Chapter 9: Chapter 8: Deimos and the Werewolf of Dol Marne

If the dragon intends to harm the Prince—or anyone else on this layer—then it falls to me to stop it and preserve as much life as I can, Deimos thought.

That is my divine duty.

“Though, if I may,” Deimos began, “why exactly does the dragon want the Prince specifi—”

He didn’t finish. The Queen had slumped unconscious, her head resting against his shoulder.

“A-ah… her energy must be spent,” Deimos muttered, unsure of what to do.

A light tug on his sleeve startled him. He looked down to see a short woman with soft brown hair tied in a loose braid, her black eyes depthless and unreadable. In her slender hands were the severed chains that had once bound him, the metal still glinting faintly in the dim light. One of her fingers was shaped like a key, its ridges catching the glow of the sconces lining the walls.

“Who… are you?” he asked.

“Queen Selene instructed me to escort you to your room. Cleaning has just finished.”

Deimos blinked. “R-room?” Who said anything about me staying?

“And how could she tell you that if she was asleep—” He turned to gesture toward the throne where the Queen had been, but the space was empty, the velvet cushions undisturbed.

“Huh? Where did she go?”

“I have taken the Queen to her quarters,” the girl said, her fingers now wrapped around his wrist with surprising strength.

“Shall we proceed?” Without waiting for an answer, the world blurred around them, reforming into a long, shadowed corridor within the castle’s depths.

The hallway was dim, the air thick with the scent of aged wood and faint incense. Black, brown, and deep red tones wove through the carpet beneath their feet, the patterns twisting like serpents under flickering torchlight. The walls, paneled in dark oak, bore tapestries of forgotten battles, their threads fraying at the edges.

Well...I guess I could use somewhere to gather my thoughts, Deimos mused.

Their footsteps were the only sound as they walked, the silence pressing in like a held breath.

They stopped before a heavy wooden door, its surface carved with intricate, looping designs. The maid stepped forward and pushed it open with a quiet creak.

Inside, the room was a flurry of motion. Maids in crisp uniforms scrubbed at already-gleaming tiles, their hands moving in practiced rhythms. Others spritzed perfumes into the air, the cloying scents of roses and citrus clashing violently. A few trimmed the leaves of potted plants, while another smoothed the silken bedsheets with almost reverent care.

As Deimos stepped inside, every maid froze mid-motion, their heads swiveling toward him in eerie unison.

“I… thought you were all finished cleaning,” The short maid said, her voice flat.

“We were. Or we thought we were,” one maid replied, her lips quirking into a smirk as she winked at Deimos. “But I felt like I missed a spot, sorry Kiwi. We just wanted everything perfect for the Tarot of the Sun.”

Deimos stared, baffled, as the other maids erupted into a chorus of agreement, their voices layering into chaos.

“How unprofessional. Begone,” The short maid—Kiwi snapped.

Her fingers clicked together sharply. In an instant, the maids vanished—only to reappear outside, visible through the room’s arched window, now standing dazed in a sunlit field.

“Erm…” Deimos murmured.

Kiwi bowed deeply. “I sincerely apologize for the disturbance, Tarot of the Sun.”

“N-no, it’s fine. Really.”

“Would you care for some breakfast?”

“No thanks, I don’t… eat.”

She nodded once. “I see. Well, please be sure to let me know if you need anything.” Then, just as silently as she had arrived, she faded into the air.

Deimos exhaled, standing alone in the vast, empty chamber. “Well… what do I do now?”

His words had barely settled when a sharp knock rattled the door.

It creaked open, revealing Amelia, her arms straining under the weight of a large black box.

“How was the trial? I’m guessing you agreed to become a royal guard?” she said with a knowing smile.

Deimos blinked. “Wait, you knew that’s what Selene wanted this whole time?”

“Of course. Why would our Queen want to kill the only other Tarot this layer has probably seen in forever?” She strode to the bed, dropping onto the mattress with the box balanced on her lap.

“...Did Birgitta tell you about—”

“Yeah, I’m aware. I’ve already notified the Princess. She’s going to get some expert Soul Weavers from a neighboring kingdom to come and see if they can fix whatever’s wrong with your Core… but it might take damn near a month for them to arrive.”

