Page 31 of Shattered and Saved

The delta didn’t hesitate to push the door open, and I followed her cautiously. Different plants were also present inside the shaman’s house, their scents so strong it was almost overwhelming. It was a little messy, with pots in all shapes and sizes scattered on the furniture, open books lying aroundthe floor, and faded scrolls curling at the edges, their intricate symbols barely legible under layers of dust.

A large wooden table dominated the center of the room, its surface cluttered with vials of colorful liquids, each bubbling softly as if alive. Behind it stood a short, old woman with gray hair. When she turned around to face us, I was surprised to notice that her eyes were white and glassy. Yet, it felt as though she was staring straight at me.

“Oh, you brought the alpha’s rescue!” she cooed, dropping the book she was carrying to come closer. “Koen, right?”

“Yeah,” I replied simply, too stunned to say anything else at first. “Can you… see me?”

“Of course!” she chuckled. “My eyes may not be of much use anymore, but you don’t need them to see.”

“Due to her affinity with life and magic, she can sense your essence despite being blind,” Rhea clarified.

“Not in spite of it - because of it!” Vereya corrected. “You mustn’t rely solely on sight to experience the world. Instead, you should learn to feel it with all your senses.” She studied me a little longer before turning to Rhea. “Anyway, what did you want from this old hag, my dear?”

“An old hag who’s powerful enough to take me down without even touching me,” Rhea observed playfully, and for the first time, I saw her smile. Her face fell a little as she answered, “We’re out of tranquilizers. Could you make us something to use instead of silver?”

“Sure thing,” Vereya replied, already heading to one of the counters covered in different dried herbs.

While I watched the shaman work, Rhea got comfortable on a small couch, shoving away a pile of clothes to make space. There was nothing to do but wait now, yet I couldn’t find it in me to be as patient as her. Everyone was going out of their minds, doing whatever they could to find a solution for the angeroutbursts, and I had been of no help. In fact, there was a chance I was the cause of it.

“Very sad what has befallen this pack,” Vereya remarked as she crushed a mixture of herbs, petals, and nectar with a mortar and pestle. “It must be a message from the Gods. They’re trying to tell us something.”

“Could they be warning of a…unwanted presence?” I found myself asking as worry settled in. Rhea immediately shot a glance at me, but remained silent.

“Perhaps,” she suggested, and I felt a chill to the bone. “But it is impossible to guess. There are thousands of possibilities. Only one thing is certain…” She made a brief pause, scraping the mixture in her hands into a vial. “Limitless power is like a river with no banks - it floods and drowns all in its path. If it overflows, that power consumes the very soul meant to wield it.”

Vereya’s words made me pause, my chest tightening as something stirred deep in my mind. For some reason, I recalled the story Avril told me on the day she brought me here.

The Ashen Wolves were once protectors of peace and balance, wielding their power to uphold laws and safeguard order. But now, with their full strength restored and no purpose to anchor them, that power had twisted into something dark. Centuries of suppression and injustice had given way to madness, rage boiling over with no outlet but destruction. They had nothing to fight for, nothing to serve. Just anger, raw and wild, like a storm with no direction.

Ashen Wolves didn’t disappear along with lycans, but we lost our purpose,Avril’s words echoed in my mind, louder than they should.

A thought flickered, fragile and uncertain. What if the scales had been tipped when balance was lost?

“A river with no banks… and no drain,” I murmured, noticing how Rhea scrunched her brows in confusion at myseemingly random thought. I didn’t have time to explain. “It’s not just that it lacks boundaries - it has no clear path, no destiny. No outlet.”

Vereya froze, her glassy eyes locking with mine. “Indeed,” she said, and in the subtle shift of her expression, I knew she understood what I was getting at.

Perhaps the wolves at Azure Smoke were spiraling because their power was overflowing without a purpose to guide it. Without a mission, their unchecked strength was feeding off their anger, overwhelming their minds as it lost direction. But…

“If we can contain our power until we find a new purpose, it won’t warp our sanity,” Rhea finished, her eyes widening as she, too, realized what we might be onto.

“You think that could be it?” I asked her, my tone a little too anxious as a tiny flame of hope warmed me from the inside.

“I think it’s worth a shot,” she offered, rising from her seat to approach us. “Vereya, can you help us?”

The shaman nodded determinedly. “I will see what I can do.”

Now, all we could do was test our theory - and pray it wasn’t another dead end, because it was the only solution we had left.

20

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A V R I L

Shifters weren’t supposedto stay indoors too long. Our wild animal side craved freedom, thus making it an insufferable experience to be in enclosed spaces for an extensive timeframe. Yet, when my liberty posed a threat to the person I dreaded hurting most, what other choice did I have?

My expansive chambers had never felt this cramped. At times, it seemed as though the walls were closing down on me. It was suffocating. Maddening. But enduring the torture was more bearable than imagining what I could do if I dared leave my room.

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