The Lupine Curse: A Tale of Netherway

Stars hung over Calan’s shrine. A waxing moon illuminated the darkened landscape.

Fenris stirred from a deep sleep, his eyes glazed with delirium. For a short, sweet few moments, he felt the blissful amnesia of not remembering who he was or why he was shivering—naked and cold.

Then he brushed up against the fleshy cocoon, and memories flooded in with a river of nightmares; the screams, the sensation of bones crunching between teeth, and the infatuating anger that had provoked it all. The mindless form he was in at least had the sense to return to the shrine—the only shelter he had, containing the only clothes he had, before he turned human again.

More than regretful, more than shocked, Fenris examined the flesh around him in a daze. It had been his wolfish body before, but now was a crib of bone, flesh, blood, and hair. It disgusted him, just as it disgusted the buzzards—even they would not eat the flesh—yet it had kept him warm while he slept.

It was strange to be human again. There was a broken piece of stained glass on the ground beside him, as he picked it up, he realized that’s how he felt: broken, out of place. A sapphire-colored, fractured reflection gazed back at him. Everything was where it had been, but it felt different; his green eyes now looked as if they had endured hours of torture, the unkempt hair was still black, but longer and softer, as was his skin—with a peculiar freshness to it as if he had taken a long bath that had scoured him clean.

And the scar … pulling back the memory of the elf and his runed sword; how he stood fearlessly to him, the glow like a slow heartbeat on the blade. Fenris was transfixed thinking about it, piecing the memories together while he held the stained glass in his hands, staring at himself, but only the face of a stranger was looking back.

The scar was easily the length of his hand, and the width of his middle finger, starting at the top of his left eye and running down, jagged past the nose—the muzzle of his snout before the transformation—and stopping beneath his lips. To his surprise, the wound wasn’t fresh; it had hardened to a pale red hue. The transformation had quickened the scarring.

As he stood up to reach for the clothes he had removed before, nausea crashed over him, and he vomited over one of the crumbling walls of the shrine.

For awhile he stared off at nothing, huddled in a corner, not quite asleep, and not quite awake, either.

Dawn came with numb toes, and a numb heart. Fenris put on the garments James had given him, and thought about Crowshead—hoping the villagers were in good health.

After he was dressed, he was caught staring at Calan’s broken statuette, trying to make sense of his goddess, why she might neglect him so cruelly. At a loss of insight, he snatched up his rucksack, put the dagger into his belt, and descended the hill to pursue the road further.

And though melancholy filled his spirit, it was enough to simply continue walking.

Large plains of green grass glistened beneath the sun. Clouds like ships caught the wind, broke the sunlight asunder, and cast down mountainous shadows.

Through copses of trees, Fenris saw more shrines and more divine markings by human hands in the forests bordering the road he traveled. There were consecrated grounds with stones set in certain, geometric shapes, calling out for worshipers who had long since died, yearning for spoken rites that even the wind had not heard whispered in a long while. This part of the Moonlands seemed bereft of human or elvish life, and had fallen to empty roads without travelers.

At one point along the road, Fenris encountered a statue of Afimer. The elf god, on a pedestal, was as tall as the boy, with a book held in his stoney, cracked hands against his chest. His eyes were closed, hardened forever in deep thought. The Father of Moon-elves, the God of Knowledge, Caretaker of Tomes. Fenris didn’t feel particularly indebted to his own god, but he bowed his head before this one, and thanked him for keeping the Moon-elf safe that had given him his scar, and had even spared his own life, although he wasn’t sure he deserved that.

It was called the Peasant’s Pass, and Fenris had been walking along it for hours. Fenris was thankful for his wools and leathers when the wind picked up and the skies were overcome with grey clouds foreboding of a storm. The sun had just climbed to its apex, and reminded him that he needed to find shelter.

Close approaching was a bridge, and under it, a slow-moving river. Fenris stopped at the top of the bridge, and looked over the crumbling edge to the river that so reminded him of the one by Crowshead—it may as well have been a vein from it. A piece of cobblestone crumbled like stale bread, and plopped into the water, causing a splash that brought a meek grin to his face.

