25 - Into The Abyss

By the time I tell Rowan to park the car, I can't breathe. Panic has me in a choke hold as I stare out at the otherwise unremarkable woods. We've parked up in a side street of a small town not far from the Ferreus home. If we go down the mile-long driveway, right into the heart of that place, we're asking for trouble, so I've chosen to sneak in. The less time they have to register my appearance, the better our chances.

With a deep, steeling breath, I pop open the door and step out into the cool air. Rowan and Lachlan follow dutifully. It's mid-afternoon, and the sky is a blanket of mottled grey threatening rain. An icy breeze stirs, tugging at our hair and clothes, and people wander about caught in their own worlds, utterly clueless to our fear and the abyss we're heading towards.

"Whether we do this or not, River, it's your choice," Rowan says as he comes up beside me, catching my gaze, his dark eyes alight with devotion. "I'm with you whatever you choose."

I nod, tucking my hands into my pockets. I'm leaving most of my weapons in the car, despite every shred of my soul desperately craving their touch. A Ferreus hunter is a threat with or without their weapons, but I'm hoping they will recognise the gesture of vulnerability if I walk in there unarmed. Well, mostly unarmed. I've tucked a knife against my ankle — an insurance policy, I tell myself — but I know it's because the pressure of the hilt against my skin brings some shade of relief.

Lachlan adjusts the books in the crook of his arm — courtesy of Imogen — and studies the woodland swaying in that mischievous wind. "Are we doing this?" he asks.

I cast one last look towards the car before turning and stalking into the woods. "We're doing this," I say over my shoulder.

Rowan and Lachlan catch up easily, and we're all silent as we walk through the woods. Every step has my heart constricting but I forge on. This used to be my home. They used to be my family. I spent twenty-five years of my life here. I can do this. I can face them once more.

Time melts away and none of us say a word.

My pace is set and my course unwavering as I lead them onwards. I recognise the trees, the shrubs, the quiet concert of chirping birds that influenced our own calls. I strain to listen for those damning whistles, and I'm so focused on catching any hint of unease that I don't realise I've arrived until I catch sight of a familiar clearing through the cover of trees.

Faltering at the treeline, covered by the shrubs and dense foliage, I peer out, but the training field is mercifully empty. All around, trees sigh with relief. Rowan and Lachlan come up beside me.

We stare out at the clearing, utterly silent, listening out for any disturbance.

With pinched brows and an inscrutable expression, Rowan stares at the training field, at the notches in the tree stumps from many knives, at the ground trodden down beneath pivoting feet over generations.

Unbidden, echoes of the last fight I had here stir in the air before me. I stare out at a shade of Esme as she twirls and feigns and pivots. Again. River, get up. Snap it back. We have work to do.

In that clearing, locked in combat with my sister, I had no idea just how much my life would change in a few short hours.

"...Riv?" Rowan's voice tugs at the fraying edges of my focus. I glance his way to find him frowning softly at me. "You okay?"

"Yeah," I manage, my voice low. Empty. "I'm okay."

He stares at me for a moment longer before looking out across the clearing. "I can hear fighting," he tells me.

I shift my focus beyond the echoes of the past to where Rowan points out a little gap in the copse of trees. Sure enough, when the wind drops, I catch a faint hint of thuds and sharp orders. Anxiety squirms and rolls in my gut.

"There's two... no, three kids," Lachlan muses beneath his breath. "A man and two women, too."

I nod, forcing down the rising fear within me. Schooling the panic into something useful, just like Esme taught me right before our first hunt when we were sixteen. Control your fear, River. Don't let it control you. Don't let it win.

Granted, she'd been talking about the fear of the bite and being torn apart by werewolves, but the principles are the same.

Knowing that approaching the hunters while they're training is like walking in there with a target on our foreheads, I back up further into the shrubs.

"We'll go to the house," I murmur.

Rowan and Lachlan nod and follow my lead as I skirt through the woods, avoiding the trails as I make my way towards the heart of the lion's den. We all listen out intently for any approaching footsteps, but thankfully the trails remain empty.

