Shades of Grey

GRANYAH— NOVEMBER 1843

I spent more time in Granyah than I had originally intended which turned out to be precisely what I needed. For several months, I thought nothing of the Creatures outside left for me (and only me) to kill, nothing of Evan or the eminent battle that awaited me in Vikka. For five months, I thought only about getting up, going to bed and everything that would happen in between. I talked, I laughed and I had the opportunity to teach the Cambrians about their language, their culture and their historical importance. It was a time of simplicity and friendship alone. For five months, nothing existed outside of the Granyah city walls. For five months, I felt something I had always wanted to feel.

I felt normal.

“It’s a beautiful night, isn’t it?”

Lanek approached me on a bridge overlooking the Granyah River late one November night. I jumped sharply in surprise at his sudden voice.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you,” he confessed as he stood next to me.

“It’s alright; I’ve just got a lot on my mind. Are you ready to return to Acavia tomorrow?” I asked, changing the subject.

“Yes. It’s beautiful here, but I’m ready to return home and start anew. We will sweep away all traces of the Treptiks and restore our culture to its former glory.”

I smiled and nodded, fingering a large Treptik tooth on my necklace. Lanek noticed and furrowed his brow.

“That’s such a revolting tradition,” he voiced in exactly the same tone that Forma had taken months before when I had asked her to retrieve a Trenstor tooth. “Why do you do that?”

“It is a way to tell Creatures that we Hunters deserve to be feared, that they have met their match!”

I spoke in a big, dramatic voice, waving my arms for theatrical emphasis. Lanek laughed.

“What was that tenet about staying humble?” he asked mockingly.

I laughed and looked at him, internally admiring his fetching features. In five months, Lanek had gained nearly all of his colour and musculature back, becoming more and more striking every day, a fact that became increasingly more difficult to ignore.

“Will you be leaving soon after we return?” he asked in a serious voice.

I nodded.

“I must get to Vikka, I need my answers.”

My fists clenched as I thought about entering the city and thrashing the beautiful vampire who had haunted my thoughts since Commencement.

“What if you don’t find him? Or what if he kills you or Forma? What will you do then?”

I looked at Lanek, worry printed over his face and his frenetic tone of voice. I smiled at his alarm and took his hand.

“I’ll miss you too. You’ve been a very good friend to me,” I said delicately. He then broke away, vigorous passion flowing from him.

“It’s just...all my life I’ve been in captivity, taught that I meant nothing and that my people merely provided the Treptiks with the greatest power in the world. After watching five other Hunters fall short of freeing us, I started to give up hope that we would ever be freed of the Treptiks and accepted that slavery was my life, that we must be the sons of Ham himself.”

His face then softened and his emotions became precariously fervent, as if he had never felt stronger about anything else.

“Then, you came. At first I doubted you, but I saw something different in your eyes I knew that you were different! You don’t run from the Treptiks. You work to learn of our predicament, even teach us to fight and allow us the opportunity to take back what was stolen from us so long ago!”

I was touched by his sincerity and I gave a small smile, right before I began to cry once more, unable to hide the feelings that had been growing against my will for five months. He didn’t move for a moment, puzzled by my reaction, and then he walked over to me and took me in tenderly into his sturdy embrace.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to alarm you.”

“No, it’s not that! I have to leave tomorrow!” I said, my mood quickly moving from lugubrious depression to overwhelming exasperation at my irritatingly putrid fate.

“I am leaving forever! Why do I do this to myself? Hunters are to be ambulatory guardians…protect the people from the Creatures while not getting involved… and after what Rodag did to me, how can I be so stupid as to allow myself to feel like this again?!”

Lanek’s hands gripped mine stalwartly, ending my train of thought.

“Your mother did it! You told me yourself that she was once a Hunter!”

“What are you going to do: travel with me and Forma forever and wait to see which of us is killed first?!” I cried distraughtly.

“I will do whatever it takes to be with you! I want to stay with you!”