Deimos sighed, his gaze flicking to the box. “What’s in there?”

Amelia flipped the lid open. “Just something I picked for you. I was planning on giving it to you at the festival, but I was in a rush.”

Inside lay a set of armor—a black steel pauldron that shimmered silver-gray under the light before darkening again, and a pair of gauntlets that shifted the same way.

The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

“It’s not much, but it’s all we had in your size,” she said as Deimos lifted the pieces, testing their weight.

“Thank you, Amelia.”

She grinned. “No problem. You’re gonna need whatever you can get if you’re gonna be watching after Prince Remus.”

“Watching after? What does that—”

A thunderous boom shook the room, rattling the lanterns on the walls.

“Master Remus!” a voice shrieked from outside.

Deimos jolted, but Amelia only sighed.

“Case and point,” she muttered, seizing his wrist. Smoke engulfed them, and the world twisted again.

They reappeared in the middle of a field, the grass trampled and torn. A crowd of servants scrambled in a panicked circle, their shouts overlapping.

“This is like the eighth time I’ve been teleported, and it hasn’t even been a day…” Deimos grumbled, still clutching the armor.

Amelia didn’t answer—she was already sprinting toward the commotion.

I’ve got a dragon to kill. I’m not here to babysit—

Then he heard it.

A low, guttural growl, more animal than human.

Prince Remus writhed in the dirt, his body wracked with tremors. Smoke curled from his skin as his fingers elongated into claws, his teeth sharpening into fangs. His robes were ripped, his once-neat hair now wild, strands thickening like coarse fur.

And his eyes—

Red. Feral. Locked onto Deimos with terrifying focus.

“T-The treatments aren’t working!” a servant wailed.

Deimos hastily strapped on the pauldron and gauntlets.

“Damnit, this shouldn’t be happening so early—” Amelia grunted, grappling with the prince.

“Amelia, what’s happening?” Deimos called, stepping closer.

Before she could answer, Remus roared, hurling the servants aside like ragdolls. Amelia clung to him, but he drove a fist into her stomach, sending her crashing into a tree with a sickening crack.

Then he turned.

His aura seethed with shadows, his form half-lost in the writhing darkness.

“Helios, to me!” Deimos barked.

White fire erupted in his grip, solidifying into his lance just as Remus lunged.

Fangs scraped against steel. Deimos twisted, flinging the prince into the air before slamming him back down with a kick.

Amelia staggered to her feet beside him, putting three syringes of orange liquid into his palm.

“Don’t hurt him. He’s not in his right mind,” she panted. “Inject these, one at a time. The serum needs to work gradually.”

Deimos stared at the vials. “Amelia, what’s wrong with him?”

Remus was already rising, his claws gouging the earth.

“The Prince was cursed,” Amelia said, wiping her lip. “Every full moon, he turns into a beast. The serums slow it down—but they won’t hold forever.”

She cracked her knuckles. “I’ll pin him. When I do, you stab him with a syringe. Got it?”

Deimos swallowed hard.

Then nodded.

Deimos surged ahead, Helios thrumming in his grip. His blade sliced through the air, white fire trailing in a brilliant arc. Remus lunged to meet him, claws swiping—but struck only an afterimage. Above, Deimos spun mid-air, his lance carving a crescent of flame that seared across Remus' flank, staggering him.

Amelia moved with the opening—diving through the fire, ignoring the heat. She wrapped her arms around Remus in a blur, lifting him clean off the ground before slamming him into the dirt with bone-rattling force.

“Now!” she barked, holding him down.

Deimos blinked beside her, syringe in hand. He drove it into Remus’s back. The prince howled as the serum coursed into his veins, his body convulsing.

A sudden shockwave burst from out of him, hurling them both. Amelia twisted mid-air, catching Deimos before landing in a roll. Remus was already on his feet, a blur of motion.

“He’s faster—” Deimos said, intercepting a claw aimed at Amelia with his lance, the force jarring through his arm.

He released Helios. The weapon dissolved into light.

“But weaker.”

He shifted his stance. The next strike from Remus passed through another illusion—Deimos reappearing behind it, landing a solid blow to the ribs. Remus reeled—then Deimos followed with a second punch to the gut, launching the prince across the field.

