Chapter 35 The Floating Creatures
As soon as day broke, we left the castle, heading towards a nearby pack. We arrived two hours later and were greeted by a large crowd.
Everyone was standing around the pack's entrance, watching the cars expectantly. Before we even got out of the car, everyone was already applauding us.
We got out and were greeted with handshakes and warm smiles. Everyone looked at us with affection and admiration. I immediately felt affection for that pack and was warmly welcomed by the alpha's wife.
"You can't imagine how important it is for us to have you here, Your Majesty," the alpha began to say as we entered his house and the doors closed.
Now, away from the crowd, I could see his worry and fear.
"I lost my Beta and three other extremely trusted soldiers," the alpha began to recount, extending a jar towards Conrad.
I approached, observing the jar with curiosity. It was a clear glass jar filled with a black powder.
"Is this all that's left of them?" the Alpha said sadly.
I stared at Conrad, startled, and saw confusion in his eyes.
"This is all that's left of four wolves?" I asked, trying to understand the strange situation.
"Don't find the situation strange, at least not yet," the Alpha said with a sigh.
The Alpha opened a drawer and took out another jar. Inside the jar was what appeared to be a black cloak.
"What is this?" Conrad asked.
"This is a piece of what killed the wolves," he replied, placing the jar on the table.
Conrad picked up the jar, closely examining its contents.
"What do you mean, a piece?" Conrad asked, as confused as I was.
"They weren't people like us," the Alpha began to explain, his disturbance evident. "They were things like cloaks suspended in the air, floating. They had no faces, and a black mist surrounded them. They weren't even touched by spells."
Conrad went to question the sorcerers who had tried to help the wolves. I stared intently at the cloak on the table, where Conrad had placed it again.
I could hear words emanating from it, as if there was still life there. Until the words began to make sense in my head. I reached out and touched the glass.
A cutting chill ran through my fingers as soon as I touched the glass. The world around me folded as if made of smoke, and the ground disappeared beneath my feet.
When I regained consciousness, I was no longer in the alpha's house.
I was in the middle of a burning forest.
The sky was a dirty, heavy red, and the smoke made every breath torture. Ahead of me, wolves ran in despair, some in human form, others already transformed, trying to protect pups that cried, not understanding what was happening.
Then I saw them.
Their black cloaks rose from the ground like shadows torn from the earth itself. They didn't walk. They floated. The dark mist around them moved like tentacles, touching everything it encountered.
One of the wolves cast a spell towards one of those creatures. The blue energy collided with the cloak… and simply dissolved into thin air, as if it had never existed.
The wolf had no time to react.
The shadow enveloped it entirely. There was no scream. There was no blood.
Only dust.
Black ashes fell to the ground where a living body had once stood.
I brought my hand to my mouth, but no sound came out. My legs trembled, and yet I was forced to keep watching.
The creatures moved toward a group of females and pups trapped between burning trees. One by one, they disappeared into the mist, leaving behind only the same black dust that I now recognized inside the glass jar.
"It's not death." A voice whispered around me. "It's oblivion."
I looked around for who was speaking, but there was no one. Only fire and destruction.
"You saw the end of the hybrids," the voice continued. "You saw what will be, if the path is not followed."
The ground beneath my feet cracked open in golden fissures, forming the same pattern I had seen in the garden and the clearing. A single trail gleamed amidst the devastation, snaking into the forest, far from the flames.
"Follow the gold hidden in the earth. Where the light doesn't reach, the book sleeps."
I tried to ask which book, I tried to call out for Conrad, but my voice wasn't there.
The forest began to crumble, turning back into smoke.
When I came to, I was kneeling on the floor of the alpha's house, my hand still pressed against the glass. Conrad held me by the shoulders, calling my name repeatedly, his face contorted in terror.
"Maya, look at me," he pleaded. "What did you see? What's happening to you?"
I couldn't answer immediately.
Inside my mind, I still saw wolves turning to dust.
And the golden trail, calling to me, like a sentence impossible to ignore.
I swallowed hard, trying to organize the images that still burned behind my eyes. The smell of smoke seemed to cling to my skin, even there, in that silent room.
Conrad pulled me closer, kneeling in front of me.
"You were completely out of it for a few seconds. Your eyes… weren't yours."
The alpha cleared his throat, clearly uncomfortable.
"Has this happened to her before?"
"Not like this." Conrad replied immediately, his firm hand holding mine.
I took a deep breath, feeling the weight of the choice I wasn't yet ready to make. If I told him everything, nothing would be simple anymore. If I kept quiet, I would be walking alone towards something I didn't yet understand.
"I only saw… bad things." That was the most I could admit. "These creatures don't kill like we do. They erase. Nothing remains but that." I pointed to the jar with the black powder.
The alpha paled.
"So it's true… my soldiers weren't defeated. They were… undone."
Conrad closed his eyes for a moment, as if fighting his own anger.
"Who else knows about this?" Conrad asked.
"No one," the alpha replied. "I didn't even tell the pack council. I thought that if I spread this fear, it would create panic."
I stood up slowly, with Conrad's help. Even though my legs felt weak, I stared again at the glass with the black cloak. Now I knew that it wasn't dead.
It was waiting.