Someone’s shouts turned his head. Fenris saw an elf—a tall one at that—and by the look of his short yet sharp ears, it was a Sun-elf. The race was so scorned in the Moonlands since the War of the Eclipse, to see their yellow complexion was like spotting gold lying abandoned on the side of the road.

The elf was fighting off a pack of cliffside hyenas; their shiny black fur and yellow eyes looked more menacing than they truly were. The pack of four had pushed him out of the forest’s edge and onto the road. They were nipping the air around him while he wielded a wooden practice sword.

Fenris crossed the bridge and stopped at the base. He watched the elf shout at the beasts and club them until they scattered themselves in retreat, yipping and howling. The elf straightened out his outfit and picked off the leaves in his hair. Fenris realized, after some scrutiny, that the elf was actually smiling. He was chuckling to himself in amusement.

Feeling the boy’s eyes on his back, he turned and saw him watching silently. He waved him closer. “Don’t be shy!” he called.

Holding a bloody, wooden sword, his head covered in scraggly hair and wearing ripped pants—the elf hardly looked inviting, or even sane, for that matter. Yet, Fenris wasn’t feeling particularly sane, either, and figured he was no better than a lunatic who clubbed hyenas in forests during his spare time.

“Greetings, traveler,” the elf said when he was close enough. By then he had put the bloody practice sword away, and he didn’t look so crazed. His happiness was infectious—more so because of his expression than the emotion itself—and Fenris felt a grin touch his lips, but once it cracked, his scar flashed with a sharp pain.

Fenris greeted him with his name, and they exchanged hands.

“Call me Ash,” the Sun-elf said cheerily.

“No second name?” Fenris inquired. Almost every Sun-elf has a second name—being mostly highborns, even those that fled the Runelands to attempt a peaceful life amongst the Moon-elves.

The elf’s expression turned contemplative. Something went over his eyes that Fenris might’ve called guilt, though he knew it was more than that. “I’ve long since given that up,” was all he said.

Ash looked two decades older than Fenris. Beneath his rust-colored eyes, he had thin lips quick to smile, but with aged lines more fitted for darker expressions. His hair was the color of gold, and wild from the previous fight. There was something peculiar in the way he held his countenance, like a king who had long since descended from his throne.

“Come, you look more exhausted than I, and that’s saying quite a bit. I know an inn not far down aways. It wasn’t where I was headed, but I’ll accompany you there.”

“Where were you headed?” Fenris asked as they fell into step down the road, and the clouds darkening above them.

“Anywhere,” he admitted, shrugging. “I suppose you’ve given me a destination.”

“Fitting. Why would you give up your highborn title? You are one, aren’t you?”

Ash laughed. “You don’t dance around, do you? Well, we have a long road ahead of us, at least at this pace. There is plenty of time for those … stories, later.”

Fenris sighed, and nodded.

“But, so long as we are on the subject of titles, you may call me ‘Ash the Bard,’ if that feels right for you. Nothing else, and nothing more, please. High-elf Bard or High-elf that … won’t do.” He grimaced, as if it left a bad taste in his mouth.

Fenris met heard a bard once. He had passed through Crowshead for an evening, but got too drunk and vomited over the edge of the cliff, so he wasn’t so sure about those types. “I think just ‘Ash’ will do,” he decided. “Do you know where we are, anyways?”

The elf raised his eyebrows, then looked over Fenris’ face, eyeing his scar for far too long to be polite. “Of gods and men, you were in quite some mess, weren’t you? What happened? Was your village invaded by marauders? Did cutthroats ambush you on a road? Or perhaps a nasty sibling?” Ash laughed at the last one, though he was rather serious, the boy could tell.

“No … nothing like that,” he replied, wishing any of those were the true reality. The sound of their feet against the stone path was soothing. Suddenly Fenris wished he’d never asked about the elf’s history, better to leave that alone and listen to the trees rustle and the crickets chirp as night looms on the horizon.

“Perhaps you were looking for firewood when a shadowcat attacked you. You narrowly escaped with that scar, there, but you were too tired to return to your village, so—”

“Still no,” Fenris sighed.

“Ah I know it!”

“Oh, do you?” Fenris scoffed.

“You’re one of the Cursed, a shapeshifter.”

