Vala

Chapter Three

                   (Wednesday, November 3, 2009)

         “Vala, get up.” Rylan marched around the table, wrapped his arms under her armpits and pulled her to her feet. With his hands on her shoulders, he turned her to face him, though she hung her head, messy hair falling around her face and her arms limply at her side. He put one hand under her chin and turned her head toward his face. “Listen, Vala,” he began with the most gentle tone he had used yet, “we must do what we swore we would do when we took our places at the head of the clan. They look to us to protect them, and we took an oath that we would. We must do what we have promised.”

         Her top teeth bit into her lower lip, her body trembling in his supporting arms, but in the next second, she inhaled deeply, stood up straight, and composed her expression into one of solemnity and duty.

         “Yes, Rylan, you are correct,” she said with stiff words as she shook out the skirt of her dress and smoothed the wrinkles out of it. “We will discuss this further tomorrow over breakfast, shall we, darling?”

         “Certainly, my dear lady. Allow me to show you to a room for the night. It's late, and a woman like you should not brave the forest by yourself.”


         In the morning, the sun rose slowly over the eastern horizon, tinting everything with gray and green until the first rays broke over the edge of the world, casting the earth in vivid oranges and bright pinks. Vala's legs stretched as she woke with the sun's rays tickling her cheeks, arms reaching out above her head, and she yawned, bearing her white fangs. Her bare feet touched the floor, her body covered in her thin undergarments while her dress hung over the back of the chair in the room, and her deft fingers  quickly removed the braid from her hair. She twisted around in a little circle, watching the white fabric of her nightwear flow around her legs, laughing as she did so until she heard the door handle turn.

         She snatched the quilt off of the bed and draped it around her body haphazardly. “Rylan!” she shouted as his face peered around the door, “get out! Haven't you ever heard of knocking?”

         His face flushed a lovely shade of pink as he muttered apologies, stuttering over his words, as he jumped back and slammed the door.

         Cursing to herself about Rylan's inconsideration and the general rudeness of the male species, she snatched her dress off of the back of the chair, tugged it on and began lacing it up, tying the black ribbon over the green bodice with quick, angry movements. Still crossing her room with sharp steps, she placed herself in front of the mirror where an empty wash basin stood, but she ignored that and twisted her hair into a braid again, tying it with the little piece of ribbon she used to hold it in place before storming out of the room and stomping down the hallway to the kitchen.

         She stopped on the side of the table nearest the doorway and crossed her arms over her chest, glaring at Rylan as he cooked breakfast. Her toes flexed up and curled down in her impatience, but she would not tap her foot on the floor, like some nagging mother.

         “Good morning, Rylan,” she announced, snapping each word off sharply.

         “Morning, Vala,” he mumbled quickly without turning to face her, and she laughed at his obvious embarrassment.

         “Let's just forget about that minor little incident, shall we? I believe you've learned a valuable lesson about knocking,” she declared, still chuckling as she did so.

         “Very well, my lady.” His words were still forced out of his mouth and quiet, though not quite like he was whispering them to her.

         Breakfast was a humble, hushed affair, and they ate without speaking much to each other until after they had finished their meal at which point Rylan rose, pulled Vala's seat back for her, and offered her his hand to help her to her feet.

         “I'll send Storme and Selda in to eat, and we'll take a walk, shall we?” He paused for a moment, glancing down, before nodding and striding away out of the room and down the hallway.

         It was only a few moments before the identical girls arrived in the kitchen, standing close to each other as always and looking bashful, the way they had when Vala had first seen them the previous night. Vala's throat tightened as she attempted a smile at the younger ladies before she had to turn away from them and stare out the door as she waited for Rylan to finish his rambling speech about breakfast, the walk he was about to talk with her, and what they were to do when they finished eating.

         “Come, my lady Vala,” he addressed her, offering his arm to her as per his custom, and as they stepped through the door frame, he patted his leg and gave a high little whistle. “Ember, here girl!”

         His long-legged dog, Ember, who was lying in the shade of the house around the corner, perked her eyes up upon hearing her name, and rolled to her feet to bound around the edge of the house, tail wagging in excitement.

         “Good dog.” Rylan reached down to stroke the dog's head lovingly as she fell into place at his left side, the other side being occupied by Vala.

         They strolled down a little path in the opposite direction from which they had come the following night with slow, leisurely steps without speaking to one another, for several reasons, Vala assumed. The first of those being that they did not want to risk having Storme and Selda overhear whatever plans they were going to discuss, and as with all were-creatures, they would have heightened hearing; the second, she believed, was simply because Rylan wanted to enjoy the morning, the grass still sparkling with dew where it clung to the blades and to the silver strands of the spider webs and the sun warming their faces and bodies.

