Her Wolf King

{le village}

THE VILLAGE

Lenore left before the sun had come up, before the moon had faded from the crisp blue sky, and before the dew drops had slid off the bright orange leaves. She took a carriage, pulled by two of Everett's bay geldings—not Butterscotch—and a ghostly coachman, and left him a note on the dining room table.

Her chest felt oddly hollow as the horses clopped on the leaf-strewn road, which wound through the dense copses of trees toward the village. Tugging her hood over her face, she had the strangest sense of wanting to hide from the world, to block out the visions around her so that she might pretend she did not exist at all. Fear. That must've been it.

She was worried about Marya seeing her. About that witch attacking her, or worse yet, sending a monster to do it for her.

All too likely, that was what had burned the village. Faerie fire and monstrous creatures, fangs dripping venom and seething with rage.

Bile rose in her throat at the thought, and she had to swallow thickly just to keep nausea from clawing out of her and making her vomit. She was better than this; better than this sickly fear.

And if she was honest with herself, it wasn't fear of horrid beasts or dangerous faeries that had her feeling so dejected. It was the sense that she had left a vital piece of herself behind the further they drove toward the village and away from the castle. She touched the fur lining of her hood; it made her feel like a different woman than the frightened, lonely, desperate girl who had left that church so many weeks ago.

How could so much time have passed? How could she have grown so used to living at the castle in finery while her father and brother likely wore clothes barely a step above rags and just as worn thin, without her to darn them? How could she have let herself eat rich meals and sleep on a feather bed when her father and brother's hut was barely a step above a hovel?

She knew logically, reasonably, that punishing herself while they suffered would not alleviate either of their pains. Yet she could not help but feel guilty as she twisted the emerald ring on her finger.

The carriage arrived all too soon at the outskirts of the village. Parting the heavy velvet drapes, she stared outside and her jaw fell open.

How could such carnage have swept through–such destruction been wrought?

Houses that had once been–well, if not grand–serviceable enough, now lay in heaps of smoldering ruins, charred rubble replacing bricks or wooden slats. Trees had been uprooted as if by some malevolent giant's hand, and splintered into shreds of curling bark and jagged, dirt-covered wood. The road was blocked by fallen branches and what appeared to be a landslide's worth of mud and rocks.

"How could this have happened?" she murmured, letting the curtain fall again. The coachman gave no answer, but the horses whinnied uneasily.

She hopped out of the carriage, not waiting for the ghostly servant to help her. Everywhere she liked, what once had been neatly ordered was now completely obliterated. She couldn't help but blame herself for the calamity that had been visited upon the town, though she knew all too likely it was Marya's fault...

Was it worth it? A voice whispered in her mind. Was he worth it?

Staring at the destruction around her, she didn't know what to say in answer.

"Lenore!" On the horizon, now clear from the houses and trees that had been leveled, she spotted a familiar figure.

Timothy.

Maneuvering the piles of debris, she broke into a sprint toward him, darting around the obstacles to reach her brother. She flung her arms around him. "Oh, Timothy! I'm so glad you're alright. Where is everyone? Where is Father? What happened?"