Fenris’ smirk died, and his jaw slackened to the ground before he picked it up again. He looked at Ash incredulously, stupefied and staring at him like he was his father risen from the grave, there to give him one last beating.

Ash was too amused. He stopped walking and folded his arms, taking in Fenris’ expression like a winemaker breaths in her vineyards.

But there was nothing to smile about for Fenris. The Cursed were loathed creatures. The boy expected the elf to lead him to the authorities of a city, and have him hanged. He’d get a reward for it, too. Either that, or he’d be killed right there.

Fenris had an instinct to beg Ash not to kill him. But when he thought about it, he realized it wouldn’t be an injustice at all. “S’pose there’s no use denying it. How’d you know?”

Ash smiled—the same smile when the hyenas fled, but it was not malicious by any stretch. Then the elf’s eyes wandered to the horizon, to the setting sun setting the clouds ablaze.

Before Fenris could shake him from the deep thought, Ash took out his lute, and began strumming it to these lyrics:

That scar on your face sticks out

like a knife in your chest.

Your hair is too long,

your skin is too fresh.

You’re young, you cannot smile,

you can hardly jest!

Your eyes are weary, and close though they may,

they won’t find rest,

Because there’s a realm at your back

And a beast you cannot repress.

The Sun-elf clapped his hands together and bowed deeply. Fenris could not help but chuckle a little, both at the clunky nature of the poem’s rhythm, but also at how quickly the bard figured it out. “Is it truly that obvious?”

“Oh, that is brash! Brash I tell you! No comment on the piece? What’s a bard without criticism?”

Fenris shrugged. “You were really pushing it.”

“Fair enough. I’ll give that to you. And yes, it is quite obvious. If you need me to write another poem to explain, I—”

“No, no …”

Ash shrugged and put the bag and the lute back over his back, the wooden swords rustling beneath the folds of cloth. They walked on, and again Fenris found himself cutting the silence with questions.

“Are you going to kill me?”

Ash laughed just about as obnoxiously as anyone could, startling Fenris, in all its assurance. “Kill you? What kind of a person would I be, to kill you?” He wiped away fake tears of laughter.

“The kind that wants to save other people,” Fenris offered. He scratched his itching scar, and began to hate himself.

The bard looked at the sky pensively. The sun was setting behind them now, warming their backs. “Did you ever wonder why I carry practice swords?” he asked.

“I really don’t—”

“Because people, especially men, are afraid to dance with strangers. But when you put a sword in their hand, suddenly they want to prance around a whole field! And laugh! And curse! It’s a beautiful thing—dancing. But you have to trick people into it—with violence.” He looked impressed with himself.

Fenris was beginning to suspect the elf was insane. Normal folk don’t spare the Cursed Ones. “Dancing is not something I worry about.”

Ash stopped, and put his hand on the boy’s shoulder. Fenris felt uncomfortable, but let his large palm sit there. “I know, I know. But what you’re worried about is … it’s madness!” the elf exclaimed. “You’d be better off thinking about dancing, the trees, or some other thing. I’m not sure why you dwell on this pain when it’s far easier to simply … not.”

Fenris raised his eyebrows. It seemed lazy. Almost as if he had an innate responsibility to consider the pain he was feeling, process what he’d done to those poor villagers, feel the guilt—even hate himself for it, at the very least—and try to understand fully what this form would do to him.

“There’s a whole world around us. Embrace it. Think no more on whatever it is that makes you scowl so much, Fenris. You’ve got clothes, a dagger, and a scar to scare off some folk far worse than yourself. That’s more than most, to begin with.”

Fenris grunted at that. “S’pose so. Not that I deserve any of it,” he said, pushing his point.

They stopped again, the Sun-elf’s composure slipping. He stared up at the clouds. “Look, Fenris, don’t think because you’ve dealt a few scars and gotten one yourself that you deserve some punishment, whether from a god or yourself or something else,” he sighed.

“I’ve dealt more than scars,” Fenris said.

“Then murder, hmm? You murdered someone?”

“Slaughter,” Fenris corrected. “Have you ever seen a werewolf, Ash?”

