Page 17 of Alpha's Fate

It was hard work, burning through our energy and ink as we tackled the task now resting in my lap. We worked in relativesilence, every so often speaking as we passed the copy of the book back and forth between us to try to comprehend the new runes we would find. It was long and tasking work and we were running out of light, the fire dying down as we did our best to outrace it. At least during the weak daylight we had a chance, but now as the light vanished I felt my eyes straining and an ache began to form behind my eyes.

“We need to stop,” Weston commented gently as I rubbed at my temples for the third time. “Let’s eat and get some rest and when the light brightens up again, we can get back to it.” I nodded, leaning my head back against the rough bark of the tree.

“You’re right,” I sighed, looking over at him. “I hate it, though. I want so much to just keep going- I need to know everything.” I smiled wanly at him, moving to click my pen shut and take his hand. “But you’re right. I need sleep and food.”

“Yeah, baby. You do. I’ll cook tonight and we can sleep,” Weston squeezed my hand and I nodded. Once he got up I closed all of our books, stacking them carefully before packing them away safely in my bag. I placed the artifact in the time worn box and placed it in on top, carrying it into the tent for safe keeping.

I sat at the zippered door, knees pulled to my chest as Weston prepared a meal for us. In spite of its simplicity it smelled amazing. It was one sense in the forest that I was glad for- between the cold and the shadows and the faint whispering chants on the breeze, at least there was the rich scent of food. It smelled warm and spicy, like curry. We’d brought some little prepackaged meals with us, so I was hoping it actually was a simple curry. My stomach rumbled as the food was pulled off the fire and scooped into our mess kits.

“Thanks,” I said softly, taking up my spoon so I could eat. It was the curry. The food tasted so good I could burst- apparently, I was much hungrier than I thought I was. Thinking back we hadn’t eaten since before we’d made our way out to the shadowPack’s territory. “We should have done this much earlier. We can’t forget to eat,” I made eye contact with my mate, and he gave me a small smile and a nod.

“Honestly? After what happened in the cemetery with that woman, I wasn’t hungry at all. It didn’t even occur to me to eat,” he explained with a slight shrug. His face displayed the struggle he was feeling internally, and I scooted closer, leaning into him. “I don’t know. I don’t know how to feel, honestly. It was horrifying, that searching and never being able to find her.”

“It must have been. She showed you how she felt,” I looked up at him solemnly, hoping he understood how seriously I took the situation.

“We just have to help them.”

The next morning we got up, made a meal, and got back to it. It wasn’t long before we were flying through the runes, by this time having enough of an understanding of what we were looking at that we could translate them with less help. We still flipped through pages of text, searching for the meanings of new symbols as we went, but it wasn’t long until most of it was translated.

Along the border of the pages were written the translations of the wandering glyphs that we were hoping would be the key to the whole mystery. All it took was time. The time was the sacrifice we needed to understand what we were looking at. It felt like all we’d done for days was a waste of time, but finally it felt like we were actually doing something worthwhile. It was a good feeling.

“I’m really nervous about this,” Weston hesitated. “I don’t like how this is shaping up.”

“There’s so much about the forest magic here and the wandering runes… I don’t know. I don’t know and I hate that,” I sighed. “I feel like this is all so ominous,” I whispered, fear choking me for a moment. But in my head, I could remember thewords I said inside of the shadows- have no fear. I pushed the sensation down and breathed in a deep breath. “I think breaking this curse… looking at everything we have, I think,” I paused, clicking my pen nervously. “Ridding the forest of the curse may rid the forest ofallthe magic.”

Weston leaned over and looked at the translations. Everything was pointing to the death of the magic, the floating runes seeming to slot into place as a warning. That’s why they were moving, I thought. They were the most important part of the story, the bridges between the stanzas that spoke about the curse.

The thought of losing the magic scared me. Deep in my soul I was terrified of what it would mean to be left alone in our home. We would be without our grove, the place that blessed Weston and I in the first place. My heart broke at leaving that place behind. It was a devastating loss in my mind. Weston was silent beside me, looking just as conflicted as I felt.

“We would lose our place,” he said softly, running his fingers over the page, feeling the ridges of my writing on the smooth paper. “I don’t like that.”

“Me either. It feels a lot like losing a family member,” I agreed. “Something special we could always visit to relax. It means so much to me, but to help them it seems like we’ll have to do it.” We were silent for a moment as I twirled my pen through my fingers just to have something to do with my hands.

“But still,” Weston said softly. “We promised to make this place better using our power. We can’t leave them like this. It would be beyond cruel. I couldn’t live with myself if I left them alone like this. I know it’s the right thing to do, it just makes me so sad.”

“Yeah,” I agreed softly. “I think we’ve got a lot of thinking to do, Weston. We have to weigh the risks and the benefits. It’s not just us the magic affects. It’s the whole of Schuylkill that itaffects. We have a really big decision to make. I honestly don’t know what to do.”

“I didn’t even think of that, but you’re right,” Weston agreed. “We have to make the right decision.”

Chapter eighteen

Weston

Ibarely slept that night, torn between the good of the whole versus what I’d seen and felt when I’d connected with the ancient wolf in the forest. Poor Cora had to suffer through my shuffling and shifting throughout the night, but she did so without complaint, just gently soothing me through touches and tender kisses. The way she seemed to be able to calm me in the most simple ways, bringing me back from that remote, desolatefeeling that still hung in my soul was a miracle. Eventually I had gotten rest.

We went to the river again that morning and just bathed in silence, neither of us willing to break the fragile quiet that we found ourselves in. Both of us were preoccupied with what we had to do, the choice we had to make. We ate with the only sound the clinking of the freshly washed cutlery on the tin mess kits we’d brought. Everything seemed so heavy, even the physical world around me. Lifting the fork to my mouth was a chore.

I turned back to the journals, poring over them over and over while Cora worked on attempting to figure out how the artifact actually worked. We knew what it said, but not how to use it. After hours of silence, I could sense the frustration emanating off of her before she finally set the ever shifting cube aside to pull the box to her.

Inside of it were carved runes that were vaguely familiar, but I couldn’t quite place them. It wasn’t really my job to deal with that part yet, so I left it to Cora who was scribbling the angular, pointed symbols into her notebook. At least they didn’t move. They just stayed there, burned into the wood, dark and almost ominous. They must mean something too, but what I had no idea. She seemed better equipped to deal with it, already writing under the runes in the notebook, apparently allowing things to come together naturally.

I hoped maybe something in the box would solve our problem. There was a desperation inside of me to find a way to break the curse without destroying our forest but everything seemed to come to a dead end. Nothing. There was nothing there, just the choice. Just the horrible, sinking feeling that we had a binary choice. Turn the magic off to break the curse, or let people suffer. Neither answer suited me. I finally closed the books and set them aside, moving to make myself useful by gathering up a lunch for us while Cora kept at it.

Once the food was finished, I gently drew her in so she could eat before going back to the task at hand. We ate in silence, now weighing heavy on us, until she suddenly spoke.

“How’s it going on your end?” she asked, looking over at me. “This is killing me. I hate everything about this. It’s been so long since I’ve felt this kind of anger. I don’t like it either.”

“Anger,” I hummed softly. “I just feel defeated. It’s hard to sit here and know that there’s no way out, nothing we can do to move forward successfully. Either way we lose.”

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