WULFRAM

Part V.

...her face is shrouded in shadow, yet he ebbs closer and makes out the pale, mottled skin. Irrational fear washes over him and he feels the pain in his chest, but then her face becomes clear and he sees it is his queen. His pain is one of anguish he realizes, for she is dead. Tears fill his eyes and he reaches for her with his hideous hands-more talons than hands-but he cannot reach her. Her face stretches beyond his reach and then it his mother he is reaching for. Just when he can nearly make out her features he is pulled away. With her recedes his home and his dogs. They whine for him, and part of him wants to summon them to rescue him from these men who are dragging him away, but he knows he must be brave. Instead, he tells his hounds to be at ease, that he will return soon, even though he knows it is a lie. And then he stands before her, the Dark Queen as the people call her, tall and gaunt, exuding a power like he has never witnessed. He feels very much a timid boy, though just days before he was declaring to his father he was man enough to travel to Arnsfeld on his own. "Trust me, it won't hurt so bad," the Queen says, and he nods, too scared to protest. He loves her, he realizes at that moment. So much older, but tall and proud, and so full of life. Beautiful. Never kind to him, but she has taught him much and she is his queen. His master. She's gone then and it is the face of a dreamwielder above him, her eyes as wild as his. I'm sorry, she mouths, and he closes his eyes as his flesh begins to dissolve. All is black and he thinks, perhaps, he will never open his eyes again. It's as if a great weight is on his chest, trying to crush the life out of him. He sheds the darkness away and sees far below him the city of Lon Golier. The harbor is nearly empty, the city people bustle about their business as if they are somehow apart from this war. Their hubris infuriates him, stokes a fire inside of him that cannot be put out. He tucks his wings back and dives. The wind screams in his ears like a war cry. He draws his power from within, from the air around him, and at the last moment he pulls out of his dive and belches fire upon the walls of the keep, burning men alive, toppling an entire wing of the fortress. He is only a raven, he knows, but he is unstoppable. The stench of charred flesh-hair, bone, blood, excrement-fills his nostrils. As the flames wisp away he sees the wake of bodies he's left on a highland road, an entire regiment of Pyrthinian cavalry. Horses, men, all of them dead. This time he's killed up close as opposed to from the air. The surprised faces of the men fill his mind. Even in wolf form, the human part of him comes to the forefront and he is shocked by the ease in which he has killed. More so, he is horrified by the predator instinct in him that relishes the killing. The bodies rot away before him to be replaced by new bodies, new faces. Furred tribesmen from Norgland, their hot blood melting fissures into the snow beneath them. Valarion sailors splayed out on the decks of their ships, which now drift aimlessly in the lapping waters of the Gothol Sea. Stormbringers. Beastcharmers and their coyotes, wildcats, bears, wolves. Firewielders. And monsters like himself-creatures of the Dreamwielders' imaginations. Part human. Part animal. Sometimes something else altogether. He sees all their faces, one after another until he thinks he will go mad with it all. He opens his mouth to scream for them to be gone, but no sound escapes his mouth. His insides seize, then contort, then seize again, and still the faces come at him. For a brief moment he nearly surrenders to the panic and oblivion, but he remembers there's a reason for all this. He wills himself to be calm and when he looks again the faces are gone, all but one. Her lifeless body lies there, pale and hollow. It is not the woman he remembers leaving. Loving. Much of her hair, as well as the left side of her face, is gone, burnt beyond recognition. Her left arm is mangled, little more than bone and sinew. Her captors have taken care to preserve her visage, though. They have to prove to every ambassador and general of the Five Kingdoms that the Dark Queen is dead if they are to have peace. Wulfram knows this. He had to kill five guards just to reach this chamber, and that was coming from the roof of the tower, not from the keep below. It's your own fault, he tells his queen. You were always too damn proud. Look what you've done to our kingdom. Look at what you've done to me. He leans over and kisses her at last. He forces himself to stand up from the bed and is in a different tower now, looking upon young Prince Damero, asleep. The boy is only three, maybe four. In the adjoining chambers are the rest of the Pallma royal family, sleeping. It was the Queen's last command to Wulfram that he kill the ruling family of Valaróz, but the Queen is dead now, and Prince Damero is just a child, the same age Prince Thedric was when the Queen sent him away to the Old World. Wulfram remembers standing aside as she said her last goodbye to her son. "War is upon us and you must flee. Take care of yourself and someday you will be welcomed again. You will return as the king you are meant to be." Wulfram remembers that moment with the Queen more vividly than any other. He remembers the boy's crying face, and as he looks down at Prince Damero now, he knows he cannot kill him. Instead he hurls himself from the balcony, spreads his black wings, and flies south....