Lycan School: The Hekate's Bride

Chapter 3: The Lore of Lycan King Hekate

In a time when all three races lived together as one and the Lycans ruled the realm, there was a prince. He was Hekate, and he was heir to the throne.

It is said that Hekate was born on the night of the blood moon. Cursed, they called him. Strange, they said. A bad omen, they named him. The Moon Goddess’s priestess had taken one look at him and had told the King and Queen that he would bring destruction upon the realm. He would be better off dead as a child.

But King Cassius and Queen Sylvi had tried to birth a child for centuries with no avail. They would not kill their child. Staring at his pale hair and moon kissed skin as she held him to her chest, Queen Sylvi had told the priestess fiercely, “He is but a child. You cannot damn him to death. I will raise him right. He will be a good, powerful king.”

And so, she raised him, damning the consequences.

As they say, the bad habits may begin as small shoots, but if left unchecked, they will begin to grow like vines, entangling the soul and rotting it from within. It began with the death of his pet hummingbird. The sight of the creature bleeding to death by an accidental stab wound by the prince had fascinated him so much.

Prince Hekate wondered if a larger animal would die just as easily. He was only seven years of age when his mother gifted him a wildcat. The next day, the carcass of the animal was found rotting under the prince’s bed. It had been stabbed in several places. A horrendous sight to behold.

Upon seeing what his son had done, the King summoned him, demanding an explanation for the death of the animal. Prince Hekate had retorted, claiming that the animal had been too weak. How could it die from a few stabs, he had asked.

Needing to keep Prince Hekate’s blood lust under control, his father ordered that he be confined to his chambers, allowed only the visits of his tutors and the priestess who would teach him the ways. His mother had pleaded with the King to lessen the punishment, but he refused.

Itching to get out of his room as soon as he could, Hekate kept on his best behaviour, managing to fool even his father into thinking he had improved with the priestess’s guidance. Soon, he was let out of his chambers, and that is when the true nature of the prince came to light.

His human maid had been combing through his hair. A comb stick scraped his scalp once and he yelped, shooting up from his seat. “Do you not know how to handle a comb anymore, Ida?”

She fell to the floor and grabbed his feet, trembling. “Forgive me, Sire. Punish me if you must. I have made a mistake.”

“Surely, you must not need your hands anymore,” he cooed, staring at the smooth slender fingers that were wrapped around his small foot, and a choked sound escaped the maid as she began sobbing.

A smile bloomed across his lips and he pulled out his dagger from its sheath. “Place your hand on the table, Ida.”

The maid began sobbing in earnest, but with the revelry happening below, her cries were lost to the sound of joyful music and laughter. When the King and Queen found out what had been done, it was too late. He had chopped off all her fingers, deeming it a small mercy that he hadn’t cut off her arm instead.

Horrified by what his son had done, the King exiled him to the Other Palace for a decade, where he would be surrounded only by the priestesses of the Goddess and be taught the compassion and wisdom of a king. He was assigned guards who would keep watch on him, and a knight who would anchor him through each shifting process.

However, when Prince Hekate returned to the castle in ten years, he was covered in blood.

The prince had murdered the priestesses of the Other Palace, as well as his guards and his personal knight.

For a crime so despicable and utterly unacceptable to the people and the goddess, the King was forced to make a decision. The prince was to be executed. The Queen wept, pleading with the council and her King, but nothing could be done. Killing the Moon Goddess’s Priestesses were forbidden and punishable only by death.

The prince was thrown into the dungeons, pending his execution.

It never came. King Cassius died in his sleep that night. Some say Prince Hekate murdered his father to escape punishment. Some say King Cassius died of a heart ailment. Others say it was Queen Sylvi who strangled him in his sleep for damning their son.

Till date, the circumstances surrounding the death of King Cassius remain mysterious. Having had no other heir or family to take up the throne, Prince Hekate’s execution order was rescinded by his mother and she named him king of the realm.

The Council refused to acknowledge him as King. Standing as one before the newly named king, they made their stances known. They would rather die than accept a despicable killer and brute as their king.

King Hekate made their wishes come true.

It is said that it had happened in a blink of an eye. The moment they had spoken those words, Hekate had surged forward from his seat of power and attacked them. None stood a chance against him. He was the devil himself, moving in a red shrouded cloud that brought nothing but destruction in its wake. All that was left of the Council was a heaped pile of bones and torn flesh.

