Chapter 51: Shadows Over Tea - Part 2
The music room was quieter now, the long glass windows spilling pools of violet dusk across the marble floor. The walls cones flickered with that usual grey light between them, but on a lower setting for the fade from afternoon to evening, and the delicate scent of cinnamon steam rose from Sephora's cup to mix with the bitter leaf scent of Corvin's.
As they were half way through their last cup each of their respective pots, the servant entered to bring two new pots and remove the used and empty ones on a silver tray.
Leaned back in her chair, Sephora her laughter soft but tinged with a tired edge. She knew she hadn't been sleeping well, if at all. It felt good to be with a friend — dangerously good — to talk and to laugh at all and nothing at the same time. This had been exactly what she needed. Corvin had that gift, the ability to make the world outside the room fall away.
"You always did tell the best stories," she commented, tracing the rim of her cup with one pale finger.
"I only repeat what the archives preserve," he replied shyly with a sheepish but faint smile as he awkwardly scratched the back of his head. "I'm no bard, you'll need a Mournwynd for that, I'm afraid."
Since they were younger, he had never taken well to compliments of any skill that wasn't related to archiving, library science or some form of knowledge. Even still, Sephora continued on anyway, "Oh, but you make them sound alive."
For the entire time spent together, any of the silence that occasionally fell between them felt companionable rather than judgmental. Then, perhaps because the comfort was too much, or because the truth she carried pressed too heavily at her chest, Sephora blurted the words before she could stop herself:
"Well, if you want a new story — I've a werewolf in the dungeon."
It tumbled out half as a joke, half as a plea. Her lips curved upward in a forced, conspiratorial grin, as if she meant it playfully.
Blinking once, and then twice, Corvin then broke into an unusually boisterous laughter, the sound loud and unabashedly honest. It wasn't often that something tickled his humour quite like this... it was warm laughter and Sephora certainly wouldn't be correcting him.
Finally, he composed himself to add, "A werewolf, is it? By the goddess, Sephora, I'll wager he's sulking down there over cold soup, some meat, and a broken chain."
His laughter and jovial attitude shift was welcome.
The relief that flooded her chest was dizzying. He thought it was jest — of course he did. Of course, anyone would, but that he especially believe it a jest? Then who else would believe her?
As children, they used to play a game they called "werewolf and hapry,' a common children's game where the werewolf, sometimes one child or two, would have to try and catch the others. If you were caught by the werewolf, you became one and had to help catch the others.
He couldn't imagine she meant it literally, and suddenly, for that, she was grateful.
"Sulking terribly," she answered, likely hiding the tremor in her hands by lifting her cup. Thankfully, he didn't notice due to still breaking into fits of laughter. "...but tell me, what do your precious tablets and scrolls say about them? Werewolves. Were they all really monsters like we used to play when we were younger, or were they once something more?"
At this, the laughter finally subsided, as he leaned forward, his grey eyes still glinting mischief in the quiet. With the silent and intelligent fire he always carried when lore was asked of him. This was among his favourite knowledge areas. "That depends on which texts or scrolls you ask. Some of the oldest clay tablets describe them as types of guardians — hunters bred purely to cull what we still have some myths of... known by the texts. You know them, called the Dark Ones? There was a blood pact made. Ancient magic, you know, that bound them... their whole werewolf pack to our ancestors and our ancestors to them…" His hand He lowered his voice, more for atmosphere than secrecy. "The Crimson Bloodhounds."
The idea of a werewolf-harpy pact was strange, and blood pacts were never made these days, safe for mating ceremonies. They were far too dangerous if they backfired. Sephora tilted her head, her curiosity genuinely piqued, despite herself. "A pact... with harpies?"
He nodded. "With Raven Harpys, specifically. This very kingdom. It was around 5 thousand, 5 hundred years ago. The ancient king back then worked with the werewolves to bring all the wolf packs and all the harpy clans together, in a final grand global alliance to fight back against the creeping darkness that was devouring everything! Eventually, that alliance waned around 5 generations ago. When a king died before he could pass on the truth to his heirs, but we still have the records in our vaults... but before then, the Bloodhounds and other packs, hunted side by side with our kind! Totally opposite to everything we were told, right? They were not and never were the villains of those tales they told us as children, then — they were… necessary. They could have used the Dark Ones instead."