The bard scoffed, which made Fenris scoff; he was trying to belittle murder, after all. “No I haven’t. But I doubt that—”

“Of course you haven’t!” Fenris erupted; the flash of anger feeding off of something more than just his human emotions. “Because everyone who does see one either dies or is torn apart on the inside. They’re scarred. We’re demons, Ash! Demons!” Even in that moment, the elf thought he might’ve seen a sort of fire—a nearly tangible flame—in the boy’s eyes.

Ash sighed again. “You’re not a demon, Fenris. You have many demons to fight inside yourself, but until you give into them, you yourself are not one. You know what that scar on your face is? It’s a reminder, nothing more, and nothing less. You attacked people, and one of them left a mark. But to kill yourself afterwards is only adding to this ‘slaughter’.”

“Killing myself …” he repeated thoughtfully. “It would do good. I’ve only shifted once, Ash, and already I lost count of the deaths.”

“Your first time?” he asked, almost swayed to pessimism.

Fenris nodded.

Ash looked at his feet for awhile, watching them step by step. Then his head came up, and just like a sunrise, he was back to normal, which Fenris was quickly learning, was impossibly optimistic. “But I haven’t killed you yet. And you haven’t kill me yet! Doesn’t that say something?”

“It says the gods are foolish enough to put a kind-hearted bard on my path instead of a cutthroat, who’d sooner end my life for a rucksack and a crust of bread. Better I die on the side of this empty road than—”

“Gods dammit!” Ash shouted, shoving him.

Fenris was surprised when he felt his head slam against the ground, and stared up with swimming eyes.

“There’s already enough darkness here, in this world, in our hearts! Why are you inviting more with self-pity? Gods, be grateful for something!”

“Something?” Fenris huffed, repeating the word to a whisper. “The last of everything was taken from me. My family, home, my closest and only friend. Do you have any idea what it feels like to tear an arm off someone? I do! Tell me, please, what is my ‘something’?”

Ash’s dagger glittered from the sun as he drew it, and in a single deft motion, sliced Fenris’ hand—held outwards as he explained himself.

Fenris cursed, withdrawing his left hand and clutching it tight. “Changed your mind about killing me, did you?”

“There’s something to be grateful for, dammit. If nothing else, it’s that.” Ash pointed at the blood dripping from the wound, dripping with the bard’s anger as his voice simmered to a calm, empathic tone.

With the bard’s words, Fenris’ heaving chest began to rise and fall steadily, perhaps because his thoughts turned instead toward the sharp pain. He looked at his hand, slightly ashamed, while the blood pattered onto the path.

“I’m sorry,” Ash said, quiet as a whisper, sheathing the blade before helping him up.

Fenris wiped away an escaped tear—foolishly, with his wounded hand—making his face an awkward mess of tears and blood. “You don’t need to apologize,” he murmured. When he said that, more tears started to come.

Ash’s face turned a shade of remorse, and didn’t leave that way for the rest of the evening. Dark memories fogged his eyes. He was lost for a moment staring at Fenris’ hand. “I shouldn’t have done that,” he said finally.

Fenris was back to his silence.

“I didn’t mean for it to cut so deep. Let me look at it.” Ash grabbed for Fenris’ hand but the boy wouldn’t let him.

“It’s fine,” he said stubbornly, angry at himself for letting the emotions go.

“No, it’s not. You’re leaving a trail of blood. Let me see it.” Reluctantly, Fenris raised the limp hand.

Behind them, the low sun cast their shadows tall upon the road: two dark silhouettes, bent over each other, the tatters of torn cloth swaying as they were wrapped around and around a shadowy wrist, and a substance slipping from those tatters, to fall and disappear as they reached the ground.

The day faded to twilight. Behind the clouds, thick blankets of stars stole away from the beauty of the forests around them. Ash could sense the feeling of company as the road drew on. They were approaching civilization: inns, towns, cities and monuments to gods; all of them were filled with traveling folk of Netherway. To the bard, no matter where it was, it felt like home.

Fenris, on the other hand, was just barely stumbling along. “Where is this taking us?”

“I already told you: an inn.” Ash smiled, looking at a few shadow cat cubs playing in a circlet of trees, their glowing eyes alight as they tumbled over soft fur and tiny, violet paws. “It’s called Hallowed Harvest. The folk there are all mismatched. You’ll fit right in … well, if don’t tell them about the Curse, then you will.”

