Chapter 75 Was never the plan
Ira's POV
I sit cross-legged on my narrow bed, the old book heavy in my lap.
The lamp shines across the room, casting long shadows that copy my every movement, behind and beside me.
I need this. Something to pull my mind away from the ache gnawing at me tonight. Elric’s question still echoes in my mind.
Has it always been this red?
He looked suspicious. That has never been a good sign. I knew it won't take long for someone to doubt me but I hadn't prepared myself. Still am not prepared.
I need an escape plan. On Thursday it was super easy for us to sneak around at night. This means I can target night time every Thursday to learn and discover routes.
The window above my bed rattles in its frame. The curtain over it flies up with a ghost noise.
Feeling the cold in the room thicken, I open the book at random.
“Can you stop doing that?” I mutter toward the window.
The flapping continues, louder, like it’s daring me.
I roll my eyes and drop my gaze back to the page. The words blur for a second before focusing.
When the flapping stops, I frown. Then just to test my theory, I glance up again.
Flap-flap-flap. The wind surges, banging the wooden frame hard enough to shake the wall.
I narrow my eyes at it. “Seriously?”
The flapping gets worse, but stops immediately I turn my gaze back to the book.
It resumes when I lift my head again. I point a finger at the window, mouth opening to scold it like the naughty ghost pup that it most probably is, but the words die in my throat.
“Fine,” I hiss. “I can pretend to read. You won’t even know the difference.” I rub my temple with the heel of my hand. “All this noise is giving me a headache anyway.”
The flapping dies mid-rattle and the room falls into sudden, heavy quiet.
I stare at the window a moment longer, my cheek lifting in a proud smile.
The chapter heading glares back at me in black ink.
The Treachery of the Sempyrs.
I roll my eyes at the super dramatic choice of words.
“Fifty years ago,” I read to myself, finding it easier to understand that way.
“the sempyrs came to Vahl as a broken, homeless people. They had no land, no pack, and sadly no ruler. They begged for shelter at our borders, claiming persecution from distant realms.”
I pause, listening silently as the steps of warriors move past my door.
When I turn back to the book, I can almost feel those people's pain. Because I know all too well what it means to be homeless.
Our Alpha King, merciful and peaceful, opened his arms. He gave them villages in the eastern valleys, shared our houses with them and let them live among us.
Reading about an alpha King once showing love to sempyrs feels strange. Now, no one would hesitate to drive a sword through the heart of any stray they find.
For twenty years, they smiled and bowed, doing exactly as told, following the agreement.
But then the rot began.
That line alone causes an uneasiness within me that makes me shift on the bed.
Sempyrs rose quietly through pack ranks. They wielded their powers with no control, performed their ceremonies without permission… they soiled the precious name of the alpha king, bending people's minds with their unnatural power.
I touch a strand of my dyed hair. If I were a sempyr… I would have powers. I heard they could dine with the moon goddess.
But if that were true, why did they have to beg the werewolves for help? Why not just take their problems to the goddess.
The sempyrs twisted pack laws to favour themselves. They brought into Vahl, black magic, witches, warlocks and several other strays. They introduced a forbidden magic that made the pack vulnerable to attacks.
There is no way this book is written by a sempyr, because the hatred is just too much. Maybe the sempyrs felt lonely, maybe they weren't treated as nicely as this book puts it.
I want to argue but I have no one to reason it out with so I move on.
Pack members began disappearing. Alphas lost their strength overnight and several of them were killed. Children were kidnapped.
I swallow hard. No amount of fear or loneliness should lead someone to do this.
When the Alpha King finally saw the evil he'd brought on the pack, he ordered their exile…
After twenty years of calling Vahl their home?
…the sempyrs plotted in secret. They gathered themselves to plot another strike at the heart of Vahl and claim it for their own.
How desperate could they have been? Why didn't they plead?
But Commander Andre, bravest of the king’s warriors, uncovered the betrayal. He led a raid on their hidden gathering.
I frown… so this is where the alpha king Andre comes in. This is why they literally worship him.
The battle raged until dawn. Sadly the alpha king fell. In the end, several sempyrs and strays were defeated but Vahl also lost its strongest alphas to the sempyrs spells and power.
No alpha family was spared.
Yet commander Andre held the line. He drove the traitors out, slaughtered those who resisted, burned their houses to ash.
I see it too clearly… homes collapsing into flame, children running, crying for their parents…
The smell of smoke and blood choking the air. It has to be what I keep dreaming about. My family must have been mistaken for strays. Hopefully I still have someone out there looking for me.
A tear slips past my face and I lift my finger to it, shocked by how sad I'm currently feeling.
My vision blurs as more tears spill hot down my cheeks before I can even feel them coming.
My heart breaks. For the pups who got killed, for mothers who couldn’t save them, for fathers who only wanted their families safe, for the ones who begged…
“Ahh..ah” a loud sob breaks from my throat, my body shivering in agony as the sorrow swells, multiplying into something too vast to be only mine.
It crushes my chest, feeling like somehow I'm carrying the grief of a generation. Innocent bloods soaked in the earth, promises broken…
“Make it stop,” I cry, my body falling to the floor as I crawl, wanting so desperately to leave the pain behind.
“I can’t…” My voice breaks, as I start feeling like a thousand knives are being pushed into my back.
The wind erupts, howling violently.
“I can't breathe,” I force out, clawing at the floor, gasping for air.
But none comes… the wind does nothing , not even when my vision narrows to black at the edges.
“That wasn’t the plan,” A sorrowful masculine voice whispers inside my head. “That was never the plan.”
And then my mind goes blank.