Lanek took my hands once more and I very much wanted to stay with him as well, but I was all too cognisant of my duty — the duty my mother and father had died to keep me from fulfilling — and all too aware of the betrayal I had suffered before at the hands of a man I thought I had loved.

“Lanek, it cannot be!” I said, tears streaming relentlessly down my face. “I cannot be with anyone!”

“Why not? Why can’t an Elf and a Hunter be together? Does Forma have to die for you to stop?”

“YES!” I shouted in distressed aggravation. He flinched at my sharp response and didn’t speak for a moment.

“Really?” He asked in a soft voice of surprise.

I nodded.

“It’s what I’ve been trained to do, what I was born to do and, in due course, what I have to do. I’m the only one left; I cannot stop until my death. It is my destiny.”

He was dumbstruck as I turned to walk back to my room.

“What if destiny can be changed?”

I stopped and turned back, staring at him. Rage greater than that of Hera rapidly came almost out of nowhere and I strode angrily towards him, gradually advancing with each word.

“If destiny could be changed, then my parents would still be alive. If destiny could be changed, I would gladly shed my weapons and stay with you! If destiny could be changed, Avian-Centaurs would not have attacked the Academy and killed my friends! IF DESTINY COULD BE CHANGED, EVAN THE VAMPIRE WOULD HAVE DIED TEN YEARS AGO!”

I sighed and took a moment to steady my shaking limbs, avoiding eye contact with Lanek, before I spoke again, barely above a whisper this time.

“But destiny can’t be changed.”

I now stood about a foot away from him, psychologically isolating myself with each passing second until I was strong enough to walk away without looking back.

“Forma, wake up,” I said, stirring her small form as she lay on her pillow on the couch. She sat up groggily and stretched.

“What time is it?” she asked through a yawn.

“Just before sunrise,” I replied. “Get up. Change into something with wings. Now, Forma!” I added when she turned over on the pillow.

“Alright,” she relented, flitting off the pillow and changing easily outside into a Volatillius. “What are you doing?”

“I’m packing. We’re leaving right now.”

“Why? Did Lanek do something to you?”

I froze, suddenly overwhelmed at all that had happened and I began to cry again, so much so that I had to stop packing. Forma transformed back to herself, fearing the worst.

“Did he hurt you?” she asked forcefully.

“Worse. He professed his love for me.”

Forma exhaled, as though having expected this, and paused before speaking.

“How do you feel about him?”

I bit my lip, ashamed to admit it.

“I think I love him too,” I whispered in shame.

Forma nodded understandingly.

“You broke his heart, didn’t you?” she said.

“I had to! Forma I...can’t !” I cried, furiously composing a message to King Orion about a fallacious emergency that had come up in a city on the other side of the Espadon Mountains and since I am the last remaining Hunter in the world, I must help. I felt terrible for deceiving a nobleman, but I could not remain in the same city as Lanek any longer. Forma caught this shift in my emotions.

“You can’t or you won’t? I saw the battle in your eyes just now: you denied it, didn’t you?”

“Please don’t patronise me,” I cautioned. I picked up my bandoleer, fastened it around myself and began walking out to the balcony where I leapt to the ground and took a back road out of the city to a forested pathway, not stopping as Forma sustained her inquiry.

“Then tell me the truth, what is really troubling you?”

I turned on Forma and got quite close to her, waving my arms and shouting like a harridan.

“EVERYTHING! The fact that I am not allowed feelings…to be happy…to do what I want! Lanek believes he can travel with me and be happy, but it is a terrible life of danger and risk! He deserves a life of happiness with someone who will always be there for him. He deserves children and grandchildren and someone with whom he can grow old! If he travels with me he is bound to...to…”

I held my head in my hands, unable to articulate the remainder of my feelings. Forma understood and placed her hands on my shoulders.

“You’ve done the right thing. I’m proud of you,” she said, stepping back and changing into a Volatillius and preparing to gallop upwards into flight. I gathered myself and mounted her back, burying my face in her mane as she rose into the air.

She hovered for a moment, but then took note of my grip around her neck and flew as fast as she could away from Granyah, just as the sun began to peak over the horizon.