"Necessary, huh?," she echoed, her tone unreadable. Her pulse beat fast in her throat, but she forced her expression to stay amused. "...and what of now?"
Corvin shrugged lightly, though she caught the flicker of something sharper beneath his calm. "Now... they're spoken of as shadows, half-remembered. You know, my house guards the oldest records. Yes, but the rest of court laughs at us for keeping the records and... yes, they all also laugh them off as myth. Which, I suppose," he added wryly, "is why I and my parent are often mistaken for teachers, rather than one of the oldest noble families."
Her brain buzzed with the knowlade and so Sephora's lips curved. She hadn't realised until now how much she needed this — someone to answer her questions without suspicion, to indulge her in, 'fascinations' without demanding she explain why she was asking them.
"Well," she said softly, her smile returning more easily this time, "then I'm glad to have a teacher for a friend. A true one."
"A true friend or a true teacher?" His smile softened and Corvin's expression gentled. He looked down at the cup, not waiting for her response before adding. "As am I."
♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
The tea had long since gone lukewarm. Neither noticed.
It was the change of shift for the servants, from day workers to night workers, so no one came back in to collect the remaining tea pots. At least not yet.
The two had abandoned the table by the large window and left their finished cups beside the pots. They had instead, moved to one of the couches. Far less formal and far more relaxed... simply talking as friends should.
At his words, Sephora leaned forward slightly with a joking tug pulling a small smirk form her lips, her chin resting on her knuckles as she listened to more of Corvin's theorys.
She asked, encouragingly of him, "...sooo, tell me, professor Mourhollow… if the harpies all whisper about werewolves as monsters, why do I sense you don't agree?"
Sheepish and shy as ever, Corvin's mouth curved in that faint and knowing way of his. "Simple, really. That's because all myths and legends are true, but so often they come from misunderstandings. You know how court mothers frighten their fledglings with tales of werewolves gone mad, tearing through villages?"
"Of course." She quickly jumped at him and tagged his shoulder, "GOT YOU! You're a werewolf now!" The princess had made the gesture pointedly, it was an entire children's game, although she had tagged his shoulder softly. Before returning to a reclined seating position and looking into his grey eyes, "The way we speak of them... It's always madness. Something feral. Uncontrollable."
"Mm." He swirled what was left of his tea as though it were wine although he tended to never drink bloodwine or any type of wine, his dark eyes like metal had that thoughtful sheen to them. "But the oldest records my family keeps, well, they also don't agree with that. What the people called 'mad wolves' — those might have been poorly turned. Strays cut from their packs or fallen alphas, struggling with the mental, emotional, and spiritual separation in the link with their wolfpack.... Or — in even rarer mentions — simply… ill."
At the idea that werewolves could get ill, Sephora simply blinked. "Ill?"
"They are human after all." Corvin's gaze lifted, steady and intent, locking onto her icy eyes, to measure her own thought process on it. "Think on it. Have you ever heard of a harpy who couldn't fully shift into her avian form? Who lost control of it entirely?"
She shook her head slowly.
"To me," he continued, his voice remained kind as he began to explain his own logic to her. In a way, the princess was a sounding board on these particular ideas, "that, at least to me, sounds less like a curse and more like a sickness. Something broken in the body, mind, or even not always recognised as an illness... but in the soul. Since we can't understand how deep those werewolf bonds run, especially pack bonds. Yet in time, it became easier to frighten children with the idea of wild beasts than to admit the truth — that sometimes nature falters... and when it does, it terrifies us."
She could only hold his gaze, heart beating far too fast. He had got it exactly right... the nature of the thing in the dungeon did indeed terrify her in a way, but it also gave her a thrill that she wasn't quite ready to admit to.
"...and then, there are the Dark Ones," he went on, leaning back in his chair now too. Shifting his hand to make shapes on the wall, projected by his shadow within the glow of one of the wallscoans. "Now those… those things were no fairy stories. They are worst shadows in our recorded history but not the history people want to read or remember. Not beasts who were scary because shifted beneath the moon, howled and got big, ugly and hairy," The princess couldn't help but snort as she laughed at Corvin's description, glancing between him and his shadow puppets on the wall - he really was a fantastic storyteller. Waiting patiently for her to enjoy her giggle, eventually he continued, "...but things, the Dark Ones? They were creatures, monsters even, that throve in shadow. No one truly remembers what they looked like, not even in the records we have — only what they did."
