Servant of the Moon #1 - unedited draft

The Voice of the Forest by BrunuhVille

Delilah held tightly to her sister’s hand as the water pulled them deeper. Kicking as hard as she was able, she could not swim against the current that drew them deep into the pool. They were drowning. Water burned her lung as she succumbed to the need to breathe. Her broken arm floating useless at her side, but she did not let go of Esther’s hand. If they died, they died together.

Moonlight filled the darkening pool from below and the water rolled them, pushing them toward it with violent churning motions. It was like being caught in a whitewater rapid in a tunnel. The water rushed up and cast them onto the stone floor around a pool. Del coughed and choked and sobbed at the same time, vomiting water from her lungs and stomach.

Struggling, she raised up and rolled Esther on her side. Water drained out of her sister’s mouth but she did not breath. Rolling Essie onto her back, Del put her mouth over her sister’s blue lips and pushed air into her lungs. She did this several times before using her good arm to do chest compressions. Every movement was excruciating for the broken and crush bones of her arm but she did not stop. Four breaths, five compressions. Four breaths, five compressions.

“Please Essie, come back,” Del sobbed as she worked.

Suddenly Essie coughed and gagged, rolling onto her side toward her sister while Del cried in relief. It was only then that Del noticed the gash on her sister’s head was healed and only a thin scar in her hair remained.

“What... happened?” Essie choked out. Her head felt like it had been pounded between two rocks.

“You hit your head, the Moon... mother... they told me to put you in mother’s pool to heal you, and then the Tides pulled us under and brought us here. You weren’t breathing, so I gave you CPR, then you came back.” Del’s words tumbled out in terrified relief. “I begged the Moon not to take you and She gave you back.”

Essie held her hysterical sister as she took in her surroundings. They were in a cave, a still pool under an opening in the roof reflected the stars to peeking in. Then she noticed the Oracle sitting on the steps, a pair of Servants of the Moon on her left. She squeezed Del, who turned to follow her sister’s gaze. The oracle looked so familiar to them but who their minds said she was, was impossible. They gaped at the three, unsure if they were real or another illusion brought on by the traumatic and strange night. The Oracle stood but they could see through her body as though it were made of moonlight.

“Welcome, Delphi Delilah and Wanderer Esther to the Eye of the Goddess.” Their mother’s eyes glowed white, “You have had a long and strange journey through the Tides. Now sleep.” Both girls slumped unconscious.

The Servants carefully wrapped the young, wounded she-wolves in sheets and carried them out of the cavern. Then, with Tamaza, there were a dozen different Delphi from previous generations. The pool glowed with the Moon’s light as did their ghosts in the physical world. All wore the gowns of the highest office of the Oracles of the Moon.

A blonde with light blue eyes spoke, “Did you misspeak, sister? Both of your daughters were born to be the Delphi?”

A dark-haired, tanned oracle with a feather tied to her braid spoke, “Our sister did not misspeak, her eldest has lost most of her power this night. It was traded for the remainder of her time here because her sister begged for a boon.”

An older female who bore a striking resemblance to Tamaza, stepped forward. “It is true, only one of my granddaughters will be Delphi now. We must pray that she is strong enough to carry the burden alone and that the Moon will send her a helper.”

The others murmured in assent, the twin oracles were meant to share the burden of the horrors and sorrows of the time of war, but now one will journey the furthest Tides alone because her sister no longer has the power to follow her without becoming lost. Tamaza bowed her head as they faded away and waited with her mother for her grandmother to join them. Any moment now her heart will beat it’s last and the youngest of their line shall become the nineteenth generation to bear the burden of the Naphtal oracles and the first generation to bear the power of the Sacred Waters alone. Delilah Ayala would be the last of the doe-eyed oracles who speak sweet words and terrible truths.

A young she-wolf sat in a cell alone, she fingered the blades hidden in her sleeve. The Des Rues warriors had not searched her, simply taken her decoy backpack filled with fake oracle tools and left her here. Everyone in their pack was dead or beyond her reach, all but two, a fellow protector and the traitor. Nicole trembled in rage, the traitor was someone very well known to her. Essie had been true when she spoke of a coming betrayal, but Nicole had not wanted to believe it.

Every week, the four she-wolves who had volunteered to be the twin oracles’ decoys met with them. Over the years, they had become good friends with the two young girls upon whom the fate of all the Moon's wolves rested. Nicole closed her eyes and prayed her friends were safe, prayed that a few of the Benjmin and Naphtal wolves had escaped, but the amount of death she felt through the pack link before she was knocked unconscious and dragged here made her prayers seem futile. Monica and Stellina had run and fought to the southwest, fighting to the death.

Petra and she had continued to flee southeast after the warriors with them were ambushed. They had split up after the tornado roared across the territory north of them. Nicole had run a large zigzag swath doubling back on her own path to make the tracking more difficult.

