Secrets in the Wolf King's Castle

A Sister's Advice

Wyatt Wolfsblood was restless. He was always restless these days. Late nights, especially, perturbed him. But even in the day, he was dogged by strange feelings that he could neither explain nor understand. When he had tried to explain this to his father, the King had expressed delight.

“That means your wolf is close to the surface!” he had exclaimed. “Oh, Wyatt, you’re nearly a wolf grown, my son!”

“I don’t think that is what this is,” Wyatt had told his father in a low voice, but the King could not be convinced.

“Every wolf feels this way as their first shift approaches,” Wallace had said. “Not to worry.”

But worry Wyatt did. No matter how often those around him had tried to assure him that his feelings were nothing more than his approaching adulthood, Wyatt couldn’t be convinced. For many years he had felt a strange difference between himself and other wolves. He was frequently visited by the Goddess in his sleep, and strange dreams came to him easily. Most wolves didn’t dream.

When Annicke and even Weston eagerly looked forward to the day they would meet their wolves, Wyatt felt ambivalent toward it at best. He knew what it meant.

Wolves did not live as long as Wyatt had heard that humans did, rarely reaching past their fiftieth year. It was incredibly rare. Wyatt knew that it happened, sometimes. Mystic Majors were the most well known exception, and many made it well into their eighties. They were considered touched and protected by the Goddess. Some Healers, too, such as Luna Queen Lyria’s friend Hayrune, made it into these so called full moon years.

But Wolfsbloods almost always died young. Wyatt had never met his grandfather, who had passed away at forty-one years.

Wyatt sometimes felt he was being shadowed by his own mortality. It was this rather morbid thought that had once gotten him sent, still a pup, to see the mystics. They’d conducted test after test on him, but had found no evidence that he was sick.

“Those favored by the Goddess often have a touch of melancholy in them,” Navaill had once whispered to his mother over Wyatt as he pretended to sleep. “These dreams no doubt trouble him. As he grows older he will learn to shoulder them more bravely, and these troubles should stop.”

Wyatt had grown older, and he had learned to pretend to be braver. But the troubles never stopped in his mind.

“Wyatt,” he started when he heard Annicke’s voice. He finally looked up from the book that had been sitting in front of him for hours, as he pretended to read but instead ruminated on his life.

“Annicke,” he replied. “Isn’t it past your bedtime?” Annicke giggled. Wyatt glanced over at the hourglass in the corner. “Goddess, Annicke, it’s nearly three in the morning!” He hardly believed it. It seemed only a few moments ago that he had sat down after dinner in the library, choosing a book at random and making attempts to read for a while before giving up.

“I snuck out!” she said, proud. She beamed at her older brother. Her hair was a pretty red color, not quite like Lyria’s or like Wallace’s, uniquely her own. Though they were twins, Weston and Annicke looked almost nothing alike, his hair dark and his eyes light, her hair light and eyes dark. “I was bored,” she added.

“Why aren’t you asleep?”

“Why aren’t you?” she shot back, raising an eyebrow.

“I am nearly grown!”

“That’s just saying “child” with extra steps,” Annicke sneered, tiptoeing closer to him to read the book in front of him. “You’re either grown or you aren’t. So if you don’t have to be asleep, neither do I.”

“Would you say that if Baiden was here?”

“Well…” Annicke smiled slyly, “that’s different. Because he’s younger than me. That’s young.”

“Of course,” snickered Wyatt.

“Why are you reading ‘Life and Portraits of Early Cyrrillest Nobles’ at three in the morning, anyway?”

Wyatt glanced down in mild surprise. Indeed, that was the title of the book. “Couldn’t sleep,” he muttered.

“That’s what you said this morning when I asked how you slept last night,” Annicke replied. “What’s wrong?”

Perhaps it was the hour, or perhaps it was the sincerity etched into her face, but Wyatt didn’t bother denying that something was wrong.

“Do you ever feel that you don’t belong here?” he finally asked. Immediately, he felt foolish, seeking assurance from his ten year old sister.

Her face scrunched as she considered the question.

“Forget it,” he said, waving a hand through the air as if to wave the question from her very brain.

“No,” she finally answered. “I guess I’ve never felt that way. But you do?”

“Sometimes I just feel as though the world is so… I don’t know.” Wyatt shrugged. “Futile? I mean, if everything is just decided by the Goddess…”

“Not everything is,” Annicke pointed out. “Just because you have a mate, you can reject her. The Goddess points the way but you don’t have to follow.”

“Maybe you don’t,” Wyatt said. “I do. I’ll inherit the throne, and the crown, and a mate, and a life that’s already laid out before me. I can see that life. I do see it. Every time Father invites me to watch him in meetings or presiding over ceremonies, I am watching myself.” Wyatt closed the book in front of him. “You could write my history now, Annicke. You could write how I will live, how I will love, how I will die. And you’d probably get more right than wrong. That bothers me.”

“You have a burden that none of us can relate to,” Annicke admitted. “Except Father. Have you talked to him?”

Wyatt shook his head. “He doesn’t get it. This life, it was right for him.”

“Is it not right for you?”

“Sometimes I have dreams. Strange dreams. I wear a crown, but I am not here. The throne is not gold. My clothes are strange. I am surrounded by people, but I can’t feel them. I have no connection to them. Not the way Father describes the mindlink. What do I make of that? Is the Goddess telling me I don’t deserve the crown? What if I am not fit to rule?”

“Why not speak to a Mystic?”

“I have,” Wallace buried his face in his hands. “They assure me it is just the jitters of a pup who knows he is destined for something great.”

“Actually,” Annicke said, “you know who might be really helpful? Uncle Gertal.”

Wyatt looked up. “Do you think?”

“If anyone can relate to feeling like they don’t know what their future should be, or if they’re fit to rule, I would think it will be him. And he’s coming here for the party.”

Wyatt leaned over and embraced his little sister. “You’re pretty smart for a pup, Annicke,” he said.

“Thanks!” She sprung away as he let her go and said, “wanna go steal some sweets from the kitchen with me? I’ll race you!”