Her throat tightened. "Which was?" Corvin was right, no one ever really talked about these creatures and he seemed to know what he was talking about.
"They spread... Spread," building the tension in his story to match the shadow puppets, made just by his hands and his voice shifted to match. "Like a virus, or wildfire... Like plague. The texts say they consumed first only blood, but then blood was not enough. Then when blood was not enough they began to consume flesh too. Eventually, blood and flesh too grew not to be enough for them, and so they began to consume bone... but one particularly dark table," he shivered thinking of the memory of reading this one. It wasn't actually that the tablet was dark - it was a regular red, having been fired, clay tablet. It was dark in its contents and warning, "That tablet spoke of when they grew tired of blood, flesh and even bone. It spoke of a point that they began to consume more... spirit and shadow. That text talked about the King Five and a half millennia ago, making a deal with the goddess of night and the goddess of darkness - as their divine realms of night and shadow soon became imperiled by these things... and consumed. The world very nearly drowned in them, and they began to consume other realms and works with ours. Kingdoms toppled in mere months. Entire bloodlines vanished. It was only when the Raven King — an Ebonspire, with his court of which my family was part of this too... its why the Mourhollows are very, very old and are still nobles — we all joined hands with the Alpha of the Crimson Bloodhounds, the goddesses of night and darkness and that... all of that together... that's what turned the tide of the Dark Ones."
The buzzing in Sephora's brain never stopped. Throughout their entire discussions through the day and evening, a dawning realisation was growing in her.
There was a werewolf in the dungeon.
Werewolves were not extinct.
Werewolves still existed and...
Werewolves were real.
If werewolves are real... and given the conviction Corvin spoke with, talking about the Dark Ones, then...
"The pact," Sephora murmured, still deep in her reverie. She had heard and read of fragments of this legend, but never in this level of detail and never so put together to now apply her... new pet to this lore.
Corvin nodded. "They... we swore, together, to hunt the Dark Ones to extinction. To the ends of the earth if we must....and for centuries, they- we did. Harpy talons and werewolf fangs. The Crimson Bloodhounds and the Raven Guard, both leading masses of our kind." His expression darkened faintly. "...but pacts are only as strong as memory... and memory fades. Five generations — that's all it took for most noble houses to forget what both we and the Bloodhounds bled for. Now the Dark Ones are barely mentioned or treated like children's phantoms. Not in the way that the werewolves — once one of our truest allies — are whispered of as the monsters instead."
The flamelight caught the sharpness in his features then, his complexion stark with the steel beneath his usual quiet. There was something he left unsaid, and Sephora couldn't help but wonder what that was.
Sephora sat very still, hands folded too tightly in her lap. On the surface, she shifted slightly and and gave a small pat on his shoulder. "You make them sound less like bedtime tales… and more like truths we've chosen not to remember." More trying to convince herself now, than him. She knew that she never would - all the Mourhollows knew the truth. That's really what they were. Guardians of their history and truth.
Corvin's eyes softened. "I make them sound as they are. Truth is... truth is rarely convenient, or ever flattering."
Her heart thudded painfully, but she hid it behind another final sip of her tea. If only he knew.
And yet — for the first time in days — she felt somewhat socially lighter, too. To speak of werewolves, of the pact, of ancient threats, even as a game they use to play because of the lore and over tea… it was a relief.
He hadn't recoiled.
He hadn't called her mad, and she knew he never would.
He had laughed at her "joke," and then given her knowledge that she desperately needed to know and craved.
For a fragile moment, Sephora almost wished she could tell him everything.
For the first time in weeks, Sephora found herself laughing. Not the careful, measured laughter of a princess trained to charm, but the unguarded giggle of a girl who remembered what it felt like to be with a friend, what it felt like... to be safe.
She always felt like she could melt back into being a different person with him.
Something closer to the girl she would, if she were not the imperfect princess.
...but safety never lasted long in the Raven Court and so she savoured the rest of the evening they had together.
For before long, he had to take his leave.
Which left Sephora alone, contemplating everything she ever knew and thought to be real.