Dawn was faint promise on the horizon when she had been tackled to the ground and punched in the head. One wolf had shouted at the other to not hurt her just in case she was one of the oracles. Her last thought was a sigh of relief that Essie and Del had escaped before she was punched again and darkness overcame her. Nicole was relieved at the memory and prayed the Goddess’ eye was watching over her friends.

She looked down at the beautifully hand-painted nail art that Del had so meticulously done for her at their last meeting. Del had showed them her sketches, one of the pack house burning had caught all their breaths away. It was a day they remembered well. All four of the decoy she-wolves had lost family in that fire. She and the other three should have died that day, but Oracle Tamaza had taken them out to her garden to pick flowers when the scent of strange wolves drifted to them. Images that her 5 year old self would never forget.

Oracle Tamaza had told them to hide in the garden bin. As they knelt in the leaves and cuttings cleaned from the gravel paths, they smelled smoke and heard shouts. Nicole, Petra, Monica, and Stellina had crawled along the flower beds to see the pack house burning with their mothers and siblings inside. They had watched Luna Sari cut the twin oracles from the burned corpse that had been their mother as their father and grandfather wept. They had seen Alpha Isaac defeat the Des Rues alpha, shaking him like the dog he was before Luna Sari cursed the females of their pack.

Images Nicole wished the traitor had seen, because then, perhaps she wouldn’t have betrayed them all. It didn’t matter, now she would kill her or die trying. Nicole was a Benjmin warrior wolf and she would never forget what happened to her family and pack that day, or this day, even if another did.

Hours later, instead of a meal, wolves came to see her. She knew who they were, she had seen them in Del's oracle’s sketches. But she did not care, she only had eyes for the traitor standing behind them... her eyes and her hatred were for her sister.

“Hello, bitch,” Nicole sneered at Tanisha. “Oh wait, I forgot, we’re wolves, bitch isn’t an insult. How about whore?”

“Nic, I didn’t have a choice. They have my mate, if I want to be happy... Some day when you find your true mate you’ll understand,” her older sister sighed.

“I will never understand, ” she scoffed, “They burned our baby brother and pregnant mother to death, Tani. I saw it happen. It was only luck that had me in the gardens and not in the basement with them. SOooo don’t tell me I will understand. I would rather tear out my own heart than be mated into this murdering pack.”

Two growls silenced the rest of her tirade against her sister and Nicole almost bent her neck to the dominance coming from them... almost. Instead, she held up her head and bared her teeth, “Alpha Apostate, Beta Baby Burner, how are the bastard sons of the shit furs today?”

“Nicole!” her shocked sister’s exclamation had her pausing as the Beta growled.

“Enough,” the Alpha glared at her for a moment then smiled, “Perhaps your little sister will be more cooperative if I talk to her. She has obviously been misguided by the lies of your birth pack. I admire her tenacity and loyalty, however misplaced it is. A truce, she-wolf. I will show you that we are not the monsters you have been told.” He made a gesture and two warriors dragged a struggling Petra into the room.

The Beta opened the door and they threw her on the floor. Nicole bent to her battered friend, it was obvious she had been badly beaten. But Nicole knew Petra could give as good as she got and from the looks of the two warriors, she had.

“See, I am not unreasonable. Tell me where they hid the Oracles and you are both free to go, ” The Alpha lied smoothly.

Nicole bared her teeth as she held her friend, her lover, her mate. Only the twin Oracles knew the truth, they had warned them that if they fell into the brown furs’ hands, they would have a choice, die together as warriors or live together as breeders.

Petra looked up at her through swollen, half-lidded eyes, and whispered, “Warriors, my heart.” Her hand fingering one of the blades up Nicole’s sleeves, silently releasing the snap that held it in place.

Nicole nodded and pressed a kiss into her temple. “Always.”

Nicole’s powerful legs launched them both to their feet and they flew at the warriors of Des Rues, killing them. Petra died first at the Beta’s hands, but not before burying her blade into his hip. The alpha had half-slashed Nicole’s throat, but she had one last task before she died. Jerking away from his claws, Nicole flung her knife behind him.

He laughed as his claw embedded into her shoulder and he shook her. “You missed, little wolf.”

Nicole grinned, showing her blood stained teeth, as she wheezed out, “No, I didn’t. The blood of the Benjmin will never be tainted with the seed of the Des Rues.”

Alpha Charles looked over his shoulder. Tanisha was pinned to the wall by the blade in her throat, eyes wide and shocked in death. Another pregnant she-wolf lost and two possible breeders. Snarling, he turned back to punish her, but Nicole’s head was lolled to the side, looking toward the other Benjmin she-wolf warrior in death. He threw her on top of her packmate.

