Chapter 7: Tangerine Soul Stone

Lara cracked the door ajar and peeked out. She took a last look at the man and chuckled when she saw how his mask was wrapped around his neck loosely. She closed the door behind her and stepped out.

The few sconces that lit the corridor had dimmed, producing only a dull light that lined the hall. She waited for a sound, anything, to caution her, but heard nothing — only the rhythmic drumbeat of her panicked breath. She glanced left and right, and when she saw that was alone, she scurried down the walkway. At its end, she found a deep stairwell leading down. A sense of foreboding hit her, and goosebumps rippled across her flesh. She felt like returning to the bedroom but didn't. How could she take such a chance with someone she did not know? What if the guards caught her? What if the King caught her? She was a spy, after all, from the monastery — a place that was considered sacred amongst all the kingdoms. The place where the werewolf kings came to offer their prayers and sacrifices. If the King came to know that Menkar had sent her, the monastery's name would be in shambles. However, a thought rattled her. What if Menkar denied who she was?

She exhaled sharply and then fled down the stairs. They took her to a landing in front of a thick wooden door with ornate carvings across it. It was ajar, and she could feel the rush of a warm breeze on her body. True to what Petra had said, when she opened the door, she found a garden surrounded by tall oaks and poplars. She scanned the garden for an exit —a gate, perhaps, or even a gap in the hedges that lined the garden's walls — but other than the dense trees, she could see nothing else. Her only way out was through the dense forest that lay ahead.

Lara darted across the garden toward the thicket, her feet falling on soft-cushioned grass. She had to find her handler. If she didn't, she would never be able to reach Cetus. She didn't know the way. This was the first time she had been let out of the monastery in almost a decade.

Her breath cut like a knife as she raced through the copse of trees, entering the stark forest as fast as her bare feet could take her. Twigs snapped beneath her and she jumped at the sound. Afraid that the bloodhounds would be after her, or, worse, the palace guards, she hated now, more than ever, that she could not shift into her wolf form.

Most of her kind shifted for the first time when they turned eighteen, but some had shifted earlier, too. In the monastery, the priests could figure out who would shift early and who would not. They assigned the jobs to the people accordingly. Those who never shifted, or who had lost their wolves, were enslaved. They worked in the kitchens, did the laundry, cleaned the latrines, and scrubbed the floors.

Those who could shift, on the other hand, became warriors and scribes and held far better positions, far better privileges. They were served… royally… and they had the authority to belittle and beat the non-shifters.

The priest she served, Menkar, was the High Priest, the most powerful priest of Cetus Monastery. He insisted that she would never shift into her wolf, and so she was made a slave. He had brought her to the monastery for a handful of coins from her grandmother.

She ran as fast as she could, diving deep into the forest. She turned right, hoping to find an exit, but all she saw were trees that grew ever more thick. Low hanging branches snagged her dress like desperate hands, but she couldn't slow down. She dared not to slow down. Not if she had to escape the palace grounds before the coming dawn.

She trekked between thick and slender trunks, her feet bruised by the crunch of the twigs. Her white gown pulled each time it was snatched by a thorny bough. She pulled at it hurriedly, ripping it apart. It didn't matter. She would not let that stop her.

All her life, she wanted only one thing: Her freedom from Menkar. She failed.

Memories assailed her. She was five years old when her parents died, and a mystery still shrouded their tragic demise. The villagers had handed her over to her grandmother, who would spend her evenings in the alehouse, begging for liquor. Her grandmother had hated Lara, scolding her or beating her every day. Just because she couldn't take care of another stomach, not when she could barely feed herself. And not only that, her grandmother loathed her because, according to her at least, she wasn't even her grandmother.

Little Lara never understood the complications of life, but she had been terrified of the Various priests with an aquiline nose who had assessed her from top to bottom and traded her from her drunk grandmother for only a handful of coins which must have lasted no more than three days of drinking for her grandmother.

Then, Lara was seven. She was bunched up into the back of a carriage by a hunchback and brought to the monastery gates. Menkar enslaved her with his magic, the little girl screaming as he performed the ritual. He had taken a part of her soul, collecting it in the tangerine soul stone that he wore around his neck. That ensured that she would serve the Cetus Monastery — until Menkar released her to someone else. But he would not. He coveted her as his own personal servant and he was ferociously possessive about her.

As Lara grew up, her wolf never stirred. She would not read or write and instead did the menial jobs in the monastery. Always under the scrutiny of her hunchback handler, who she later discovered was Menkar's spy.

All this did not deter Lara from learning to read and write. She would sneak a book from the library whenever she cleaned its shelves, bringing them to her small, dingy room. There, under the flickering light of an old oil lamp that she stole from a scribe's trash, she would sit huddled up to read it, trying to make sense of its words.

Menkar noticed her gift for ancient languages. He later let her read them but only after she finished her chores.