Page 33

Chapter

Thirty-Three

Skoro looks smaller than I remember. Not because of its size, but because now I know how much bigger the world is.

It still sprawls across the hillside with its crooked roofs and uneven roads, and it has the nostalgic feel I’d expect from my hometown.

But it feels different because I’m different now.

The dragons circle once before landing in the field beyond the village walls.

Vash’s landing sends tremors through the earth, which makes pale and frightened faces appear in windows.

Sapphire touches down more gently, but her scales gleam with an otherworldly beauty that makes the watching villagers step back from their doorways.

Harek and I climb down. This time, we don’t enter town through a side entrance.

We march right through the gates.

The wooden portcullis groans as we pass beneath it, and I feel the weight of every gaze upon us. The guards who knew me as Gunnar’s stepdaughter now watch with hands hovering near their weapons. One of them—Baldric, who used to sneak me honey cakes when I was small—won’t even look at me directly.

Conversation buzzes low as we pass. No one meets my eye, but the whispers follow like ash trails.

“Hunter girl…”

“Gunnar’s dead…”

“…her fault…”

“…saw the dragons land…”

“…unnatural…”

I keep my head high. The unified nature I discovered at Courtsview steady within me, wolf and hunter working together to project calm confidence despite the hostility surrounding us.

Harek walks beside me, hood drawn low. He doesn’t speak.

Doesn’t need to. His presence alone is a comfort, solid and unwavering.

We pass the blacksmith’s forge where I once watched Master Torgeir shape steel, the inn where Gunnar and my mother would take us for festival meals, the market square where I learned to haggle for supplies.

Each familiar sight feels like looking at a memory through glass—recognizable but unreachable, separated by the chasm of what I’ve become.

A group of children playing in the square stops to stare as we pass. One of them, a girl of maybe seven with corn-silk hair, points at me with wide eyes. “Mama, is that the wolf lady?”

Her mother quickly pulls her inside, but not before I catch the fear in the woman’s face. Not anger or hatred—just pure, primal terror. The kind that comes from stories told in whispers about monsters that steal children in the night.

Eventually, the farmhouse looms ahead. The same weathered wooden walls, the same crooked chimney that Gunnar never quite got around to fixing, the same herb garden that my sisters tended with such care.

But there’s a stillness about it now, a heaviness that wasn’t there before. The silence of a family fractured.

Runa opens the door before I can knock. She’s paler than usual, her freckles standing out like copper coins, but her sharp, storm-gray eyes light up the moment she sees me. “You came.”

“Of course.” I step forward, but she throws her arms around me before I can say more. Somehow she’s grown taller since I last saw her, nearly reaching my shoulder now, but she still feels so young, so fragile.

“I was so scared,” she whispers against my shoulder. “The things people are saying?—”

“I know.” I stroke her hair, so much like our mother’s. “It’s going to be all right.”

Brynja appears behind her, stiff and wary. Her dark blonde braids are perfectly neat despite the chaos that must be swirling through the household. “The town says Father’s dead and you killed him.”

“They’re not wrong,” I say, voice steady. “But they’re not right either.”

Her brow furrows at my words, but she steps aside to let us enter.

The farmhouse feels smaller, its walls heavy with the weight of unspoken grief.

The main room where we all used to gather for meals and stories now feels like a cage.

The air reminds me of the night of our mother’s death. My throat tightens at the memory.

We move deeper inside. The others are already gathered in the main room, arranged like defendants awaiting judgment.

Torvi sits near the hearth, hands folded in her lap, knuckles white with tension.

At sixteen, she’s always been the dreamer of the family, the one who sees beauty in everything.

Now her blue eyes are shadowed with worry.

Helga, almost eleven now, hovers near the window as if ready to flee. She’s the quietest, the one who prefers books to people, but there’s a sharp intelligence in her gaze that reminds me of Father.

My brothers cluster on the other side of the room like a wall of suspicion.

Bjorn, at twenty, has appointed himself head of the household in Gunnar’s and Leif’s absence.

His jaw is set with the stubborn determination I remember from childhood arguments.

Behind him, Orin glares like he’d throw me out if Harek weren’t standing behind me like a shadow.

The younger boys—Erik at fourteen and Ketil at twelve—watch with the wide-eyed uncertainty of children who don’t understand why their family is breaking apart.

“I’m not here to argue,” I tell them, my voice carrying the authority I’m learning to wield. “I’m here to tell you the truth. And to offer you a way out.”

“What?” Brynja squeezes one of her braids, a nervous habit she’s had since childhood.

I draw in a deep breath, steeling myself for the words that will change everything. “You’re all halflings. Werewolves. Our mother kept the secret from us. She?—”

“You’re lying!” Orin surges to his feet, his face flushed with anger. “Mother would never?—”

“I wish I was lying.” The words come out harder than I intend, but they need to understand. “Leif already knows, and he’s triggered his curse.”

The room goes dead silent. Even the fire seems to have stopped crackling.

Runa’s eyes grow even wider, storm-gray filling with unshed tears. “You mean…?”

I nod, giving her my most sympathetic look. “Yes, he’s killed someone.”

My youngest sister looks gutted, and I hate that I’m the one who gave her the news that has changed her life forever. She sinks into a chair, her hands shaking as she covers her face.

Torvi shakes her head, muttering that it’s unnatural. “Mother would’ve told us. She would’ve warned us.”

“She thought she was protecting us,” I say softly. “She thought if we never knew, we’d never trigger the curse.”

“But you did,” Bjorn’s voice is accusatory. “You triggered it, and now look what’s happened. Father’s dead, and you’re here talking about curses and monsters.”

