When he became the red wolf, everything was simplified and more complex at the same time. He senses were heightened to a degree that filled his brain with sights, sounds, odors and tastes. Because of that overload, his analytical functions stepped aside.
The red wolf was a creature of instinct and perception.
He didn’t think. He felt.
He stood beside Anna with her hands in his scruff and he felt her heart beating, her lungs expanding and contracting, and he could feel the power of the Ether flowing beneath her skin. She was his partner. His companion. More so than she’d ever been. The heart that beat in his massive barrel chest beat for her.
He could also tell that something was wrong.
He was Soren. Soren was he. But Soren intended to destroy the emerald sword, and that was where the red wolf’s instincts diverged with the man’s. Would he rip open his own chest and throw his still-beating heart to the ground? No.
Anna was the red wolf’s, always. She was also the always of the man. But Soren had lost himself to analytical thinking. The man didn’t trust his instincts to lead him on the best path.
Still, the scents he received from Anna were confusing. The energy from the Ether burned his nose and stung his eyes. When she held him and looked into his face, it felt like she was saying goodbye.
But what she ordered was clear: Retrieve the sword. It matched with his instincts and overcame the burning and stinging. He blinked the moisture from his eyes and accepted the weight of his Anna when she climbed onto his back. She was larger than she’d been as a child, but she was still petite enough that she was no burden at all. When she held his scruff and placed her face close to his left ear, it felt like coming home.
“Take me to the sword, Soren,” she said.
If the journey had been a thousand miles, he would have burst his heart to make it. For her. The Dark Volkhvy fortress was much closer. He gathered himself and sprang into a run, ever mindful of the precious rider on his back.
* * *
Anna allowed herself to feel the exhilaration she’d always felt on the red wolf’s back. His leaps were twice the length of a horse’s stride. Hardened muscles that had been crafted by the enchanted manipulation of his genes before he was born drove his speed.
But his giant heart was all Soren’s.
He carried her toward the emerald sword he’d helped her claim the night before. It didn’t matter that he also wanted her to destroy it. He had proved his love, saving her from the Ether by celebrating their connection. It didn’t matter that he still couldn’t trust her. She wouldn’t allow his distrust to hurt her anymore. She had lived through the curse with him. She felt the same distrust for Volkhvy blood even though she now knew it flowed in her veins. The sword was hers. She could never allow herself to keep it. Even if Soren had trusted her with his family’s lives.
She would never trust herself.
The red wolf was solid and warm beneath her. The fortress came closer and closer. Soon they would battle the Dark Volkhvy who had stolen the sword that had been made for her hands, even though she’d never held it. Anna held Soren instead. She buried her face in his russet fur one last time.
* * *
He had no name that he could remember. All he had was a gnawing hunger inside him that could never be filled, no matter how he hunted and fed. He was haunted by dreams he couldn’t understand. He ran from visions of humans who called him Lev. Worse than that, he ran from visions of a woman who called him “beloved” and a tiny mewling babe at her breast.
He ran. He hunted. He killed. He fed.
But he hadn’t killed the witch.
She had survived.
He didn’t have a name. He only had visions he couldn’t understand. But he also had one more thing: a hatred for the beings who channeled the energy from the Ether that ate him.
He had fought its devouring hunger for as long as he could remember. Even after he couldn’t remember why, he fought it. He wasn’t sure why he had to survive. He wasn’t sure why no hunt satisfied, as if there was always a quarry he hadn’t managed to chase down.
He only knew from his first taste of the witch’s blood that her death would right a horrible wrong. That certainty drove him to follow her. To find her no matter the cost. His paws grew raw. His fur became patched and shabby. His bones showed beneath his skin.
And still he ran on.
As he ran, he left his visions behind until the only being he saw whenever he closed his eyes was the witch he had to devour in order to survive so his hunt could go on.
* * *
Vasilisa knew when her daughter claimed the emerald sword. As someone with a majority of her consciousness subsumed in the Ether, the tremendous power drain caused her to grow faint. She was walking in the garden at midnight when she stumbled. She almost fell. But long practice in the variations of the Ether’s energy allowed her to right herself and walk on.
She merely changed her direction because something was wrong. Her daughter had claimed the emerald sword, but it wasn’t in her hand. The connection Anna shared with Soren was still tainted by mistrust. Worse than that, the white wolf, in his savage way, was as tuned in to the Ether’s energy as Vasilisa was herself. If she could sense her daughter and Soren so clearly, then so could Lev.
Vasilisa headed for the sleeping warrior in the middle of her garden.
She no longer had the luxury of time.
If Soren couldn’t trust Anna, if Anna couldn’t trust herself, they would destroy the sword rather than trust the way it bound them together. Without the sword’s connection, her daughter would fall to the white wolf. Especially if she was too distracted to defend herself against him.
The only solution was to ensure that the white wolf was the one too distracted to attack.