Amelia dashed in, aiming to grapple—but this time Remus caught her. He seized her by the head and slammed her into the earth with a roar that echoed across the hills.

“Ugh,” she groaned.

Deimos used the moment. He blurred forward, jammed the second syringe into Remus’s side, and yanked Amelia back before the prince could retaliate.

Remus stumbled, breath ragged.

“One more,” Deimos said, gripping the last syringe. Amelia gave a weary grin.

“Good job, partner.”

Around them, the surviving servants scrambled to flee. As the last of them ducked indoors, Remus let out a roar that shook the ground. A pulse of dark energy erupted from his body—whip-like slashes of shadow lashing outward in jagged arcs, carving through the air with shrieking force.

Deimos’s shirt split open from the impact. Amelia’s armor cracked.

The blast hurled them backward—and the syringe slipped from Deimos’s hand.

It hit the ground.

And shattered.

“Shit—” Deimos muttered.

Amelia’s eyes shot wide. But before either could react, Remus launched forward, tackling her to the ground, jaws tearing at her shoulder armor with feral violence.

Deimos surged in, his boot colliding with Remus’s ribs, launching the prince like a cannonball into the castle wall. Stone cracked.

White fire ignited across Deimos’s gauntlet as he sprinted forward. Remus rebounded, meeting him with a shadow-wreathed hook.

Their fists collided. The shockwave shattered nearby windows, the walls vibrating with force.

Remus screamed, steam rising off his flesh.

Deimos glanced down at his gauntlet, still burning with white flame.

“Wait… that’s it—”

Remus’s fist crashed into his face mid-sentence, hurling him into the distant tree line.

Amelia winced as she looked around.

Damn it. The maids are gone, and we’re out of syringes, I'll have to go get some more myself— but Deimos...

She glanced over at the shattered trees, Deimos reappeared, leaping skyward. His eyes glowed pure white as he vanished—then reappeared inches from Remus’s face, moving faster than perception.

Remus reacted just in time, slipping aside, but Deimos had already accounted for it.

He grinned.

A towering wall of white flame erupted around them, sealing both inside.

Amelia recoiled.

The heat was suffocating.

Remus stepped back, disoriented, searching for escape.

Deimos exhaled slowly, fire drifting from his nostrils.

“Alright… here goes.”

Deimos thought about the curse Birgitta described in his own Soul Core.

“If his is anything like mine… purifying it might not even help.”

Deimos shot forward. Remus slashed—missed.

“But still, I have to try.”

Deimos appeared before him, palm pressed to his chest.

White light blazed from his eyes.

And then—he phased.

Deimos’s body slipped through Remus like smoke.

Remus howled, and the phasing Deimos exploded into fire—gone. Another took his place, one of many superposed versions flickering in and out of visibility, each representing different choices he could have made in this moment. Some struck to kill. Some failed to intervene. All glitching and ghostlike.

Deimos’s true self focused within the shared space of quantum probability—his consciousness balanced atop a field of branching outcomes.

“I have to keep focus. One lapse, and I collapse into the wrong version—maybe one who kills him. Or worse, all of them collapse at once and everything and everyone in the area will be destroyed.”

His brow tightened.

He reached through the turbulence, fingers brushing something solid—there. His Soul’s Core.

“There you are,” he whispered.

He shifted probabilities, aligning with a version of himself able to grip it.

His hand locked onto the core. His eyes sparked with white fire.

He channeled it inward.

The reaction was instant.

Remus convulsed as white fire engulfed him. Claws retracted. Teeth dulled. His mane of wild hair shrank. The red glow in his eyes faded to black.

Deimos pulled out just in time, withdrawing his hand as the prince collapsed unconscious.

“I… I did it!” Deimos said, snapping his fingers. The wall of flame hissed and vanished.

But then—Remus’s body shifted.

Something peeled from within.

Midnight then floated upward, hovering beside Remus’s form. It sniffed him once, then turned to glare at Deimos, giving a low growl.

Deimos narrowed his eyes.

“That… dog from the festival? Why’s it so small…”

Amelia ran over, kneeling beside Remus, checking his pulse.

“And what the hell was it doing inside him?” Deimos said, voice low.

“Was he… possessed?”