The Den of Wolves

[BlackAndBlueEyes]

Solo.

A thick, meaty, sweaty, bloodied fist connected with my jaw, and my vision exploded in a shower of sparks. I spun around before falling down to my knees. My head was swimming, a maelstrom of swirling pain as my body went into overdrive pumping adrenaline through my veins. I could feel my mouth quickly working on repairing cracked bone. It wasn't the first blow that he landed, but it was certainly the one that did the most damage.

Everything hurt, and I was beginning to think that I had made a mistake.

Over the ringing in my ears, I could hear the roar of approval rising from the crowd that circled the fight pit. Hundreds of Radasanth's worst gathered in the catacombs under the city, suffering through the stench of the sewers and each other, throwing gold at combatants and screaming for blood. I could make out the string of violent swears coming from all directions, presumably by those watching the battle that had put a fair number of coins on me to win this.

And somewhere in that gathering, standing silent and still in her robes and mythril mask, a disapproving Hyperion looked on.

I should have listened to her.

I began gathering my strength once more. This mountain of a man that they called their champion circled me, a predatory look in his eyes. He loosened up his shoulders, skipped around a bit, flexed, and generally made a show that I was not much of a challenge for him.

He crouched down, just outside of arm's reach. A sick grin plastered across his scarred face as he taunted me. "Are you going to fight me or what, you little cunt?"

Acid mixed with dark blood pooled in my mouth. It would have been so incredibly easy for me to just spit in his face and fill his intestines with thorny ruilserk vines until they exploded inside him, but that's not what I was here for. I had gotten myself into this mess with my own two gnarled fists, and that's exactly how I was going to get myself out of it.

I refused to tap into her power. I refused to tap into her hate.

I am not her.

...But it would be so easy... It would make everything so much easier...

I swallowed the pool of blood-tinged acid in my mouth and took a deep breath. As I painfully rose to my feet, my vines aching with exhaustion, I was greeted by a roundhouse kick aimed for my face. I was able to get my arms up in time to block the brunt of it, but his leg still hit me with the force of a runaway train. I stumbled back a few feet, trying desperately to regain my balance. The pit's champion charged me, a declaration of war rumbling from deep down inside him and tearing through the assembled onlookers, shaking me down to my bones. This fucker was going to kill me if I didn't do anything.

He leaped at me, his thick hands clasped together and swinging in an attempt to smash my skull into pieces. I had the good sense and enough desperate energy to dive out of the way as he crashed into the space I was in moments before. As I scrambled across the hard packed dirt to put some distance between us, the beast turned and snarled at me.

"Drop the act, Freebird," he roared. "We all know what you are. Are you that much of a coward that you won't reveal yourself?"

I thought about his words for a brief moment. He was right, in a manner of speaking. But it wasn't cowardice at being alienated for my Briarheart appearance; it was the hesitation that came with showing everyone here how much of a monster I truly could be.

But if that's what he wants...

"You got it," I muttered softly as I pivoted against the floor of the fight pit. With as much strength I could muster, I pushed off the ground in a hasty leap towards the champion. As I closed the distance, I let my illusion drop, and revealed to everyone present my horrible, naked visage, and all of the sharp bits, vines, and the glowing amber of my eyes that it entailed.

[BlackAndBlueEyes]

---One month prior, somewhere outside of Tirel, Salvar---



I stared blankly at the smoldering ruins of the small shack I had been holed up in. I felt completely numb; and it wasn't because of the arctic breeze blowing at my back while the moon hung bright overhead.

Everything was gone.

All of my books, all of my research, burned to ashes. All of my artifacts, all of my potions, shattered and scattered amidst the rubble.

Everything I had worked for, all of my schemes and ambitions, were no more.