Suddenly, the elf realized how quiet it got, and turned around to see Fenris sprawled on the ground with his face buried in the dirt.

Ash rushed over to him and began to prod and call his name, to no avail; the boy stirred a little, and murmured, only to drift into a deeper unconsciousness.

When the boy didn’t move, he lifted Fenris into his arms and began sprinting down the road …

And he didn’t stop until he saw the face of the inn, windows aglow, in the distance. The doorway beckoned him with light in the cracks. Shadowy patrons were inside, dancing, clanking tankards together, throwing their heads back in raucous laughter.

The Sun-elf leapt gracefully, despite the boy and his pack, over the wooden fence bordering the inn’s yard. Beside the door, a post bearing the wooden sign Hallowed Harvest swayed in the autumn wind, with pumpkins and vines engraved in the wood.

Bursting through the door, warm air greeted him.

The whole room hushed. A satyr enjoying a tankard of ale and a dancing partner stopped; two adventurers who’d laid their swords aside to brawl, were frozen with their collars both stuffed in each others’ fists; a man who had been burying his face in a woman’s chest suddenly stopped and glanced at the disturbance—indeed, even he was distracted; and in the far back, two Moon-elves discussing arcane magick looked up from their tomes and half-moon reading glasses.

It was an awkward moment.

Perhaps he would have looked better in armor.

In his sudden heroism, the Sun-elf had forgotten his kind was not welcome in the Moonlands. The two elves at the back shared a look of disgust with each other, while the rest participated in what seemed like a passive aggressive silence.

“Evara!” Ash exclaimed in a hushed tone, all too happy to see her face.

“Look what the elf summoned in,” the innkeeper murmured, coming from behind the bar. “You know, Ash, I love you, but gods be damned if you’re good for business.” Upon looking at Fenris, a motherly expression immediately stole her face. Her rosy cheeks were stained with grease, as well as her hands, and an apron that had once—many years ago, for at least one day—been white. As she shifted her weight on boots that laced far up her shin.

Before she inquired further about the elf’s surprise, she turned toward the hushed inn. “You ignorants. If there’s another sour look from any of you, the only drinks that will be served will be in your faces. Get back to your business.”

It took a few moments, but the crowd warmed up, and went back to their revelry.

She turned toward Ash with a tenderness more natural to her than breathing. “Is this your son?” she chuckled, looking at the boy.

Ash stepped through the door entirely, and began to duck into a hallway that led to a staircase. When they were alone, they stopped and stared at the boy, trying to piece together a story just from the sunken look in his closed eyes.

In truth, the boy was nearing a death so many Cursed face after a transformation, whether it is their first or last, or both. It drains them.

“No,” Ash said. “I found him on the road leading to your inn.”

“He’s wounded?” She eyed the bandaged hand after the scar on his face.

“I suppose so,” the elf said, shrugging”

Evara looked at him with a raised eyebrow. Her own eyes, brown and large enough you could see a bit of yourself in their dark mirrors, elicited more from the elf. “He was a little crazed when I met him. A little lost. Maybe a thief took his things.”

“Ahuh,” she shook her head, unconvinced—knowing the bard’s history. “Regardless of mystery wounds, you’re going to need a room for a few days. Or, at least he will. But this isn’t a chapel, Ash. No healers, here. Just water and food.”

“That’ll have to do. And why not? Since when was food and sleep a bad idea? Gods’ Rest is a long ways away. And if the gods need rest, well, I suppose a peasant can deserve a bit, too.”

The sound of someone’s fist smashing into a skull elicited a roar of applause and shouts.

Evara snorted. “You think anyone at Gods’ Rest could help him? That whole city is a brothel! The healers there would suggest a nice night with a wench and a tankard of ale for the best medicine.”

Ash nodded his head toward the motley, drunk group behind him, smirking. “Is that such a bad idea? ”

Evara rolled her eyes. “Come on, let’s get him in a bed.” She led him upstairs with a door at the top. With it shut behind them, much of the noise of the inn drowned away, though there was one room with a view of the inn’s entrance, and some of the revelry leaked from there. At least, here, they didn’t have to shout over the noise.

“Thank you, Evara. He won’t be here long.”