At last, I stop in the cover of trees and shrubs and peer out at the place I used to call my home. The den looms before me.

I never wanted to see this place again. I never wanted to see that front door I used to chase Esme out of as we raced to train at dawn, those windows I used to stare out of when my elders would drone on and on about techniques and approaches and plans and expectations. I stare up at a window right on the corner — my bedroom window — and I can almost see an echo of my past staring back at me, clad in the dark uniform of the Ferreus hunters, silver weapons sharpened, silver eyes wary and cold.

I never wanted that life. I never wanted curses and legacies and duties. All I wanted was to be normal, to have a home, and a family who cared for me, who I could rely on no matter what. All I wanted was to put aside the weapons and mistrust, and live— not fight to survive.

And to do that, I need to deal with the lycanthropes and the Ferreus hunters.

Two birds, one stone.

With a steeling breath, and with Rowan and Lachlan shadowing me like dutiful sentries, I stalk across the clearing and down the trail leading to the front door.

No one dares wander close enough to knock on the front door of the Ferreus home, but I knock regardless. Three curt knocks which seal my fate, and the fate of Rowan and Lach. There's no turning back.

I can't breathe.

Rowan takes my hand and gives it a gentle, assuring squeeze and, on my free side, Lachlan settles his free hand on my shoulder in a similar show of reassurance.

We're with you. You're not on your own. Breathe.

When the door is thrown open, a thunderclap of fear crashes through me— ice cold and sharp as a glittering knife. Ivar — my grandfather — emerges like a stubborn shadow of a past I ran from, and everything about him is the same. Same sharp, lined features tugged towards perpetual suspicion, same burly form rippling with power, same markings crawling up his neck from decades of successful hunts.

All the meagre breath I managed to take in rushes out of me and white noise rises in my ears. I'm underwater and sinking fast.

I'm going to die. Rowan's going to die. Lachlan's going to die.

But Ivar doesn't reach for his belt of knives; he only stares. As the seconds stretch on and the weapons stay concealed, a flicker of clarity rises within me.

"What the hell are you doing here?" he demands, his low, gravelly voice sending a shock wave of shudders exploding over my skin. Fuck, I'd hoped never to hear his voice again. Never to see his face again, contorting with fury. "You— you're supposed to be dead."

Just as I asked, Rowan and Lach stay quiet and their eyes don't even flicker with a hint of gold. But their forms are wound tight with tension, and I know they're both moments from shifting should Ivar tense to act. Rowan's hand gives mine another rallying squeeze. Lachlan grips the books so tight it's a wonder he doesn't snap the binding.

I suck in a sharp breath and manage, "Have you heard of a lycanthrope?"

Ivar's rising fury stutters and trips; in its place, wariness stirs. "A... a what?"

"A lycanthrope," I repeat. When he frowns, at a loss, I say, "I hadn't either, until a week ago. Believe me, I wouldn't be here if I could help it, but I... I need your help. All I'm asking is you hear me out and consider. If you refuse, I'll leave and you'll never see me again, but I have a feeling you'll want to know what I have to say."

His brows pinch as he stares down at me. For the first time, his eyes drift over Lachlan — the bulkier, more physically threatening of the two — and then Rowan. Confusion stirs behind his eyes like leaves caught in the silver pool of his gaze.

"I don't... I don't understand, boy. You— Orion told us—"

"I know what he told you."

"So you know coming here is a death wish," he says, danger stirring at the edges of his tone.

"I know that, too. But I also know you're not going to kill me. Not before you find out why I've come back."

"You're sure of that, are you?"

It takes some deeper level of restraint to stare back at the blinding sun of his rage, to keep my nerves at bay and nod with certainty.

