8

I hear screams coming from the portal decorated with the supreme symbol. Without further ado, I rush to the main staircase and hurry to see what is happening there. I run quickly, leaving my black mane in the wind. The cries of argument have given way to screams that I recognize well. The young woman, collapsed on the ground crying, expresses her suffering. A suffering that burns, that slowly destroys. A suffering that comes from the heart and that carries away all reason in an intense surge of tears.

In the blink of an eye, I try to analyze the situation. A woman is on the ground, crying in front of guards who look at her like an alien. She must have asked for asylum, but faced with dogs well-bred to obey, they did not let her in, rightly or wrongly. In this case, without any hesitation, I know that the suffering of the woman is very real. She doesn't fake it.

When we live through hardships, it is easy to recognize our colleagues. So with the same ease that I have at spotting a psychopath, I know she needs help.

I see the guards begin to push her away dragging her on the ground, a cry comes to me instinctively:

“Stop! »

But the soldiers don't listen to me. Unable to use my aura and the portal separating me from the action, I try to push it, but it is closed. They took precautions, these dogs. I climb onto the crowned wolf's head and quickly scale the portal. Without difficulty, I reach the woman. I push away all the guards telling them I'm taking care of the situation. They look at me with a bad eye, but let me do, happy to be rid of the woman. I clumsily try to cheer him up:

"Calm down, okay? You are safe now... Breathe slowly... Look at me. »

She listens to what I do and with a silk handkerchief that I take out of my pocket like a magician, I wipe away her tears. I go from magician to fortune teller trying to figure it out. In her big green eyes, I see a lot of youth, passion, but also a lost happiness. She is frail and carefree and no doubt now lost. I try to approach it slowly:

"Hey...everything alright now...what's your name?"

- They came, she said completely adrift.

- Who that, I ask attentively

- One hundred ! Everywhere ! We were trapped. I... It's my fault... I couldn't do anything!

- It's not your fault... Breathe. What happened next?

- I ran away. Quick. Far. I... I waited in a tree... There were a hundred of them! Everywhere ! We were trapped. I... It's my fault... I couldn't do anything! I was in the tree. I saw everyone get ... get done, she says, bursting into tears.

- Don't worry, you don't have to say the word. Did you see the people who attacked you?

- I saw... I saw them. They killed Beryn! »

I don't need to ask the question to know that Beryn is her soulmate. I see it a thousand times in his eyes. His heart is screaming at me that it will never mend itself. Looking for a landmark, an anchor that would keep her in reality, she clings to me with strength. She must find a solid base. I let her. I am slightly tense by this contact, but I cannot deny that to a dying person. Because she knows it and all the wolves know that when her soul mate dies, the other half, if they were close, dies soon after. It's already a miracle that she could have come this far knowing that there is no life within a large enough radius. She tells me, more calmly:

" I feel empty. My heart is dead. He was the one who told me to go to the tree and that he took care of everything. I saw him die, straight in the eye. He had a tear in his eye and he was looking in my direction. He knew I would join him soon after. It's my turn to die and the last image I'll have in mind is of Beryn, among the bodies of my friends, a tear in her eye, begging me to live. »

The wolf seems totally absent, in a trance. She describes with all her pain, the horror she experienced. Looks like a robot, I wave my hand in front of his eyes, but there is no sign of life. She plunges back into her memories and little by little, she loses grip with reality. She walks away from me and heartbroken, continues:

“I ran to him so I could touch his warmth. The murderers were still there. But I posed no threat. One gave me a slap that knocked me to the ground next to him. I was in front of him. I put my hands on the man I love and fell asleep, hoping forever. But I woke up, I realized that I still had something to do. I saw the bloody newspaper on the floor about the Alpha Supreme and I knew I had to come.

- Where do you come from ?

- Dibagne »

Immediately, this name echoes. It's a small town not too far from here, lost in the forest. If she hadn't come, it would have taken us days to find out. I try to think back to the people who could have had an attack and an idea comes to my mind. If it were wolves, she would instinctively have spoken of wolves, there, she said "people" so it could be elves. Thus confirming definitively, what I heard. I ask him :

"Do you know if they had black skin or long ears?" Or even a fairly aerial combat technique?

- They killed him..."

I see her sink into her sadness. She definitely broke away from me. She sank. His eyes are blank. I could threaten her with a gun and she wouldn't react. Part of me wants to know, but the other forces itself not to insist. I decide to take her back to the house and when I turn around, I see Ezequiel. I ask him to send people to Dibagne and I win permission to take the young wolf inside. I approach her and the moment I brush against her, fleeing from reality, I hear her heart stop. The woman would no longer have been able to anchor herself. I say calmly:

" She is dead.

- She will be buried in the village with her family..."

Said the first beta, nodding. I get up after gently depositing his body and I find myself being slightly touched by this death. I look at his calm face in order to understand. She represents everything I wish I had. She had her soul mate and she was innocent. The two things I would never have. I am firmly grounded in reality. My life sucks and it will stay that way.

I dust off my outfit, no longer a magician, or a seer, but a killer. I close my face and my gaze changes to the woman whose name I don't even know.

One more collateral victim. A person turned into cannon fodder. A life destroyed for a war that is not his.