The Ghost of Adsophel

Eight.

It was because of this obsession that, a year after the garden sessions began, Zach put forth a challenge: anyone who could successfully conquer a blood wolf, and prove it to him, would get to join his upper circle and become blessed by the dragons. "Of course, don't go looking for a blood wolf if you aren't aptly prepared. You will die."

At that point, Zach's upper circle consisted of himself, Thea, and me. But I hadn't drank the blood yet. The thought of it made me nauseous; I could hardly look at the vial without my hands shaking, overcome with that prickling, electric sensation that emanated from Zach.

Thea had only waited a few weeks. She came pounding on our door in the middle of the night, drunk and in a temper, and demanded that he give her some of the blood. After some bickering, he agreed and dissolved a single drop of it into a cup of tea. She drank it, and for three days, nothing happened; then came the fever that had ransacked Zach. Once the last of it had coursed through her veins, her eyes, like his, changed. She used to share my pale green irises, but now they glowed and crackled with pure golden light. It reflected her newfound power: she could grow light from her palms.

The first thing she did, naturally, was toss a ball of light into Zach's face, which stunned and blinded him for a solid hour. She found this quite funny. She could also hang them in the air like lanterns, and when tossed at normal creatures - a poor swan in the garden, say - they were potent enough to kill.

I was happy that she was happy, until she began pestering me to drink the blood. "Zach and I ended up with completely different powers. Who knows how incredible yours will be?" I told her no. I never admitted my fear, but I think she knew. Zach certainly did, to a point where he hesitated to even reference his power around me.

But Zach was desperate for a third demigod. At the same time, he wasn't going to share the blood with any random fool. So he created the blood wolf proposition. Anyone who could kill a blood wolf and live to tell about it must possess incredible physical strength, forethought, and daring, all qualities Zach sought to surround himself with. Especially the former, since he loathed dirty hands or sweat, and Thea preferred to be his intellectual companion rather than a glorified knight. It took two years for the right person to meet the challenge.

Emerson Clarke was a wolf in their own right. I learned this on the day they arrived. I'd taken them to our washroom to bathe, and had a maid dig up clothes to fit their broad shoulders. They were quite handsome, with bowed lips and thick, dark hair that they kept in a thick braid. Every inch of their arms were coated in pale scars.

When I'd led them to the washroom, I went through the steps of explaining how to turn on the bath, where all the soaps were, and then held out the bundle of fresh clothes. Instead of taking them, they curled a hand around my forearm. Their touch was warm, and I pressed into it without thinking. "Stay so I can tell you my story," they said, voice husky. "I'd rather tell it to you than him, if you don't mind."

So I sat on the edge of the bath, and once they had settled into the warm suds and loosened their hair, they told me everything I needed to know.

They were from a tiny village nestled deep in Adsophel's southeastern forest. They grew up with three brothers and one sister in their parents' cramped cabin. Their father kept a small herd of goats in their little golden field, which he used for novelty milk and cheese. Their mother made bead tapestries to sell to travelling merchants, who carted them across Adsophel.

As the eldest child, Emerson helped their father mind the goats, and helped their mother organize her vast collection of glass beads. They kept after their siblings, too, whittling toys for the children out of buttery aspen branches. Emerson had always been quick with a knife, which was good, because there were a lot of woodland creatures that might like to sneak beneath the fence and snag a goat. Passing thieves, mountain lions, conniving fae, and, of course, the blood wolves.