         Vala let the silence settle peacefully amongst them – it was not awkward – and with Rylan leading her, she allowed her mind to wander over old memories, her duties as the clan's priestess, and above all, the foul deeds to which she had committed herself upon accepting her place at the head of the clan along with Rylan. The arrival of these two girls, Storme and Selda, meant the end for the clan. It meant the return of those foul human beasts who would come at them with weapons and fire and with their minds hellbent on death and destruction – it would only be a matter of time before humans found them now if the prophesy given to them nearly a century ago was to hold true. The arrival of the twin girls meant that the clan's protective barriers had been removed and that their magic had run out – and it meant that to save the clan Vala would have to kill the twins. No, not simply kill. She had to sacrifice them on the alter on the hill with the clan gathered around, she had to evoke black magic such as she would like to never come into contact with, and she would have to take the lives of two young, innocent girls.

         There were questions, unanswerable ones at that, tugging at the corners of her mind, the most pressing of which being from where had Selda and Storme come? And who were they? And of course, the one that she had entertained the night before, the one that she couldn't put out of her head: was this the only way? She didn't believe it – couldn't believe it. There had to be a way around this. Everything about sacrificing two innocent lives was wrong. It was even more wrong when done in the name of black magic. It would taint her soul, and any more smut on her soul was not something she needed. She had committed sin after sin and crime after crime, and her once-clean soul was fouled with filth that she needed to remove, a long and arduous task, one that did not need to be made even more daunting.

         Repressed memories, ones that she had tried and failed to forgot – though she had mostly succeeded in cramming them in the dusty, most unused corners of her brain where she did not have to think of them – were welling up inside of her at the prospect of her looming task. She glanced at Rylan out of the corner of her eye, bringing to the surface a fresh wave of memories that she had long tried and failed to crush and sweep away and hide from her heart and her head.

         At that second, Vala took another step forward and was jerked backward as Rylan had stopped. She blushed, backtracked into place, and continued to stare into the distance, the forest surrounding them in a large circle with fields in the ring, dotted with houses and buildings. They were standing on a grassy little knoll beside a stream, which was bubbling brightly over the rocks and dirt in its bottom with clear water, sparkling with the flash of small minnows. She stared into its depths, head cocked to the side as she watched the minnows twist and turn as one fluid group, and she wondered how they were so in tune to each other as to exist that way.

         Rylan cleared his throat and she tore her gaze away from the stream slowly, tilting her head up toward him as she waited for him to speak. He worked his jaw and opened his mouth, parting his lips slightly before closing them again, and he shook his head back and forth. Ember sat obediently.

         “Vala, you know what we must do.” He reached out and brushed her hands before pulling fingers back and sweeping his eyes up her body to her face where their gazes met, and with her soft expression, he took both of her slender, pale hands in his and held them.

         She turned away from him, her cheek nearly touching her shoulder with her eyelids closed, though she let him hold her hands still. “I know, Rylan, what they say we must do, but I can't help but feel as if there must be another way. There has to be some other way than this terrible black magic. There has to be.”

         “Vala,” he whispered, letting go of her left hand and reaching out with his now unoccupied hand to cup her face and turn it up toward his again where his amber eyes rested on her brown ones, a soft depth to them that she had not seen in over a year. “My sweet Vala.” He brushed the back of his hand against her pale cheek, tracing her bone structure lightly and delicately, before he wrapped his arm around her shoulders and pulled her into his chest, still holding her other hand.

         He rested his face on the top of her head, inhaling deeply, before he turned his head to the side and put his mouth beside her ear to speak soft words to her. “I wish there was another way and that this was our final alternative, but you and I both know that this is what we must do, cruel and wrong as it may seem.”

         She shook her head with some difficulty as it was pinned close to his chest and countered with her own argument. “That isn't true, Rylan. It can not be true. There is always another way. We just have to find it. We just have to. We have to, Rylan.”

         “Shh, Vala. Hush.” He stroked the back of her head with his hand repeatedly before continuing. “Don't be so heartbroken. You know that we must do this, that we must protect our family and friends, and that this is the way that we must do it.”

         She rested her forehead against his chest, offering no further debate but, “I don't want to, Rylan. I believe there must be another way.”

         He frowned, let go of her hand and wrapped the arm he wasn't stroking her hair with around her lower back, pulling her as close to him as possible. He was silent for a moment, chewing his bottom lip, before he spoke, “We have some time. We can do what we can before then, but when that time is up, we will do what we must do.”

         It was the only compromise he could offer, for there was no other solution but the one that he knew of as of this moment, but there was little harm in letting her try to find a way around it in the nearly month they had before the next full moon.

         “Yes, Rylan,” she agreed, her mouth dry and her words barely audible.

         He kissed the top of her head, barely brushing her sun-warmed hair with his lips, tightening his embrace slightly. “Let us return, my dear, and you can make yourself better acquainted with the girls.”