“You have knack for picking up broken things. As long as you keep them returning as customers when they’re healthy, I’m fine with it,” she winked. Ash smiled.

Evara (who appeared to be a barmaid but was truly the innkeeper), withdrew a set of bronze, gold, silver, and iron keys, and looked at them pensively. Deciding on a silver key, she led him through the hallway. Inside, it was much larger than it appeared. The halls twisted in many ways, so much so as if to hint at spell obscuring the outside view of it.

“This should do,” she said, turning the lock and opening a creaking, wooden door. Inside, the moon fell through in curtains on simple design of the inside: two nightstands bordering a bed, and a dresser. She whispered a word into a runed lamp on the nightstand, and its dim light flickered to warm the wooden walls.

“Never underestimate a barmaid for lesser magick,” Ash murmured as he lay Fenris down on a cotton bed.

The bard set his bag down, and rummaged for a good while, searching for a small sack of coins.

“You can take the room for as long as you like,” Evara said.

It was a good thing. “Oh, thank you,” he replied, finding the sack, which was bereft of the coins he had imagined inside.

It was only when he turned around that he saw Evara sitting at the bedside, stroking Fenris’ head and looking rather maternal. “What do you think happened to him?” she asked.

Ash didn’t want to lie—not ever—but he couldn’t tell her the truth just yet. “I don’t know,” he said again. “I think he’s fatherless,” he added.

“A bastard?”

Most likely dead. “Perhaps.” Then Ash saw Evara getting lost in her head with more questions, and thought better to interrupt them. “I can’t expect to take one of your nicest rooms. The boy won’t even enjoy the feather pillow, he doesn’t know where he is.’

She waved away the comments. “I’m not going to put a sickly boy in one of the iron key rooms.”

Ash made a sharp sound as he sucked in through his teeth, making the innkeeper chuckle. “Well. Best let him rest. I’m sure he’ll be on the mend soon enough with this bed—”

“—and soup. I have soup with herbs down in the kitchen,” she added.

Ash rocked on his feet, nervous that the truth of the boy’s nature would come out soon; the moment that happened, he wasn’t sure Evara’s motherly affection would go so far as to make her risk the lives of all the patrons in the inn.

“Speaking of the sick … how is your father?” That ought to do it, he thought, wearing a slight grimace, as if it pained him to ask.

Her hand stopped going through Fenris’ hair. “He’s not doing so well.”

“Bedridden?” he asked.

“Dead,” she replied.

It had been a few weeks since Ash visited the inn, but no longer than a month. This was unexpected. He stopped rocking his feet. “I’m … ”

She held up a hand. “I knew it was coming. Anyone who knew that man knew it was coming. He’d had too much of his own brew for his own good, or at least that’s what I hear people say at the tables.”

“He was a good man,” was all Ash could murmur that seemed appropriate.

Evara didn’t need the words of consolation. If she hadn’t known Ash so well, she would have been insulted with his inability to come up with something more creative. For a bard, he was awkward with words. “S’right. Say no more on it. Come on, I’ve got a fish pie downstairs.”

With the aforementioned fish pie and a tankard of ale, Ash was at the bar, trying to ignore the dagger-like looks from other patrons.

“I can’t thank you enough, Evara,” he said in an attempt to disrupt the silence, scratching a pointy ear of his, when he caught her brooding. “I thought for sure, that when I found him, he was dead.”

“It’s a curious thing. You’d think that the thief would have killed him.”

Ash felt a pang of guilt. She was stuck on the half-lie he mentioned at the door. “Why do you think it’s a thief?”

“Who else would’ve done something like that?”

Ash took a long swig and, through a mouthful of fish pie, said, “I don’t know.”

Evara averted her eyes from dirty dishes and stared at him, a little too knowingly for his taste. “You’ve said that an awful lot tonight.”

He grumbled at the pie slice, his appetite gone. The lie had run its course.

“Out with it. What’s his story, truly?”

“The boy’s a Cursed One.” Ash winced.

Evara nodded, gravely, and then started shaking with laughter that grew louder, until the whole inn had taken a glance at her before returning to its usual business. But Ash remained still, staring at the abyss of his ale, thinking it would be best if it swallowed him up.

