Chapter Text
‘Are you sure it’ll work?’ Tina whispered to Nives.
‘Very sure’, the latter answered softly.
‘They were both wearing a thick, dark, hooded cloak. They had bundled themselves up so well that only their eyes were visible through an uncovered slit. They were practicing in the girls’ room, wanting to catch the prince in the act during one of his nightly walks.
Talia, who had been deemed too small to participate in such a risky endeavor, was sitting on a chair in the corner, grumpy. No matter how much she had tried to convince her cousin and sister, it hadn’t worked.
‘It could be dangerous’, Nives had told her.
‘Way to thank me. If I hadn’t told you, you wouldn’t even have known that the prince walks through the castle at night’, she protested.
‘That’s true. Your help has been of great importance.’
‘So? Can I go with you?’
‘Don’t insist, sister’, Tina had turned it up a notch. ‘It’s much more important that you stay here to guard our room while we’re gone.’
‘And we need a trustworthy person for that job’, Nives had been the one to add.
Talia couldn’t see what was so important about the job that was given to her, hence why she was silently staring at the floor.
It was past dinnertime. The day’s sunlight had been swallowed by a thick, gray, darkness. The night silently fell over Arcandida, where soon everyone would go to sleep. Everyone, except the mysterious nightly walker.
Gunnar entered the Mirror Room. He couldn’t sleep. When he closed his eyes, he would be tormented by images he didn’t want to recall. Then he would roughly shake his head, and wander through the halls, or keep watch in front of princess Nives’ room while trying to think of something else.
Now he motionlessly sat there, looking at himself in the mirror walls. Like always, when the sun had sunk beneath the horizon, and no one else could see him, the white wolf saw himself with a completely different exterior. Instead of the mighty animal with the white fur and sharp claws, Gunnar saw the reflection of a tall, slender young man. A human, of flesh and blood, without a tail, without sharp teeth, without that sharply smelling wolf fur.
He saw the Gunnar of the past, the boy who had been turned into a wolf.
The loneliness of the night was the hardest time to keep his memories at bay. And the listlessness and fatigue of those days full of snow just made everything harder.
His grief of the past became mixed with his fear for the future. Prince Herbert, the engagement party, his worries about Nives.
It was almost too much to bear.
Gunnar walked up to the mirror and kept looking at himself intensely. He tried his best to remember every detail. With the tip of his snout, he touched the mirror and started to growl, while the boy in the mirror balled up his fists.
Many years ago, when Gunnar had not yet become a wolf, he was a happy, carefree boy, who lived in the village behind the mountains. He helped his father with building houses. One day he was stopped by a group of bandits from a faraway kingdom on the road leading to the village. Five men clad in black who reeked of peat, like they had lived underground for some time. Men with white eyes. Strangers.
They robbed him, tied him up, and threw him into the crater of an extinct volcano. Gunnar thought he would fall to his death, but that didn’t happen. He survived.
He licked a chunk of ice for water, hoping that someone would come to rescue him at some point. But no one came.
When he had almost reached the last of his strength, he heard a woman’s voice and felt that someone was close. He smelled sulphur, the smell of volcano, a pungent smell. Still tied up, Gunnar tried to turn himself to see who was there. With his one eye that hadn’t been injured during the fall, he could discern a figure clad in wolf pelts, with dark skin that was barely visible against the rock wall.
‘My name is Alifa’, the shadow whispered. ‘And this place belongs to me.’
It was a raw, deep voice that seemed to come straight from the earth’s core.
‘You belong to me, too’, the voice sounded. The figure came closer and caressed Gunnar’s skin with long fingers that looked like stone shards. Alifa was the volcano’s guardian.
Gunnar tried to respond, but he was too weak. Alifa slid past him, circling him. She leaned in towards Gunnar’s face, staring at him with two red, liquid eyes that seemed to be made of lava.
‘You are mine. But you are dying’, she said.