Charles glared at his brother, “Find those twin oracles, my son will need them.” And he stalked out of the holding cells past the dead she-wolf.

Lothaire snarled in response, before limping toward the door. He glanced back at the tangled bodies of the two dead she-wolves. They were beautiful and would have made strong and much needed breeders for the Des Rues, but they had chosen death instead of life, and he did not understand why.

Esther stretched and moaned, her body was stiff and she had a dull ache in the left side of her temple. She turned to find Delilah asleep beside her, but instead of being curled in her usual ball, Del was stretched out, taking up all of her side of the large bed. Essie brushed a strand of her sister’s hair from her face, she looked as rough as Essie felt, and Essie had no doubt that she looks the same, no mirror needed. Looking around, Essie had no idea how they have come to this place or where this place was. Fear replaced curiosity as a cold stone sank into the pit of her stomach. She struggled to remember...

They were running through the woods, just like in Del’s vision. The storm was tearing up everything. Wolves were dying all around them. They jumped over a log and she pushed Del away so when she was tackled the Benjmin-Naphtal blade would not end up in her sister’s heart. A warform wolf tackled her and fell on the blade instead... then pain and darkness, floating, sinking, their mother speaking to them beside a pool of moonlight?

It didn’t make sense. She reached her hand up to the painful spot. A raised line ran from barely behind her hairline to almost the back of her head. A scar.

But from what and how is the wound healed? It only happened last night, or did it? wondered Essie as she pulled the covers off Del and to find what she was looking for. Del’s arm was in a cast. Essie tried to figure it out, she was healed but her sister was not. She looked around at the lavish room; pale walls, marble floors, expensive furniture, silk linens. No windows. Her mind jumped to the only thing she could think of in her muddled state. They had been captured. Her stomach heaved and she rushed into the bathroom. She heaved for several minutes until she was dizzy and weak. A cold cloth pressed to her forehead.

A female she did not know smiled at her with such sadness, it only reinforced her fear.

“Do not be afraid, Esther of the Naphtal, you and your sister are safe here.” Her voice had a strange musical quality, lilting. She was not a wolf, of that Essie was certain.

Esther tried to control her shaking hands as she stood. Putting on a brave front, she demanded, “Why have you brought us to Des Rues?”

The old woman’s eyes crinkled with amusement and she laughed, it sounded like it came from a much younger person. “Come, child. I will show you where you are and then you will believe.”

Reluctantly, Esther followed the female to a staircase and upward. She was led out onto a large veranda, she can only gasp in surprise. They were on an island, in a lake, surrounded by cliffs. No such place existed on Des Rues territory, she had studied their topography with their father, in case they were ever captured.

“Where... how...” Her 12 year old mind was still painfully fuzzy as the woman laughed again.

“Welcome to the Eye of the Goddess.”

“But... but the Eye is across the continent, almost to the Pacific ocean. How did we get here? How long have we been asleep? Who are you and why aren’t you a wolf? What are you?” Esther blurted out the words so fast she wasn’t sure the female would understand.

The woman smiled patiently. “I am Margo, and I am a witch brought in to help heal you and your sister. I am a Servant of the Earth Goddess. You have been asleep for four days, but your sister has been awake since the afternoon after you arrived, and...” she drew a deep exaggerated breath, “We don’t know how you got here. The Moon Goddess did it. Is that all your questions?”

Essie stared at her, blinking rapidly, then smirked, “Not even by half.”

She looked back out at the lake in the impact crater that held the western temple of their Goddess, they were safe. Rapid footsteps, bare feet slapping on the marble floosr only moments before she was tackled by her sister.

“You’re! Awake! Oh thank the Goddess, you’re awake. I thought you were going to die. Then you were healed, and we almost drowned, and you wouldn’t breathe, and then you did but you wouldn’t wake up after mother told us to sleep....”

“Del... Del... DEL!” Essie interrupted, “What are you talking about? I don’t remember anything after getting knocked down.”

Delilah stared at her, tears streaming from her large eyes, “It doesn’t matter, you’re alive and we are safe.”

For now... came the thought Essie barely heard, it was then she realized she could barely hear her sister’s mind through their sibling link and she couldn’t feel the pull of the Tides as she had every day of her life.

“Del, what happened to my power and why can’t I hear you clearly?” Essie demanded.

“Because when you were hurt, the Moon healed your body, but your gift was the cost... Please don’t be mad, please I’m sorry. I just couldn’t let you die yet. Please, Essie, don’t be mad,” Del begged.

“I’m... I’m not an oracle anymore... DEL! How could you do that to me? To you? TO US?” The more Essie shouted, the more her head pounded, suddenly spots swam before her eyes and she collapsed into darkness to the sound of her sister’s regretfully sobbed apologies.