He stares at me for a few seconds. Time stretches into an incomprehensible muddle. At last, he tucks his hand into his pocket, and air rushes back into my lungs. Despite losing his other arm in a raid years ago, my grandfather is formidable. If he's tucked his hand away, he'll need a precious few seconds to snatch it back and swipe up a knife. In other words, if he decides to kill me, he's giving me a warning first.

"We took a great loss, that night," he tells me, his voice losing its bite. "Esme, Myles, and you. Orion told me you killed his boy and ran. He said he had a duty to put an end to you, and Liliana and Charlotte went with him to see the job done. He only got in touch twice. Once, to tell me they'd found you, and that you were hiding — of all places — in the heart of a werewolf pack. He said he'd take care of two problems at once. And the second time he called, he told me you were dead. You, and the pack that hid you. He told me he'd been bitten, and that Charlotte and Liliana weren't quick enough. So explain to me, River, why the hell you've shown up on my doorstep with two werewolves to ask for my help, of all things? Not my mercy, not my forgiveness, but for my help?"

As he speaks, danger returns, prowling at the edges of his voice.

Panic slices through me. Rowan and Lach have given nothing away and yet Ivar has seen straight through them. They're in danger because of me. This was a foolish, reckless idea.

I lost Esme to them, but I'll be damned if I lose Rowan and Lachlan, too. They took my first family from me, but they will not take my second.

So I take a deep breath and I tell him, "I have no other choice. I know I can't appeal for your mercy, or your forgiveness after what I did— even though it was justified. But you're a hunter, you have the resources I need to take out a threat, and you say you don't know what a lycanthrope is, but I know a part of you does. I know you feel it — that call — because I felt it, too." I take a book from Lachlan, flip it open, and hold it before me. "Take a look at that, then decide if you're going to hear us out or if we have a problem."

Eyes narrowed, unease prowling, Ivar takes the book from me. I watch his eyes flit back and forth as he takes in the notes, the scrawled drawings, and I catch flickers of silver as his Haze stirs, as his markings pulse with an echo of power.

At last, he snaps it closed, making us all flinch, and glances up at me sharply. "Your dogs— do you have them under control?"

I feel Lachlan bristle and Rowan tense at my side, and Ivar's eyes gleam as he notices their struggle too. But his expression soon fractures with confusion when neither of them rise to his bait.

"Their names are Rowan and Lachlan, and I'd appreciate if you used them," I retort. "So do we have a truce, or a problem?"

In the silence that follows, Ivar's gaze snaps upwards to regard something past me.

"What's going on here?"

Cassian's familiar voice is like a blow to the gut, and the sharp hiss of a blade leaving its scabbard is a lit fuse. I turn and find my second cousin emerging from the trail leading to the training area, stalking forwards like the cold promise of death. He's alone, but that doesn't matter. He's armed and deadly.

His eyes lock onto mine and he falters, surprise flickering across his expression. His defence slips, his knife lowers, his guard drops. "River? What the hell?" he manages. He notices Rowan and Lachlan and his knife obediently rises once more into a defensive position as he glances past me for Ivar's explanation or his approval.

Suddenly I want nothing more than to take hold of my knife, to warn them not to try anything, but I don't. I can't.

"We have a truce," Ivar decides. Relief spears through me, stealing my breath. "It's alright, Cassian. They aren't foolish enough to try anything here."

Obediently, Cassian sheathes his knife and approaches, frowning.

"Come in," Ivar says, drawing my focus as he turns and stalks further into the house. "Your dogs better be well-behaved, River, or you can leave them outside."

Beneath his breath, in a voice so soft I can't quite catch it, Lachlan says something that has Rowan's lips quirking.

I usher them both into the house before Ivar can change his mind, and before Cassian can catch up to us. I put myself between my family and my second cousin; he's armed and at our backs, and I won't have him taking either of them by surprise.

As I set foot into the place I once called home, and as Cassian shuts the door behind us with a finalising thud akin to a coffin lid sinking closed, I feel as though I've led Rowan and Lachlan straight into the lowest circle of hell.

With no way out and silver shadows lurking before and behind, we advance into the abyss.