When the laughter dwindled to a smile, Evara looked expectantly at the bard to tell her the real story. But soon the expression soured, and her skin went a lighter shade. “… Oh, gods. That is his story, isn’t it?”

“Well, a small part of it, I suppose—”

“What were you thinking?” she hissed at him. “Why didn’t you kill it? How did you even find out? Did you talk with it?”

“It? He’s just a boy, Evara,” Ash said calmly.

“That’s no longer a boy. That’s a hand of death sleeping in my room upstairs. Do you have any idea what those creatures do?”

Ash nodded and finished the last of the ale. He’d heard his fair share of stories. Most of the Curse had been driven from the Runelands, though it lingered—almost like a dormant animal—in the hearts of men, in the Moonlands, appearing rampant and thriving like a passing season n every few years. This year, there had been few to be rumored lingering in the lands. Still, that doesn’t mean you want one sleeping down the hall from you.

“We can’t leave him the way he is,” he pushed, “that boy is dying on the inside, I saw it with my own eyes. He’s hardly a man, yet that light of his is coming to a hasty end. He needs someone.”

“Of course he’s dying! And thank gods for that. The less we see of those beasts the better.”

Ash resisted the urge to grasp her wrist. “I’m going to help him. He’s not lost to it, yet.”

“No one can help him, Ash!” She sighed deeply, then rubbed her temples. “You think you’re helping him, but you just can’t see it—you’re trying to help yourself!”

“Myself? Evara, what are you saying?” Ash asked, though he knew perfectly what she was implying.

“What about the leor you helped from poverty? That half-bat is a duke now, Ash! And you, yourself are two steps from a beggar. And … and that elf with the moondust addiction. Are you going to tell me you saved those people from death for their own sake, alone?”

“Yes!” he laughed. “Is it so difficult to believe someone does good deeds for the sake of those people in need?”

Evara gave him another knowing look. It melted the elf’s guise. He sank under the weight of his shoulders. “But I don’t know!” he shouted. “But does it really matter why I do it?”

“You can’t save this one, Ash. The boy is lost. And what about the wound on his hand? Where does that detail fit in with his story?”

“I … he needed a lesson. He was getting angry.”

“Or, you needed a release. This time, Ash, you should’ve regressed and killed the poor bastard. You stopped at the hand, and should’ve finished with the heart. Just look at his face, for the gods’ sakes, have you ever seen such a ghastly wound on someone so young?”

“Precisely! There is something different about that mark he bears.”

“Mark? It’s a scar,” she said, looking at him, deadpan.

Ash leaned in closer. “There is an air of intention in the way he earned that. I felt it, as I ran here. Elvish magick, engraved in his very skin, and it’s protecting him.”

Evara shook her head. “Now you’re really talking nonsense.”

“Listen! It is much like a sigil. Energy stored inside an engraving, but it’s upon his very skin. Whoever dealt that scar upon the boy wanted to do a little more than scare him off.”

She sighed deeply, looking for something to tell her what to think. “You know, Ash, whenever it came to you, your past, or whatever haunts you, I let it be. I didn’t mind, because I knew you had changed yourself. How you live is your business, not mine. But when you bring in someone like that,” she pointed upstairs, “then it becomes my business. Look around you, there’s a full tavern of healthy folk just looking to enjoy a night of food, drink, and maybe if they’re lucky, a shared bed. They didn’t come here to be mauled. If you stained the sheets of that bed you laid him on with his blood, this very evenin’, I wouldn’t mind. Better to wash out the stains of one person than two dozen.

“Even if there is something about him … a spell of protection, a mark, whatever you may call it. Do you truly believe it’s strong enough to give him strength to battle with such a damnable curse? It’s not as if I’ve ever seen such a thing. How do you expect me to believe it?”

“I am certain. It’s an old magick, for runes and carved symbols. If you’re so doubtful, I can show you myself. When I was growing up, I was taught basic magick theory.”

She turned, and started washing dishes again, thinking it through, watching the water wash away the grime on her hands. Then, she shook her head. “Even if it was true—”

“When I held him in my arms,” Ash persisted, “I sensed something else, too. Even without that magick, I think that boy has strength enough, just in his heart. Can’t you give him time, at least a few days? I’ll help him recover just enough so that he can move on from here. I beg you, Evara. You won’t have to see us ever again, if you give him this time, I’ll never step on your doorstep again, I swear by it.”

