She has no idea how much power lives inside her.
A young girl's life is about to change. By her father's arrangement, Gabriella is to marry a local merchant twice her age in the spring of 1693. Though she is afraid to leave her family, the fifteen...
"We're safe for the moment," Maximo said after an hour's journey.
"How can you be sure?"
Perhaps I hadn't believed him when he'd carried me from Castello Palatino on our last night in Como. His frenzied pace made little sense to me, even after I'd see hunters in pursuit. But my innocence was now gone, and I understood at last that we were in mortal danger everywhere we stepped.
"They don't know in which direction we fled, and I doubt their alpha could sense you at such a distance."
Despite the hint of uncertainty in Maximo's voice, I suspected he was right. Though the alpha was much older than either of us, I didn't perceive she could sense me over some thirty miles.
Sitting beside Maximo, we huddled in the snow under heavy branches for shelter. We kept our werewolf forms for the safety of their heat if nothing else. To my surprise, my cuts were already healing. The bleeding from the iron needle punctures smoothly clotted. Still, the little wounds bit mercilessly, as did the throb of my mutilated finger, far from its immortal repair.
I tried to clear my mind of the pain and focused on all that happened. I needed to understand the events, now removed from the frenzy and horror. What I'd done in the cave was more than unexpected; I hadn't known those things were possible. Sempronio never hinted that such destructive powers existed, even though I'd seen with my own eyes what he'd done to Duccio.
Thinking on these riddles, I indulged in imaginary debates with the master over how such powers could have come to me. I postulated it was nothing more than simple dumb luck—that nature had endowed me in ways Maximo and the lycan of Castello Palatino hadn't been. Ambrosius had the strength of order and strong command; Dionisio had the gift of wit and an angel's voice. Duccio had mental control abilities that enabled him to change the very texture of a man's perceptions and memories. There was no rhyme or reason to how each of them was endowed.
My imagined Sempronio nodded pensively, exercising his patience to let me finish my argument. Only when I was through did he reiterated something he'd told me several times before.
"We each have the same potential you exhibited. But for most, those powers only come to us in time. Sometimes, they emerge only when we have a true need for them."
The master explained how the magnitude of my suffering, which perhaps the others had never endured, caused the emergence of my strengths. Was it illogical to think that my werewolf, my vovkulaka, knew intimately of my abuse as a girl? Might not those horrors have prepared the beast to protect me in ways the others never required?
He paced around his lost study and suggested that, in the end, the werewolf is a suit of armor that protects its lycan host at all costs. It naturally wields its powers separately from our conscious will. It is a savage beast that, at times, strikes out instinctually to protect us, and not always in ways we might expect or wish.
"Over time, if you're lucky enough to survive such violence, you too may learn to control the werewolf's genuine potential, even when you're not in mortal danger."
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Days later, we emerged from the alps into the rolling fields of France. The warmth of Spring was already upon the land, and finding ourselves among green life once again raised our spirits. Each night, we stepped into a different pond to bathe, repeatedly marveling at the simple pleasures of unfrozen water. It was heaven, we agreed, even if it was nothing as sublime as Castello Palatino's hot running water, or that Maximo had to hold me to keep me from shivering.
We never lowered our guard, avoiding other lycan whenever I sensed any hint of them. But this was the first place we'd found where fear didn't paralyze our every thought. Though Maximo insisted we continue west, I debated the idea whenever we stopped.
"Eventually, we will reach the great sea. Do you mean for us to cross it to the new world?"
"Is that such a terrible idea?" he asked, massaging my tender skin in the silent pond. "If we seek to distance ourselves from others, why not go where far less people live?"
"That's not true," I insisted. "Those places are filled with people just the same as here. Sempronio was among them for centuries—as vast and varied as anywhere in Europe."
I stared at the glimmering stars on this moonless night. This was where I wanted to be.
"Do you really fear anything from them?" he asked. "Now that you've witnessed the limits of your abilities?"
I'd thought of nothing else for a week. Unsure of what I'd done, I quietly experimented with my gifts. Both in my lycan and werewolf forms, I attempted to use the telekinetic strength that had leapt from me in the alpine cave. I remembered with startling clarity the variety of ways in which my dark protector had vanquished our captors. Nevertheless, I couldn't reproduce any of the effects.
"I didn't do those things you saw," I answered. "My wolf protected me, but they were involuntary actions outside my control."
At once, I realized what I said was not entirely true. While I had moved objects instinctually, it was my consumed hatred that had lit them aflame. I'd never felt that emotion so strongly before, and I reveled in the power it wielded from my mind. But hatred was not something I could simply choose to feel, not to that degree. I couldn't decide to feel hatred for someone who hadn't wronged me. So I couldn't feel it for a stag in the forest, no matter how much I concentrated.
"It was an accident," I continued, "and we cannot rely upon it."
"Then we must continue to run," he whispered in time, acknowledging my certainty.
He held me close, and I buried my head on his shoulder in defeat.
