The Song Of The Wolf (Unedited)

Chapter Twenty-Five

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Feeling trapped.

An emotion that had only seldomly reared its ugly head in the past few weeks.

Looking at the rounded walls of the tower that had been both prison and refuge since her arrival to Arcadia, Maebh decided she couldn't stay in the room a second longer. She put on her warmest clothes and went outside.

Night had presented itself like the spell of an enchantress, water to stone, earth to iron, green moss to frosted white –as ferocious as a dip in a glacial lake would be. In her monochrome musings, the full moon was a silver orb, sailing in the cloudless sea of space.

Using her phone's flashlight to find her way, Maebh rounded the corner to where she remembered the First Sanctuary to be located and crashed face first into a hard chest.

Two hands grasped her shoulders and abruptly shoved her away. "What are you doing here?"

Maebh felt an involuntary pinch of hurt at the hostility that laced Fillin's voice. Through a crack in the foliage, the moonlight splashed down its watery glow onto his contorted face, bathing him.

"Temporarily escaping that suffocating household of yours." she bit back, then looked down at the bottle he was clutching in his hand. "But perhaps we're in the same boat?"

The prince swigged the liquor, shaking his head as he went to sit on a crumbled wall at a five-step distance. Proximate to a previously unforeseen cliff, the spot offered a vantage point of the valley. Behind him, statues of stone wolves looked as if they might spring off their perches any moment. "Such blinding ignorance."

Maebh frowned and contemplated going back to the castle. Her presence was evidently not wanted. She eyed the amber liquid that reflected a golden hue in the light of night and approached the prince, snatching the bottle from his grip. Raising it to her weather-cracked lips, the fluid sat in her mouth before swallowing, leaving a powerful burn –one that had literally made her faint when first tasting it five months ago.

She wiped the thin layer of snow from the disintegrated stone wall and perched down beside Fillin, passing the bottle of Nectar back to him. She accidentally pressed the length of her arm against his –igniting a slow but fiercely growing heat that spread over her, fluttering through her veins.

"That was quite the mic-drop moment you delivered during dinner," Maebh said, hesitantly. "I-uhh thanks.. for standing up for me."

"It is my duty." He took a large sip, "An unwilling childbearer equals a kingdom in disarray." He related, echoing what Hèmène had also once told her.

Maebh said nothing, in disbelief of her own wishful thinking. Of course he didn't do it because he cared for her, the prince was simply safeguarding his future. She leant forward and picked a fallen leaf off of the nose of her boot, flicking it away.

The prince handed her the bottle and she eagerly necked a portion of its contents.

"So, what's the story of the First Sanctuary?" she asked, keen to change the subject.

"The name speaks for itself."

But Maebh wasn't letting him off the hook so easily and it went without saying that her unwavering gaze emphasised that.

Fillin heaved a sigh. "After my ancestors fled Hibernia, they wandered the Earth aimlessly for decades, in search of asylum. This was long before colonisation and the deadly greed of the white man. The indigenous people of the then 'undiscovered' Northern American continent were understandably wary of the pack of Lycanthropes, but the Kluane people offered them refuge regardless of their own fears. The mountain range we still reside in today, was bestowed upon us. We will forever be in their debt, aiming to repay the priceless gift until eternity ceases to exist. It was here, that my ancestors built the first settlement, the First Sanctuary. As our population increased in numbers, we relocated to the valley and the rest is history."