ZINA
"Thank you for agreeing to meet me." Theta Amelia said the moment Seraph left them alone.
Zina was slightly surprised at the warmness of her voice. Was the Theta not supposed to be angry at her for stealing her position with despicable allegations.
Unwittingly, Zina's mind went back to Modrich's earlier words. On the sixtheth birthday of Alpha Belmore WolfKnight, Zina had seen a vague vision of the rising of the WolfKinght's which was in fact a former prestigious pack.
She had told the vision amongst cheers and laughter, and everyone had looked onto that future with anticipation. Zina, herself, had imagined that she would become the Theta of the WolfKnight's in their eventual rising. Little did Zina know that she would be the cost of such visions. Indeed, her spiritual sight loved to play a cruel game on herself.
"You seem laden with thoughts. And I can see you've taken off the blindfold."
"I felt like setting my eyes free."
"You do look better without the blindfold on. Your eyes, they see the world."
Zina was surprised at the turn of their conversation. And because the suspense was killing her, she probed, "Why have you summoned me?"
"Impatient I see."
"Would anyone be otherwise if they were in my situation?"
"I've long been waiting for you."
Zina's breath caught in her throat at the words that sounded like a confession.
"You've been waiting for me?" Zina repeated in askance.
"I will make this quick," the woman said, ignoring her question, "twenty-two years ago, my predecessor told the now Late Alpha King a vision."
Zina tried to act as if hearing that a man that once lived and breathed earlier that night was now late was a normal thing.
"What was this vision?"
"That greatness was born in his house, and that greatness must take a price to survive."
"Who is this greatness?"
"Who he is doesn't matter as much as what he is to fight against."
"What is this greatness to fight against?" Zina asked in a voice tinged with dread.
"The very thing that Salin saw in her visions tonight."
Zina stilled, Salin was the middle-aged seer from that night.
"The deformed," Zina muttered, her voice possessing an otherworldly distance to it, "she also called me the bringer of doom."
"May I tell you a story?" Theta Amelia said with a lightness to her words.
Zina, not knowing how to respond, merely nodded. She had expected her to lash out, scream at her, but instead all Zina could feel was how calm she was.
A calmness that slightly unnerved her.
"Have you heard about how our continent Vraga came to be?"
"There are many creation stories, but we descended from the Great Beast Wolf no?"
"Indeed, there are many creation stories, but the one which I shall tell you is certainly a story you haven't heard for it doesn't exist in a small village such as the one you were raised in. To say in fact, it is a love story. But it is also a very short one."
Zina didn't say anything to that as the word 'love' hovered between them like a deadly whisper.
"The moon once walked a void empty earth, where only things that slithered in the shadow existed. She was a woman, albeit an exquisite one. With unmatched beauty, the things that slithered in the shadow had no chance to vie for her heart, or her hand.
"But the Great Beast Wolf coveted her. Knowing he was no match for her hand as he too was lacking in beauty, he scoured the entire lands in search of a thing worthy of the moon's delight. One day, at the ends of the continent, the Great Beast stumbled on a creature with fine features. Two eyes, two ears, one nose, and one mouth all well aligned. The creature walked on two legs and swung two arms. He had an upper body and lower body each well defined, and to say but the least, he was a very fine thing.
"The creature was called human. And the Great Beast hunted it and possessed it. At will, he could change between beast wolf and human. In human form, he seduced the Moon and laid with her. Before Moon discovered his treachery, she was already pregnant with his child. She gave birth to twins in what was a most turbulent birth. One of her child was peculiar, and had the ability to shift between man and wolf, but the other…."
"What about the other?" Zina asked in the silence that followed her trailed words.
"The other possessed not the fine qualities of the moon, nor the archaicness of the beast wolf. No, this child was a culmination of all their twisted desires; the Great Beast Wolf's greed, and the Moon's titillating rage. The first child was named Vraga and he found our continent, and the other, he was given no name, cast into the mountains to die. They said he cursed Vraga, that of his descendants, once in every decade, he will surely appear, and of the mountain he was cast into, he will surely multiply."
"Does this tale hold any truth in the slightest?" Zina inquired, baffled.
"It is what it is. I hear you foretold Luna Savage's pregnancy of a Deformed?"
Zina was silent at that.
"They're coming, Zina. You shall fight many fights; against the new Alpha King, against yourself, and against the packs who will later chant for your death. But no fight will be fiercer than the one to be fought against the Deformed."
For the first time that night, goosebumps ghosted over Zina's skin as the woman's words properly sank in.
"Who is the new Alpha King?" Zina asked instead in a pained voice, knowing fully well that whoever it was was the person behind her treachery in one way or the other.
"Eldric NorthSteed, the fifth legitimate son of the late Alpha King," the woman said grimly. As if to confirm that she too in fact, was aware of Zina's treachery, she added,
"Are you pained that you accused the wrong man? Or perhaps, you're pained that the price of your false accusation was nothing?"
The word 'nothing' hung between them. And Zina, the girl who hardly cried, felt her tears surface for the umptenth time that night.
But this time around, it spilled.
Her meeting with Theta Amelia could be a set up. An attempt to expose her crimes, and yet, Zina didn't resist the prompting to pour out her heart.
"So this Eldric is the one who murdered the King and claimed his throne." Zina laughed at the ridiculousness of the situation, her tears still rolling down.
The woman was strangely silent.
"Why?" Zina whispered, "why did the powers unknown that apparently control our power to see not expose him?"
A hand rested on her shoulder as if to give her comfort, "I too, saw the death of the Alpha King. That he would die in the hands of one of his sons, but whenever I tried to see what son it would be, a young woman as beautiful as the goddess, with hair as white as snow, and eyes as white as the moon was the one who appeared in my dreams."
Zina's breath hitched in her throat.
"It is you who I saw." The woman added as if to confirm what Zina already suspected.