Chapter 51 The seige

Chapter 51 The seige

Astraea came out first. She wore a simple tunic of simple mesh armor and a heavy white fur cloak that flowed behind her.

Her silver hair was braided with iron rings, and her eyes burned with a cold celestial fire. Beside her, Fenris walked with no shield,

“Just... Two,” Verena let out a loud laughter. “They have gone mad, Jaxon, Look.”

“Where is your army? Astraea,” Jaxon asked, squinting through the fog. “Where is the mad kings pack?”

“I am the north, Jaxon,” Astrea replied. “I don't lead men to a slaughter they didn't ask for.”

“I've come for my iron,” Jason shouted. “And I have five thousand blades that said that you are nothing but a girl in a silver coat.”

Astraea looked at the line of soldiers, traitors from the south and the borderlands, and felt a bit of pity.

“Fenris” she said, “is the ground ready?”

“The ancestors have been waiting for a reason to wake up for a thousand years, my queen,” Fenris replied, his voice filled with anticipatory joy. “They don't like trespassers.”

Astraea stepped forward, threw her head back, and let in all a howl.

AWAKE ANCESTORS YOUR QUEEN COMMANDS IT!!!

For a moment, there was a terrifying silence. Then the ground began to shake. From the snow covered slope, the frozen bogs and the shadows of the citadel walls, white mist began to pour out.

Soldiers of the southern army shrieked and fell, back as the mist took shape. Warriors in ancient translucent armor, huge wolves made of swirling frost and light.

The ghost army of the North, the ancestors Fenris had spent his life guarding, rose up from the frost.

“What is this?” Jaxon screamed his horse rearing back in terror. “Sorcery. It's a trick.”

“It's not a trick, Jaxon,” Astraea replied.

The ghost warriors didn't make a sound as they moved. Where a ghost touched a living man, the soldier's skin turned blue immediately, his heart stopping.

The battle was over before it truly began. The southern army had not been slaughtered, they had been broken. Most had thrown down their weapons and run into the woods, chased by the ghosts.

Jaxon sat on the floor, Verena had been thrown from her horse and was crawling towards him, her clothes torn to rags.

Astraea stepped forward, her silver armor reflecting the moonlight.

“You look small, Jaxon,” she said. I spent years looking up at you from the dirt, wondering what made you so tall. Now I see it was the stage I built for you.”

Jaxon looked up, his eyes bloodshot. “Astraea, please, you've won. You have the north. You have the Alphas. Just let us go back to the Shadow fang. I will abdicate. We will live in the shadows.”

Venera let out a sob. “I was only doing what I was told. Jaxon led me. I'm a noblewoman, Astraea. You can't treat me like this.”

“A noblewoman,” Astraea laughed. “You are the woman who stood by and watched as your mate ordered my death.”

Astraea looked at Fenris. “They think they can go back. They think they can remain wolves even after they acted like monsters.”

“The wolf is a gift of the goddess,” Fenris replied. “A gift they have spat upon. A predator who preys on its own pack is no longer a wolf. It's a parasite.”

Astraea closed her eyes, raised her hands towards the sky. The sky began to hum. Silver light of the zenith expanded, forming a covering over the four of them.

“Jaxon and Verena, of the shadow fang pack,” Astraea began, her voice dropping to the ancient voice of the first mother.

"You have used your strength to crush the weak. You have used your bite, to tear the innocent. You have betrayed the blood and the bones.”

“What are you doing,” Jaxon gasped? His eyes widening, he tried to shift, but his wolf retreated to the darkest part of his mind.

“I reclaim the gift,” Astraea commanded.

She slammed her hands together, a shockwave of pure silver light hit Jason and Verena.

The scream that let Jason's throat was animalistic. Inside his mind, the great golden wolf he had prided himself on being was being burned away by the lunar fire.

He felt his heightened sense dull, the world turn gray, the smell of the forest vanishing, the trauma of the pack bones snapped.

Verena collapsed, clutching her chest, as her inner wolf was extinguished. When the light faded, they lay panting on the floor.

Their predatory grace and the alpha's power had vanished. They were omegas of the spirit, lower than the lowest strays.

“You are no longer wolf,” Astraea said, “the moon no longer knows your name. Your ears will no longer hear the call of the pack. Your skin will no longer heal the wounds you earn.”

“You have killed us,” Jaxon wheezed, “to live as a man without the wolf is a slow death.”

“No, Jaxon,” Fenris said, stepping over the snow to look at him. “It's a life, the kind of life you've forced on the weak for years.”

“You will be taken to the human village on the southern border. You will work the field, you will earn your bread by the sweat of your brows.”

“They will kill us,” Verena shrieked. “The humans, they hate our kind.”

“Then you'd better hope you've learned how to be humble,” Astraea replied, “because you no longer have the teeth to be anything else.”

The northern guards dragged the two humans to their feet. Their hands were tied with ropes.

“Take them away,” Fenris ordered, “And ensure the villagers knows they are laborers to be used.”

“If they run, they wild take them. And without their wolves, the wild is a very hungry place.”

As Verena and Jaxon we dragged towards the southern part, Astraea turned to Fenris

"Is it finished?" he asked softly.

Astraea watched the sky. "The war is finished, Fenris. Now we begin the work of peace.”

#. #. #.

The wind howled through the iron pass, a huge stone that served as the final protection between the North and the lawless frozen barren lands that laid beyond.

Lyra stood at the edge of the ravine her hands bound. The silk she had once worn, were gone, replaced by a rough threadbare cloak of gray wool that offered little warmth against the cold.

Behind her stood the entire Northern council.

“Lyra of the House of Leonia” Fenris began his voice a low, vibration that seemed to come from the earth itself. “You were born of Northern blood, fed by the North's bounty, and protected by its walls.”

“In return, you brought a group of traitors to our gates. You offered the secret of our pack to a man who would have killed our children just because of your selfish desire.”

“I loved you,” Lyra shrieked, her voice cracking as she looked at Fenris with a desperation that was filled a little bit of madness.

“Everything I did, I did to keep the North pure, to keep you pure. She is a poison, Fenris. Can't you see she has turned the primal king into a servant?”