Promised to Wolves

eptá

I hated waiting.

Waiting gave you time to think, to reflect on past events. It allowed your emotions to spiral out of control as those precious little distractions abandoned you. Instead, grief consumed you from deep within your heart, gnawing outwards and taking control of your body. Soon tears would be spilt and words of pain and anger would be released until you could cope no longer. 

Although my eyes shed no tears yet, I could feel the building pressure of despair and regret inside of me and it took all my strength to keep it hidden. From who, I was not sure. The Princess had been sleeping peacefully for the past few hours, so there was no one to hide my grief from. Except myself, I suppose I was trying to fool myself.

It was not working. No matter how hard I tried not to, my mind kept on thinking about Marcella, and so, in the end, I gave up. She seemed adamant to haunt my every thought, clinging to my mind with her ice-cold claws and pooling salty water in my eyes. So I drove her from the despair and thought back to the day we had met, when death had seemed very far away.

The first thing Marcella did was swing a sword at my neck.

If I had not just spent the past four years of my life in intense training with some of the greatest warriors in the world, I would not have had the reflexes to dodge the lethal blow. But I did, and so she trusted me to fight by her side.

She was my first and only true friend. When I had lived in Lycaon, my obsession with becoming a warrior kept me friendless because the girls were always gossiping and the boys would not play with a girl. But, Marcella was a woman who shared my passion for fighting and so we got along perfectly.

One of the happiest days of my life was when she came bursting into the barracks with a woman clinging to her hand and announced she had found her promised. The vampire, who she introduced as Cassia, was a sweet, excitable woman who had been waiting about two hundred years to meet her promised and the love between them was instantaneous. Barely two months later, they had their union ceremony and officially became a couple.

Without being able to stop myself, I sunk into emotions of despair as I imagined what Cassia was going through right now. The bond between them meant that Cassia would have felt Marcella's death. She would be in agony, unable to truly believe the love of her life was gone. I had seen my mother go through the loss of her promised and it was not pleasant. I only hoped she would not be driven to suicide.

Turning away from the window as I was almost blinded by the sun bursting above the treetops of the forest below, I caught sight of the unfinished letter on the desk at the far end of the room and decided to finish it while I waited for the Princess to wake up.

After an event such as last night, it was required that I send a report directly back to the Lamia Queen and King to inform them what had happened. However, when I had gotten to the part about Marcella's death, I had become too choked up in emotion to continue and had abandoned the report to curl up on a chair and muffle my sobs as to not wake the Princess.

But, it was important I finished the report and so I picked up the pen and began to scribble down how I had failed to protect Marcella and how her murderer had got away. 

Pausing for a moment to gather myself, I took a deep breath before writing the final sentence, politely requesting a replacement for Marcella. It felt so wrong, replacing her so quickly, but I knew it had to be done. So I signed it and folded it up, sealing it with hot wax. It would make its way to Santorini by bird, a far faster way to send a message than by boat.

A rustling of sheets drew my attention and I turned to see the Princess sitting up and reaching for a robe folded neatly beside her bed.

"Good morning, your highness," I greeted her with a stiff bow, lowering my face so she could not see my tear-stained cheeks. "Breakfast shall be here shortly. And I have written to the Queen, informing her of the attempt on your life and requesting for some soldiers."