She sighed again, putting her hand over his. “You place too much hope in strangers, you like to watch them stand up against what ails them. Haven’t you ever considered that the people you help, find strength in you alone? And … It’s not you I want gone. It’s him, the danger. You understand?”

“You don’t understand. He’s not the way the stories say, Evara. I walked alongside him, I carried him. When the Cursed are human, well … they’re human. And in that form, he’s just a poor soul like the rest of us, trying to find his way. How can’t you see that?!”

She shook away the comment. “You know I heard all it takes is one scratch. Could you imagine: one day you’re making love to a ‘man’, and the next you’re tearing apart your family because he scratched you during it.”

Ash guffawed. “That is ridiculous!”

She groaned. “The truth is no one knows! And I hear too many rumors about those creatures just from behind this bar to feel safe with him here. The truth is, if only a handful of those rumors were true, we’d still be in trouble.”

After Evara’s exasperation was plain, the discussion sunk lower than the elf’s spirits. Between the two was a long silence.

The Sun-elf left Evara to her thoughts, and mingled with the patrons of the inn. Even at this late hour, many of them were still awake—drinking, talking, snoring at the tables, or plucking at an instrument. The revelry had calmed like a roaring fire, and now the embers were what remained. Ash conversed with the tired and drunken lot for some time, became quite drunk himself, and then ambled up to a room Evara lent him, muttering to himself about broken, hazy pasts that he couldn’t forget in just one evening of drinking.

Hallowed Harvest wasn’t a lonely place—not when it was filled with patrons, and not when it was entirely empty. The almost constantly burning fire in the center of the room cast soft light upon everything. After all the tables had been wiped down, the dishes cleaned, and the fearful thoughts nearly purged from her mind, Evara sat down in front of the fire, holding a cup of warm cider and letting the hot iron of the cup warm her slender hands.

There was a considerable amount of coin collected, from both the food and the songs Ash sung. Despite knowing that a Cursed One was sleeping soundly on the floor above, Evara felt content …

And curious. Curious enough to leave the cider by the fire and see to Fenris. More than curious, in fact; she was feeling compassionate. A sick boy is a sick boy, after all, she told herself as she tiptoed up the stairs, balancing a tray with broth and bread.

The thought that she had run her hand through his hair had haunted her for hours that night. Yet, she thought, here I am, going to feed the poor soul. Perhaps it was her feeling empathic of Ash’s overwhelming sense of charity, or maybe even the magick he spoke of when he had touched him.

As she went through his door, she could not step away from the thought that it was, perhaps, just the curiosity of wanting to see someone so damned.

Her heart raced in the dim light of the runed lamp, cast upon his sleeping face.

Within arm’s reach of Fenris, the thought did not disgust her so much. Before long, her hand was in that familiar position, on his forehead slightly damp with sweat, and running her fingers through his black hair.

He was feverish.

It felt as if she had been hearing ghost stories her whole life, and now there was one before her, looking not half so frightening as all the nightmarish tales claimed. If anything, she felt daring touching his hair. And as his lips parted to sigh through another step in his dreamscape, the strangest urge came over her: to kiss him.

The urge was brushed aside as she considered the excitement of it all—finally being with a creature that had the ability to shapeshift, and finding the creature utterly human and vulnerable, instead. She set the tray down, sighed, and started for the door.

“Mother?”

She jumped. Fenris’ voice was grated, deep and unused from the long rest. When she turned to face him, his eyes were looking at her. They were not burning, as they did in the stories. They were glazed—the eyes of the sick—and looking at her deliriously.

Evara had the same auburn hair of his mother. “Y—yes?” She was unsure what to do.

“Why did they take you away?”

“I’m right here … no one took—” she whispered softly, sitting down.

“They took you away,” he said, before letting his head fall back into the pillow, and his eyes to close.

Evara covered her mouth to suppress any response that might stir the boy again. There was a thickness growing in her chest, rising in her throat and growing. For no reason beyond sympathy, she felt like crying.

The boy murmured something else into his pillow. Evara leaned closer to hear, her fear banished by his weak appearance.

“I am not myself,” he whispered.