I had lost everything in a terrible battle with some angelic douchebag who was high off the smell of his self-righteous shit. A delusional being visiting in the middle of the night who saw me as the next stop on his crusade to rid the world of evil. A being who, in his single-mindedness, refused to believe that I had already paid for my sins, and I was not some villainess who was plotting the next catastrophe to befall this world of ours. He could not be convinced otherwise, and made me his latest victim. I was able to fight him off to a stalemate, but not before my cottage caught fire, a blaze that quickly consumed everything inside and underneath.

I wanted to feel a lot of things, standing there in front of the smoking ruins. I wanted to feel sadness, despair, anger, desperation, fury. I wanted to feel them all. I wanted to give him to my basest desires, hunt that motherfucker who did this down, and tear his wings from his shoulders and stuff them down his throat.

I wanted to carve him up like a turkey at the Feast of Jomil and fill those cuts with acid.

I wanted to watch him suffer. I wanted to kill him, revive him with cordyceps, and kill him again in even slower, more horrible, more sadistic ways. Over and over and over again, until there he was left a puddle of melted tissue and steaming blood.

Hyperion had been at my side this entire time. She cleared her throat to speak. "Madison, I--"

"Where the fuck were you?!" I wheeled around on her, my eyes glowing in the midnight, an amber flare of wrath and hatred that burst forth at the sudden provocation.

The briarbane flinched slightly, the moonlight catching on her polished mythril mask. "I... I was on patrol, as we--"

All of these feelings, all of this anger and sadness and fear over what had happened tonight erupted. "And you didn't fucking see him? You didn't hear him? You didn't smell him? You couldn't hear us shouting, us fighting? You didn't hear the fucking house being lit on fire and burning away? What fucking good was your patrol, Hype?" My face was burning with anger. "Fucking answer me!"

My briar-knit fists were clenched, ready to swing at the entire world. My assistant and best friend took a couple steps back. I couldn't see her face, but her movements told me she was frightened by my outburst. "The snow absorbed the sound--if I could have heard it, I would have been back here sooner--" Hyperion's tinny voice shook as she tried to explain herself.

I wasn't hearing it, though. "I've lost everything! We--we've lost everything!" My own voice began to crack. The gravity of the situation truly began to set in. "It's all gone, Hype."

I suddenly felt very dizzy. The chill of the snow against my vines extinguished my flaring anger as I fell to my knees. My chest tightened, and there was this faint stinging sensation in each of my four eyes. I wanted to scream. I wanted to die.

"Everything's gone..."

A sob rang out through the forest, and then another. I buried my face in my gnarled, bloodied hands. My body shook violently in the powder as I cried. Weeks, months... years of shit that I bottled up deep inside, compartmentalized so I wouldn't have to deal with it bubbled to the surface. All of the pain I endured in her service, and the loved one I lost as my ultimate payment for the power she gave me. The hell I went through working for Lichensith in the Crimson Hand. The thousands who died in Eiskalt because of me. The numerous times I started to build a life I was happy with, only to have the fates come in and destroy everything. It all came pouring out, little droplets of acidic tears sizzling in the snow.

I barely heard Hyperion walk over to me, but I recoiled at her touch. She didn't say anything as she knelt down in front of me, blocking my efforts to fight her with calm, efficient movements. She wrapped her arms tightly around me, and rested her head against mine as I relented and buried my face in her shoulder. I grabbed onto her and pulled her close, the only thing I had left in this world. Hyperion, my rock, my creation. There for me whenever I needed her, through the good times and the bad.

We sat like that for what felt like hours.

[BlackAndBlueEyes]

Hyperion and I sifted through the remains of our cabin, found my Archivist's notebook and writing kit, scrounged around for enough things that survived the blaze to fill two satchels, and were at the docks in Tirel by morning.

A quick check of my bank account in town showed that I had just enough money to buy passage for the two of us to Radasanth, and then once back in my home city, enough for room and board for a few weeks while I figured out what the hell I was going to do with my life now.

