in his seat.

Adrien boarded about ten minutes later, taking the spot a row behind Isla. He hadn’t heard anything about Lukas either. But unlike her brother, she clocked something unspoken in his stare. She didn’t press on it, though. Not here with others.

Isla could tell how close they were getting to Io by the feel of the heat and the increasing humidity. Summertime in their homeland could be damn near insufferable sometimes, and even if they hadn’t crossed into their territory yet, the cabin of the car was starting to become uncomfortable. The only form of cooling within the confines was the air rushing through the open windows. Isla had taken off her shirt, leaving her in the camisole she’d been wearing underneath that cut just above her midriff. The boys had stripped off their tops, too, Sebastian dousing his fabric in water and putting it on his head.

Overdramatic , she’d thought at first, until she became dizzy from the heat. But she had too much sisterly pettiness to copy his approach.

At a stop they’d made at one of Callisto’s outer posts to fuel, and while most were either sleeping or hadn’t bothered to move, Isla had taken the opportunity to get out and stretch her legs, not drifting too far.

The moon had been half-full tonight. As she gazed upon it, a mix of light and darkness, she absentmindedly traced a finger over the creases of her opposite palm. Drawing out strings… fraying strings, the threads stretching and falling apart with every mile.

When Adrien had packed her bag, he’d also packed away her gown from the night of the feast—horribly, she’d noted, but that wasn’t what got to her.

The fabric still held the scent of that night. The lingering smell of the flowers from the garden and the faintest essence of warmth, woods, spice, and everything entirely Kai, who even then knew how to get close enough to test their limits.

She’d breathed it in deep—too deep—and blossomed that dull ache in her chest again. And now, being outside under the moon, as they’d found themselves frequently, it had gotten worse.

With a little desperation clouding her judgment, she closed her eyes and dug for that tether. One last time, she told herself, one last time. She sought that connection. That lapse. Some peace. A comfort.

But she couldn’t find anything at the other end. No one. Just emptiness.

Just alone.