The people rebelled; lycan, wolves and mortals alike. They rallied against him, expressing their anger, ,grief, and hate. They took up weapons, clamouring for the Hekate’s dethronement.

King Hekate let the castle gates open to those who were bold enough to stand against him, deceiving them with a promise to listen to their complaints, and once they were all in, he shut the gates. People say the lands bled that day, and the skies cried. One by one, he killed them, relishing in their pleas and the smell of their fear, and once he was done, he let their heads sit on the spikes of the castle gates like trophies.

None dared to speak an ill word about King Hekate after that, not even in the privacy of their homes, and those that did dare were found dead in the worst ways possible. The people learned to live in fear of him. He became the tale told to children that left them waking from nightmares with screams and tears.

One day, however, King Hekate fell.

Riding through the lands with his entourage of guards, the King had stumbled upon the most beautiful woman he had laid eyes on. A werewolf. Lorna was her name. She had hair like crackling embers, eyes of sapphire jewels and smooth pale skin. She made him stumble in his steps. He had never felt such a thing in his entire life.

Every day, the king would take the same path, just to see the red haired wolf while she plucked plums from the trees.

He decided he wanted her and would take her as his queen.

The woman did not share the same sentiments. Lorna turned him down. She had a chosen human mate and she loved him.

Her rejection baffled and enraged Hekate. How could she reject him, ruler of the realm, for a puny human? It didn’t bode well with him. Unused to not having what he wanted, he sought to find the reason behind her rejections.

One night, he trailed Lorna home. The sight of seeing her smile at the human had him in a rage. He dashed for their cottage, killed her mate and took her with him forcefully to his castle. She cursed him the entire way, crying to the goddess to punish him for what he had done. He locked the devastated woman in room, allowing only his mother the permission to tend to her. Queen Sylvi was to oversee Lorna’s needs and prepare her for their wedding.

But a few days to her forced wedding, Lorna took ill. Upon examination, it was found that Lorna was with child.

Knowing what her fate would be once Hekate heard the news when he returned from his journey, she fell to her knees before Hekate’s mother, pleading for help to escape. A chance to let her children live. Perhaps, it was those words that appealed to the Queen’s heart, having been in the same place before.

In the early hours of the morning, Queen Sylvi had Lorna hidden in the supply wagon and she was carted off to the borders where the humans favoured.

Upon returning, King Hekate found his bride missing and his mother guilty. He had his mother tossed in the dungeons, depriving her of food and water, after which he gathered his men and marched into the lands in search of Lorna. When he couldn’t find her, his wrath became a sentient thing, overwhelming his thoughts in the most unthinkable way.

After days of fruitless searching, he became convinced that the people had hidden Lorna from him and word began to spread of the mad king who had lost his heart and mind to a woman. He became a laughing stock in his lands. Upon returning to the castle in weeks, he was greeted with the news of his mother’s death.

She had ripped out her own heart, unable to stomach anymore of her son’s cruelty.

King Hekate paid no tribute to his late mother, more interested in finding his runaway bride.

And he did. After two years of searching, he found her in the outskirts of the decrepit human towns, caring for her twin children with another man. Enraged by her betrayal, he went on a killing rampage, beginning with the male he had found her with, then her children. He made sure to let her watch them die, and after that, he killed her.

But King Hekate didn’t stop there. He decimated the entire village and continued well into the neighboring villages, hacking into the helpless humans and werewolves with his men.

The cries of the people soon stirred the Moon Goddess from her eternal slumber and when she looked upon the world and her children, she was enraged.

She cursed King Hekate and his minions, casting them into a realm where there was nothing but cold and darkness, never to see the light of the sky again.

To ensure that her children never went through the same ordeal again, she divided all three races, separating them into three realms to be ruled by their kind only.

But the Moon Goddess saw into the future. She saw that King Hekate and his men would adapt to the cold and the darkness, becoming one with it. She saw that he would return to destroy them all.

So she left them with the prophecy of the future.

On the day of the blood moon, when The Veil between all realms are at their thinnest, the Hekate will break free of his curse. His power will know no bounds, and his wrath will be felt throughout the realms. Where he threads, blood will flow and the lands will wither.

In order to win against the Hekate and his dark army, they must all be prepared.