Neither of us slept at all. Hype didn't need that much sleep, and I was still coming off the adrenaline and emotional highs of the night's events. She hadn't spoken much since my breakdown in the field, when I blew up on her for not being there to help me in my fight with the angel. We had bought our tickets already, and were just sitting in a cafe near the port, chowing down on a light breakfast of toast, eggs, and bacon. The briarbane had her mask set off to the side and her hood pulled up over her head to hide her twisted visage from the other patrons. She was gnawing on a piece of crispy bacon when I cleared my throat.

"Hype?"

She looked up, her amber eyes glowing inquisitively.

I stuck my fork in my scrambled eggs, scraped a bunch to one side, and then pushed them back together. The words were stuck in my throat, but I was trying my damnedest to force them out.

"I just wanted to say that I'm sorry for how I acted last night."

She looked at me for several long, agonizing seconds before she replied. "You don't need to apologize."

"No, I really do," I said with a deep sigh, setting my fork down on the wooden plate. "I really shouldn't have snapped at you like I did. I was just... I was in a messed up way last night, and everything I've bottled up these past few years just came crashing through, and I aimed it all at you." I shook my head. The stinging feeling in my eyes started to come back, threatening to bring a fresh round of tears.

I blinked them away before continuing. "It was wrong of me. You were just doing your job, and I was caught up in the moment. I know there was no way you could have heard everything that went down, with how far away your route took you. You've been with me through an awful lot, and sometimes I forget how much of my bullshit you put up with."

I tried to work out what else I should say to Hyperion when she reached over with a gloved hand and grabbed mine, giving it a tight squeeze. "It's okay, Madison. Really, I promise." She looked me in the eyes, her face blank as usual but her tone carried the truth of her words. "I cannot possibly understand what you're going through, but I know you well enough to know that you didn't mean it."

Hearing her say that took a great weight off my shoulders. We resumed eating in relative silence, while the world moved on around us. Dock workers loading cargo onto merchant ships, families booking passage across the seas, sailors on shore leave having their morning cups of coffee while discussing various topics and playing cards.

Hyperion broke the silence this time. "So, what do you plan on doing once we are in Corone?"

I had been thinking about that ever since we got to town. "I'm not entirely sure," I said with a shrug. "I think I'm going to just lie low for a while. Wait for the world to forget about me. Maybe open up a book store again. Or possibly a tavern."

"But we don't have the money for that," my companion reminded me.

"I'll find a way to make it work," I replied. "I'm sure there's dozens contracts that the guilds have lined up I could take to make some quick gold. Work is always plenty when politicians and royals are at each other's throats."

"And if it isn't?"

[BlackAndBlueEyes]

My fist connected with her nose, smearing more than just her war paint across her face. A loud crack and a short cry filled the room, audible even over the roar of the assembled crowd. The svelte pit fighter, who managed to last twenty seconds against me, collapsed in a dazed heap. A trickle of blood oozed out of her nostrils, drops of which began to collect on the hard dirt floor of the arena.

The patrons of the fight club in the bowels of Radasanth quieted to a curious murmur. I had barely even broken a sweat in the three consecutive trial "matches" I was given. I turned around slowly, taking in the sights of ugly wastrels and criminals and scum lit by torchlight. A grubby, sweaty, boisterous bunch, they had all gathered in the catacombs underneath the city to get their rocks off watching people beat each other within an inch of their lives and maybe make some drinking money in the process.

My eyes settled on the bald man with the glassy left eye and clean black suit who presided over the whole thing. I threw my arms out to the sides and shouted, "So, are you going to let me into your stupid club now, or what?"

Baldy licked his teeth in quiet contemplation before addressing me in a smooth baritone that implied a certain sophistication that was certainly unique in his surroundings. "Meet me in the hallway leading to the warrior's quarters after tonight's matches, and we will discuss matters further."

I nodded curtly before I made my way to the shoulder-high wall of the fight pit. Hyperion parted the sea of scum and reached out her gloved hand, which I gratefully took before she helped me back into the circular stands of the Den of Wolves.