Promised to Wolves

dódeka

Falling asleep that evening was easy. As soon as I had settled myself under the covers and silence had filled the room, my thoughts had gone straight to Andreas. His scent still lingered in my memory and the warmth his touch brought me echoed across my skin. Without any effort from me, my body relaxed into the comfort of the bed and my eyelids fluttered shut, pulling me into a calm and gentle sleep.

He was there in my dreams, waiting for me with his arms outstretched and his golden eyes full of joy. I ran barefoot across the soil, my hands reaching outwards, desperate for his comforting touch and heartwarming smile.

However, as I grew closer towards him, his smile began to crack and his warm skin paled. A single tear rolled down his cheek, and then another, and another until a floodgate was opened and they came pouring out. 

"Artemis," he whispered, his voice hoarse and full of betrayal. "Why?"

And then he was not alone. All around him stood figures, dressed in ethereal white robes with the same look of horror and sadness on their face. 

"Artemis, why?" they cried. "Why did you do this to us?"

They began to approach, their feet gliding over the cracked earth as though they could no longer touch it at all. And as they drew nearer, their faces became clearer and their features sharpened until I knew exactly who they were. 

Mother, father, Marcella, Andreas, Octavia, Titus, Felix, Lucia.

All dead. 

Because of me.

I woke sobbing and freezing cold, my covers cast aside on the floor and my nightclothes crumpled and soaked with sweat. Hands were clinging to my shoulders; cold, skeletal hands with an unbreakable grip. Twisting around, I saw the anxious face of Princess Octavia, illuminated by the soft moonlight that streamed through the windows.

"Artemis, are you alright?" she asked softly, her scarlet eyes not missing the way I flinched as my name left her lips or the way I tried to blink back tears and force a mask of calm onto my face.

"Of course, Princ - I mean Octavia," I corrected myself, as I had been doing since she had asked me to use her name. "It was just a bad dream. I apologise if I awoke you."

She sighed, shaking her head slightly, as she moved to sit on the bed next to me. "You do not fool me, Artemis. You are a good liar, but not that good. You can tell me the truth and I will listen; you do not have to be strong all the time."

Breaking eye contact, I looked down at my hands and began to pick at the dirt trapped under my nails. "I keep on thinking about Cassia - Marcella's promised," I clarify as she does not recognise the name immediately. "Marcella should not have died. It should not have been her. She did not deserve that."

"No one ever does," Octavia murmurs. "But death is cruel and comes when we least expect it. Even to vampires, who can live for ten thousand years before our body fails us."

A tear rolls down my cheek. "She was going to turn 125 years old in two months time. Cassia had planned a surprise trip to the Borealis mountains to celebrate and I was-" my voice wavers as I remembered the ornate dagger I had scoured the entire city of Desmodus for. A gift I would never get to see her open now. "She died 75 years before her time. And I cannot help thinking that it was my fault."

Her grip on my shoulders tightened and she pulled me into an embrace, the coolness of her body calming my stifled sobs. "It was not your fault," she said firmly. "There was nothing you could do."

"I could have opened that door instead. Or knocked her out of the way. Or-"

"No," she cut me off. "You couldn't."