Gunnar closed his eyes. No matter how desperately he tried to think of nice things, the only things that he could find were the darkness, the cold, and the smell of sulphur. He felt her lifting him off the ground, taking him with her into the depths, to her residence inside the volcano.
He heard Alifa’s voice once more, waking him up, whispering to him: ‘I can save your life, human. But it won’t be the same life as before.’
Gunnar didn’t understand a thing. Alifa continued to speak: ‘You were a weak, defenseless creature, that’s why your life is slipping away now. I can make you into a strong, fearsome being. You will gain back your life, but no human will ever be able to see you for who you used to be. You will become a wolf. A white wolf. And once you are a wolf, you will be able to tell no one, in no possible way, about me and the terms that make up our deal. The decision is up to you.’
Gunnar was dazed. And he still didn’t understand. A wolf? What use would that have, to live as a wolf? He was confused: what kind of life would he even be able to live? Then he remembered the words of his mother after having welcomed his little brother into the world: ‘Life is a gift, my son. The greatest gift of all.’
So he made his choice. ‘I have decided’, he said weakly.
‘And what have you chosen?’
‘I choose to become a wolf.’
In the Mirror Room of Arcandida, Gunnar closed his eyes. His memories disappeared at once. And the wolf turned around in the dark.
Prince Herbert counted down the minutes until it was deep in the night. He calmly waited until all lights and sounds in the castle had gone out, and then, just like the other nights, he stood up, put on dark clothes and a dark cloak to be as inconspicuous as possible in the deserted halls of the sleeping castle, grabbed a small box with holes from his few luggage and slightly opened it.
He checked whether its continents were alright, mumbled a kind of verse in an unknown language and smiled with satisfaction, after which he closed the box again and walked to the door. Soundless, he slipped outside and disappeared into the darkness.
Nives and Tina didn’t move a finger. They breathed very calmly, in the same rhythm. They were hiding under the stairs, hidden in the spot where the winding of the stairs made the largest turn before ending on the wooden floor of the hall of Arcandida.
It was the perfect hiding spot where you couldn’t be seen from any direction, and from which you could keep an eye on both the hallway to the kitchen and the one to the rooms. Everything was wrapped in the darkness of the night. The only light came from two candles on a tall, silver candlestick that hung halfway into the main hall. The unnerving shadow plays startled the two girls with every slightest change in airflow.
The silence enveloping the castle was all-encompassing, almost deafening, making them afraid to move. Because of the darkness, they couldn’t even look at eachother.
They stayed like that for a long, long time, unmoving, like two old statues. And just when they were starting to get fed up with this stupid game and wanted to go back to Nives’ room, they finally heard something.
They were indeed footsteps, very soft, small steps. Tina grabbed hold of Nives’ hand and squeezed it tightly.
Their hearts beat in the same rhythm. Slowly, someone came down the stairs.
The two girls stayed silently in place. When the wooden floor started to creak under the footsteps too, Nives stuck out her head just a little bit to see who was walking there.
A little bit disappointed, she found that the mysterious footsteps belonged to Gunnar.
The wolf came down the stairs and walked into the hall without noticing them: he seemed to be focused on looking for something.
Gunnar inspected the hall, looked outside through the big doors for a while, and then walked away, still cautious. Nives and Tina kept waiting.
They didn’t have to wait long before they heard footsteps again. This time they sounded heavier, and were accompanied by a light metallic sound, maybe a small clasp bumping against leather boots.
They were the footsteps of a man.
The newcomer descended the stairs more slowly than Gunnar, and once downstairs, he did his best to not make the wooden floorboards creak too loudly.
For the second time, Nives turned her head slightly towards the light to see who it was. When her eyes found the figure’s cloak, quick like the eyes of a cat, there was no doubt in mind: this was prince Herbert.
Nives squeezed Tina’s hand tightly, who understood and tried to take a look as well. But Nives stopped her and put a hand over her mouth: if they wanted to find out what he was going to do, they couldn’t reveal themselves.