𝐈𝐍𝐕𝐈𝐒𝐈𝐁𝐋𝐄 𝐒𝐓𝐑𝐈𝐍𝐆 || 𝗝. 𝗚𝗥𝗔𝗖𝗘

1.6

IRENE DREAMED OF WOLVES. She stood in a clearing in the middle of a redwood forest. In front of her rose the ruins of a stone mansion. Low gray clouds blended with the ground fog, and cold rain hung in the air. A pack of large gray beasts milled around her, brushing against her legs, snarling and baring their teeth. They gently nudged her toward the ruins.

Irene had no desire to become the world's largest dog biscuit, so she decided to do what they wanted.

The ground squelched under her shoes as she walked. Stone spires of chimneys, no longer attached to anything, rose like totem poles. The house must've been enormous once, multi-storied with massive log walls and a soaring gabled roof, but now nothing remained but its stone skeleton. Irene passed under a crumbling doorway and found herself in a kind of courtyard.

Before her was a drained reflecting pool, long and rectangular. Irene couldn't tell how deep it was, because the bottom was filled with mist. A dirt
path led all the way around, and the house's uneven walls rose on either side. Wolves paced under the archways of rough red volcanic stone.

At the far end of the pool sat a giant she-wolf, several feet taller than Irene. Her eyes glowed silver in the fog, and her coat was the same color as the rocks—warm chocolaty red. Beside the she-wolf, stood a familiar blonde...

"Jason?" Irene said.

He jumped and turned around, Jason's face lit up when he saw her. "Irene!"

The wolf regarded her. She didn't exactly speak, but Irene could understand her. The movements of her
ears and whiskers, the flash of her eyes, the way she curled her lips—all of these were part of her language.

No time to waste. The she-wolf said. Come, we have matters to discuss.

"I know this place," Irene said.

The she-wolf curled her lip. Of course, both of you began your journeys here as a pup. Now you must find your way back. A new quest, a new start. especially you, Irene. I assume you've been fitting in great.

"No..not really." Irene thought of Drew, and how she felt like a walking celebrity at camp. She definitely did not feel like she was fitting in.

"This isn't fair," Jason said. But as soon as he spoke, both of them knew there was no point complaining to the she-wolf.

Wolves didn't feel sympathy. They never expected fairness. The wolf said: Conquer or die. This is always our way.

Irene wanted to protest that she couldn't conquer if she didn't know who she was, or where she was supposed to go. the words of the prophecy played in her head, The seas daughter shall find her worth.
She found it quite ironic considering she knew nothing about herself. So how could she possibly find her worth? But she knew this wolf. Her name
was simply Lupa, the Mother Wolf, the greatest of her kind. if Irene showed weakness, she would tear her to shreds. Rather than being her pup, she and Jason would become her dinner. In the wolf pack, weakness was not an option.

"Can you guide us?" Irene asked.

Lupa made a rumbling noise deep in her throat, and the mist in the pool dissolved.

At first, Irene wasn't sure what she was seeing. At opposite ends of the pool, two dark spires had erupted from the cement floor like the drill bits of
some massive tunneling machines boring through the surface. Each spire was about five feet tall, but they weren't identical. The one closest to them was darker and seemed like a solid mass, its tendrils fused together. On Lupa's end of the pool, the second spire's tendrils were more open, like the bars of a cage. Inside, Irene could vaguely see a misty figure struggling, shifting within its confines. Irene couldn't make out who it was but she had a pretty logical guess.