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Unfolding it, the words ‘move carefully,’ were written in clean, blocky script in Susconian over the bit of parchment. An odd little note left for him where it would be known he would find it immediately.
‘Move carefully,’ the leaver of the note demanded of him.
He left the paper on the bed and moved to stand.Carefully. For the first time, he noticed a single wooden crutch by the bed, propped up and waiting for him. When he tucked it under his arm, he was surprised that it had been measured for his shortened height, obviously unfit for the beasts of the land. Perhaps it was a child’s crutch. That would make sense.
Grabbing an unlit torch lamp from a side table, he used the crutch to limp over to the hearth and drop down to the fire pit. He dug the wick into the embers until it flamed up. Then, he rose and glanced around the room, suppressing cold memories as his grogginess finally cleared.
He sniffed the air and scented fresh bread. A bread plate had been left on another side table, complete with mounds of doughy buns, fat olives, a spread of cheeses, and nuts soaked in something that smelt like truffle oil.
Tucked next to the plate, conspicuously in the corner, was another note left for him. ‘Eat,’ this one said, in the same hand as before, and nothing else.
Salas crumpled the note and tossed it into the fire.
The mixed messages that he was receiving from the people of this kingdom were leaving him with an anxious sense of unknowing. At the moment, they were aiding him, warming him, feeding him, but what next? Was he to be sent back to his cell, waiting for his death?
The thought left him with an emptiness.
Because he had nothing to do, and because it would most likely be his last meal, he ate. Slabbing thick layers of cheese onto cuts of bread, he dug in ravenously. The oily remains of the olives and nuts coated his fingers when he finished in minutes, and he licked them clean. Then, he took up a nearby copper wine decanter and finished off his meal with a drink. He drank.
And drank. And drank.
It was more likely that the food and wine were not meant for him, and he would be punished when they found he had consumed it. So he drank more.
Still, the Diagorians did not return.
Goblet in hand, he hobbled around the room, testing the door; unsurprised to find it locked. It wasn’t a shocker. Only this morning he’d been kept near-death in a cell. The only surprising thing was that he was not down there now.
A deep, hypnotic call came in through the window, the sound obviously coming from that of an animal. Richer than the notes of an owl. Longer. The howl of a wolf, Salas thought he recognized the sound.
When he came to one of the windows, he expected to see a buzz of people. He’d assumed late night walkers and guards to fill the space below the two-story window. But there was not a DIagorian in sight. Instead, the full-moon-light illuminated a different scene. Shadows moved about, large and daunting. They were similar to the half-beast forms that had raided the Susconian palace some nights ago, yet these were different still.
The shadowswerewolves, Salas realized, and yet alarmingly different from the wolves he distantly remembered in the Faeland Forest or the coyotes in the South. The wolves here came in a range of colors, from gray to white to shades of brown. Yet even from this height, Salas noted how large they were, easily challenging the size of a horse.
Yet where had they come from?
Then Salas remembered the words of Princess Newt, as well as what Tarick had said.
“Our full beast only comes out during the full moon.”
“By the way, don’t leave your rooms tonight. You could get mauled.”
Chapter Eight
Salas stepped away from the window, disturbed and more than a little fearful. Pushing down the images of claws and shadows on the night where everything changed when the South had been attacked, he tripped in his haste to back away from the chance of being seen by any dark, lupine eyes.
His wine sloshed with his step, spilling in a bright river over his half-naked form. For the first time, he realized how his excessive wine-binge affected his movement. His limbs felt weighted, yet detached. It didn’t help the fact that he was still limping about on his crutch. At least the pain had lessened. Yet if something came to attack him, his response, he knew, would be pathetically lethargic.
As though responding to his thought, a largethumpsounded from the room’s double doors. It was loud and weighted, unlike a knock, as though something large and heavy had struck the paneling.
Salas swallowed, his heart now an insistent machine in his chest that he could feel throughout his entire body.
The cup dropped from his hands when the thump came again.
“Hello?” he called hoarsely, in careful Diagorian.
Instead of a verbal response, a low, thunderous growl answered his greeting.
Salas gasped, moving backwards on his bad leg, sending enough shocking pain to have him sprawling on the floor.