I meet his gaze steadily. “I triggered it saving lives. And I learned to control it. I can teach you.”

“Control?” Orin laughs bitterly. “You call what happened to our father control? You call leaving a trail of bodies behind you control?”

“I call it survival.” My voice carries the wolf’s growl beneath it, and several of my siblings flinch. “I call it protecting the people I love.”

“By killing our father?” Bjorn’s accusation hits like a physical blow.

“Gunnar wasn’t—” I start, then stop. They couldn’t understand. Not yet.

But Brynja meets my gaze, and I see the calculating intelligence there. She’s always been good at reading between the lines. “What happens if we stay?”

I glance at the windows, where beyond the farm, townsfolk are learning the news. Fear has a way of spreading like wildfire in small communities.

“Then they’ll turn on you,” I say. “Maybe not today or tomorrow, but they will. It’s only a matter of time. Once they start looking for someone to blame, once the fear takes hold?—”

“You mean they’ll come for us?” Helga’s voice is barely a whisper.

“They’ll come for anyone connected to me. Anyone they think might be fae.”

Everyone speaks at once then. Voices overlap in a cacophony of fear and confusion and anger.

“This is insane…”

“We can’t just leave everything!”

“What about the farm?”

“I don’t want to be a monster…”

Runa’s voice cuts through the chaos. “I’m scared!”

I whistle sharply to get everyone’s attention, the sound cutting through their panic like a blade.

The room falls silent again. “You don’t need to be afraid.

I can help you. I’ve learned a lot, and we have protection in a fae city.

The fae themselves will guard us. You’ll be safe, and you’ll be free to be who you really are. ”

“A fae city?” Torvi’s voice carries wonder despite her fear. “You mean like in the old stories?”

“Better than the stories,” I say. “Mirendel is beautiful, and the fae there have accepted me. They’ll accept you too.”

Bjorn steps forward, his face dark with anger. “You expect us to trust you ? After what you did?”

I force myself to remain steady. “He left me with no other choice.”

“There’s always a choice,” Orin spits. “You could have run. You could have surrendered.”

“I could have died. And then who would have warned you? Who would have come to offer you protection? Has Leif told you about being halflings since triggering his curse?”

He doesn’t answer. None of them does for a long moment.

Finally, I look each of them in the eye, one after the other. “Are you with me? I promise your protection. You’ll never have to hide what you are again.”

The silence stretches like a bowstring. Then, slowly, Brynja nods. “I’ll come with you.”

“Brynja—” Bjorn starts.

“No.” She stands, squaring her shoulders. “I’ve seen what fear does to people. I’ve seen how they looked at Eira when she came back. If she’s right about what we are, then staying here means living a lie until the day we can’t anymore.”

Torvi nods next, her dreamer’s eyes bright with possibility. “I want to see the fae city. I want to see what’s beyond Skoro’s walls.”

Runa jumps to her feet. “I’m with Eira, too. She’s always protected us.”

Finally, Helga speaks up, her voice quiet but determined. “If there are books in this fae city, real books about magic and other worlds, then yes. I’ll come.”

But not all. Not one of my brothers agrees. Even the younger ones glare at me with a mixture of fear and accusation.

Bjorn stands rooted. “You brought fire to this family.”

The others move to his side, nodding in agreement. Erik crosses his arms, trying to look older than his fourteen years. Ketil won’t even look at me. Orin stands protectively between them and me.

“You can come with us,” I tell them, my voice softer now. “It’s not too late.”

“We’ll wait for Leif,” Bjorn says firmly. “He’ll come back, and then we’ll decide what to do. As a family.”

The words sting because I know I’m no longer part of that family in his eyes. Gunnar has poisoned my brothers against me, and even with him gone, I can’t reconnect with the boys.

“If you change your minds,” I say, “send word to Mirendel. I’ll come for you.”

Bjorn doesn’t reply, but I see Ketil’s eyes widen at the mention of the fae city. Maybe there’s hope for some of them yet.

When I leave, I take my four sisters with me. They gather their few belongings quickly—some clothes, a few precious items, Helga’s favorite books. Runa clutches a wooden horse that Gunnar carved for her when she was small.

Our brothers stay behind, waiting for Leif’s return. They watch from the windows as we make our way to the back of the farmhouse, their faces pale and uncertain.

The rest of us must get back to Mirendel quickly. We make our way out of a hidden door Harek leads us to.

The dragons are waiting in the field beyond the village, their massive forms dark against the evening sky. My sisters stop short when they see them, awe and fear warring on their faces.

“They’re so big,” Runa whispers.

“And beautiful,” Torvi adds, her artist’s eye catching the way the dying light plays across their scales.

Harek and I quickly help them mount the dragons. Brynja and Torvi climb onto Vash’s broad back, while Runa and Helga settle onto Sapphire. The dragons remain perfectly still, sensing the newcomers’ nervousness.

“Hold tight,” I tell them as I swing up behind Runa and Helga. “And don’t be afraid. They won’t let you fall.”

As we rise into the darkening sky, I look back at Skoro one last time. The village lights are beginning to twinkle in windows, and smoke rises from chimneys in lazy spirals. It looks peaceful from this height, like the home of my childhood memories.

But I know the truth now. I know what lurks beneath that peaceful facade, what fear and hatred can do to even the kindest hearts. My brothers made their choice, and I have to respect it, even if it breaks me.

The four sisters I carry with me are my family now. Them, and Harek, and the dragons who chose to love me despite what I am.

We fly toward Mirendel, toward a future none of us can fully imagine. But for the first time since this all began, I feel like I’m flying toward something instead of away from it.

And that makes all the difference.