Chapter 177: Internal War

Maddie Pov

The floorboards under my feet were not wood anymore. They were flat gray stones that went out in every direction until they hit a thick dark wall. I was standing in the middle of a square yard inside my own head, and the air smelled like wet timber and old ink.

"You cannot run away from the house, Maddie," Kai murmured and he stepped out from behind a tall stone pillar. He looked exactly like the sketch from my mother’s silver locket, but his clothes were clean and his boots did not have any valley mud on them. "Every corner of this floor belongs to the high hall line. Your mother sat on this exact bench when she signed the paper."

"She signed the paper because her people were freezing," I shouted and I took three steps backward until my heels hit the edge of a gray block. "She did not give you my mind, Kai. She just wanted three sacks of salt to take back to the timber scouts."

"She traded the white fur line to get through the winter," Kai insisted and he held out a long piece of parchment. The paper had my mother’s name written at the bottom in thick dark ink, and right next to it was a small drop of dried red fluid. "Look at the mark. The contract says the first female child belongs to the north ridge. You cannot break a blood line with a simple valley promise."

A small window opened in the dark wall to my left, and I could see the real bedroom through the glass pane. My physical arms were swinging a heavy pine chair across the space, and the wood slammed hard into the plaster wall. Calix was ducking down near the wash basin with his hands up to protect his face, and his shirt was torn open across the shoulder.

"Maddie, drop the wood," Calix yelled from the other side of the glass. His boots slipped on the broken pottery pieces on the floorboards, but he did not pull his knife from his belt. "I know you are inside the skin. Do not let him make your hands do this."

"He cannot hear you, Calix," I screamed against the stone wall.

My physical mouth did not make a sound in the bedroom. It just laughed with that deep mountain pitch, and then my body launched itself forward and my fingernails caught the side of Calix’s neck again, drawing three fresh lines of blood.

"See how easy the muscle moves?" Kai questioned and he dropped the parchment onto the stone floor. He walked closer to me until his shadow covered my boots. "Your body knows its proper work. You are a peak hunter, sister. You are not a kitchen female who cooks deer meat for seventeen broken valley wolves."

"I am the Luna of WolfTrail," I claimed and I stepped forward until my chest was inches from his coat. "I lived under the pines for twenty years and I never saw your face until the snow started melting. You do not care about the contract or my mother. You just want the white fur power to fight your own brothers at the high gate."

"The power belongs to the father," Kai countered and he raised his right palm.

A small image appeared in the air between us. It was a memory of my mother sitting by our old valley stove, and she was crying while she cleaned the empty locket with a grease cloth. She looked up at my face and her eyes were full of a big secret that she could never get past her lips.

"She was afraid of you," I muttered.

"She was afraid of the strength inside you," Kai corrected and his fingers closed into a tight fist, breaking the image into gray smoke. "She knew the valley could not keep the white line small. If you stay with the boy, the power will just turn inward and rot your bones because the pines do not have enough iron to feed it."

"The pines have Calix," I argued.

I reached out and grabbed Kai by the lapels of his gray coat. I did not use a knife or a spear, but I forced all my thoughts into a single tight ball and pushed it straight into his face. The gray stones under our feet started to crack open, and a bright yellow light flared up from the deep gaps, hitting his boots.

"Get out of my house," I ordered.

Kai stumbled back three paces and his boots hit the stone pillar with a dull thud. The gray coat started to turn into thin black ash, and his yellow eyes went wide like he did not expect the valley force to hit him that hard inside the wall.

"You are breaking the floorboards," Kai gasped and he held his ribs with both hands.

"I am breaking the contract," I told him.

I shoved my palms forward one more time and the stone pillar cracked completely in half, falling into the dark well below. Kai’s spirit went loose and he started to slide back into the gray smoke at the edge of the square yard, but his face settled into a very sharp smile right before he disappeared.

"You won the room, Maddie," Kai jeered from the dark background. "But I left a small seed in the middle of the chest bone. If you push my name out of the veins completely tomorrow, the white fur power will go down into the dirt with me. You will be nothing but a thin human female, and your valley boy will have to protect a mate who cannot even shift her skin when the spears come."

The gray stones vanished all at once and my eyes snapped open in the real bedroom. The heavy pine chair was lying in pieces on the floorboards and the grease lamp was rolled into the corner. Calix was kneeling right in front of me with his hands holding my knees, and his face was covered in dust and dark blood.

"Maddie?" Calix asked.

"I have the arms again," I whispered.

I lifted my right hand and touched his chin. My fingers were shaking hard, but the yellow light was completely gone from my skin and the gray lines on my neck had stopped moving. I could feel my own heart beating slow and normal behind my ribs, but the deep heavy power in my chest was gone too. It felt like an empty box.

"You came back," Calix stated and he pressed his forehead against my jeans.

"He is gone from the gate," I whispered and I looked past his shoulder at the dark window. "But he left a choice on the table, Calix."