Chapter 109: Memory 1

LYCAON

The air outside tasted like copper and ozone, the way it always did after a soul kiss sealed. I dragged the back of my hand across my mouth, wiping away the residual warmth of Johann’s lips, and laughed into the light. The sound came out rough, unused. My throat still wasn’t accustomed to this witch’s vocal cords.

Edie thought she had been so clever.

I could still see her face and that smug little smile as she pressed her mouth to mine, thinking she was binding the great Lycaon to her service. Thinking she was winning. The poor stupid girl had no idea she was kissing borrowed flesh. Sure the soul bond didn’t latch onto the body and it always latched onto the soul. But the body I was in currently held two souls and the soul that was currently affected was not mine bu the useless hedge witch I’d now claimed as my meatsuit .

If the bond had actually caught me, the real me, the universe would have torn me apart the moment I swapped blood with Edelina and Johann. I had been working against the Lycans since before they had a name for what they were. Since before the curse. Since before everything.

I leaned against a stone balustrade and looked up at the sky. They looked different from this body’s eyes. Softer. I hated it.

The afternoon wind carried the smell of pine and distant rain. I closed my eyes and let the memory come, because it always came when I was alone like this, when the silence got too heavy. The past didn’t stay buried. It waited. It whispered.

***

The village had been sleeping when I returned. I remembered the crunch of frost under my boots, how my breath plumed white in the moonlight. I carried the heads by their horns, three of them, dragging through the snow behind me like sacks of grain. Dragon heads. Aureon’s children. The sun god’s precious little monsters.

I dropped them at my mother’s feet.

And mother had looked down at the severed heads with wide and unblinking eyes. Her hand went to her throat. She wore white, she always wore white, and in the torchlight she looked like a ghost already mourning.

"Lycaon," she whispered.

My father stepped forward, his face going gray in the darkness. "What have you done?"

"I did what needed doing." I straightened my shoulders. The blood on my hands had started to freeze. "You should have heard what they were saying about her. About us. They practically called her a whore. They called us her people mongrels. They mocked mother’s power."

"So you started a war?" My mother’s voice cracked. She looked up at me with those ancient eyes, eyes that had seen civilizations rise and crumble. "You fool. You arrogant, foolish child. Do you know what you’ve done?"

"I defended your honor."

"Honor?" She laughed then, but it wasn’t happy. It sounded like breaking glass. "There is no honor in this. Only ash. Only fire. Aureon will come, Lycaon. He will come and he will not stop until every werewolf, every kin of mine, is reduced to charcoal and memory."

My father put his hand on her shoulder. He was a mortal man, or had been once, before she made him something else. His face was lined with worry. "What happens now?"

Selene closed her eyes. When she opened them, they were hard as flint. "He moves above this. He apologizes. He takes his punishment." She looked at me with something that might have been pity or might have been hate. "I will liaise with the gods. I will soften the blow. Perhaps if he grovels, if he means it, Aureon will be merciful."

I laughed.

The sound startled them. It started in my chest and rolled out of me like thunder, like something broken and sharp. I couldn’t stop. I bent forward, gripping my knees, laughing until my eyes watered and my sides ached.

"Soften the blow?" I gasped out. "Grovel? Mother, have you lost your mind?"

"Watch your tongue."

"Have you forgotten what they said about you?" I straightened up, wiping my eyes. My voice dropped to a growl. "Have you forgotten what the sun god let his people whisper? That you were a slut who spread her legs for a human? That what did you know about herding people as a goddess? That you were a—"

"Enough."

"No." I stepped toward her. My father moved to intercept but she held up a hand. "No, it is not enough. This is not about starting a war. This is about finishing one. This is about showing them that we are not prey. That we are not to be fucked with. That you, mother, are not some back-alley small goddess to be mocked by dragon kin and sun worshippers."

She stared at me for a long moment. The wind picked up, blowing her white hair across her face. When she spoke, her voice was barely audible.

"You do not understand," she said. "You are a demigod. You could survive what comes next. But the others? The innocents? Even the ones who followed you because they believed in your rage?" She shook her head slowly. "They will burn. They will scream. And you will hear them, Lycaon. You will hear every single one."

I opened my mouth to answer, to tell her I would protect them, that I would protect everyone, but the sky opened first.

It wasn’t gradual. One moment there were stars, and the next there was light, blinding white light that turned the snow to mirrors and the shadows to nothing. The village woke up screaming. Doors slammed and children cried.

Mother fell to her knees immediately.

"He is here," she whispered. "Aureon is here."

The air smelled like burning hair. I turned toward the light and saw him descending, a figure made of gold and wrath, trailing fire like a wedding train. He landed in the center of the square and the cobblestones melted where his feet touched them.

Aureon looked at the dragon heads. Then he looked at me.

His voice was not loud, but it filled everything. It vibrated in my teeth. "My children cry out for vengeance."

"Aureon," Mother said. She crawled forward, her white dress soaking up the mud and ash. "Please. He is young. He is foolish. He did not understand—"

"He understood perfectly." Aureon’s eyes found me. They were like staring into the sun itself, like looking at something that would blind you and not caring. "He relished what he did."

As if on cue, mother and brother bowed to the thing.

But I didn’t kneel. Even when my mother grabbed at my leg, her nails digging in. Still, I didn’t bend. I stood there with dragon blood still crusted under my fingernails and I looked the sun god in his burning face.

"Yes," I said.

"Where was your supremacy when I beheaded them?" I took a step forward. My mother’s hand fell away. "Where was your glory when I dragged their skulls through the snow? You let your people mock us. You let them call her names. And now you come here expecting what? Fear?"

Aureon smiled. It was worse than his anger.

"Selene will answer the same question you just asked me," he said. "You are about to see what happens to those who harm my blood and my followers."