The Moonlit Curse

Ch 10: Building Bridges

Kiya didn't sleep well that night. That wasn't a surprise. She hadn't slept well a single night since arriving in Silverkeep. Even if her shoulder didn't burn like an iron brand, there was too much on her mind. Images of twisted and mutated half-man-half-wolf creatures ran around her head every time she closed her eyes.

And if that weren't bad enough, she couldn't shake the feeling that she was being watched. When she tossed one way or the other, she caught the flash of silver eyes in her periphery. Once she thought she heard someone whispering her name as well. That someone being a particular inn owner who slept almost directly above her.

"Twenty-seven days," another voice whispered in her ear.

She shot straight up in the bed, a cold sweat building up on the back of her neck and a stab of pain in her shoulder to remind her that there were much bigger things than August she needed to worry about. There was another man with peculiar-coloured eyes taking up space in her head.

No one she'd ever met had eyes as intensely green as Hadyn's. As hard as she tried not to, she couldn't help but think they were unnaturally green. And no matter how hard she tried, she couldn't stop thinking about the story he told her. If there was any truth to it, then he was related to the goddess herself, and his family had a direct connection to werewolves.

But that was impossible. Ridiculous, even. Absolutely, positively, one hundred percent impossible. He was a pretty man with a pretty voice spewing pretty words meant to entice and confuse. For a moment, his voice had worked on her. She had so easily bent to his will through his words before managing to get her head back on straight. The masters and commanders of the Monster Corps would kill for the ability to speak like that.

Twenty-seven days. Twenty-six, once the sun rose on the new day, until the next full moon. And then what?

Then she would go back on duty, obviously. She would go to the top of that tower with Red and the others for three long, boring nights on the lookout for monsters that didn't exist. They would talk through the night to keep each other awake, gripe about the cold, tease Elise and Red over their stubborn insistence in believing in monsters, and then they would come back down, and sleep the day away. Then they would do it the next month, and two more months after that.

She reached for the pendant at her chest and clutched it tight enough to leave an impression on her palm. She focused on the warm—not hot—metal against her skin to assure herself, once again, that everything was fine. There was no curse. If she had really been cursed, the silver would have burned through her flesh. There weren't any werewolves, or monsters, or anything. Just a small town in a big, empty forest full of bears.

Big, mutated, wolfish-looking bears...

Even though sunrise was still many hours away, Kiya gave up hope of ever getting to sleep and got out of bed. She moved silently around the room to her trunk, careful not to wake Elise, and dressed in what was becoming her usual outfit to combat the cold. Thick leggings under another pair of trousers, and a long-sleeved shirt with a thick leather bodice vest overtop.

Leather was the armor of choice in the north. The care and effort put into forging their weapons had never been given to armor. Kiya could carry her blades into any condition, from this frozen hellscape to the center of a volcano, and they would hold strong. Her plate, however, grew brittle on a rainy summer's afternoon in the capital. It would probably shatter like glass here. So, even though soldiers of the Monster Corps were supposed to take it on every deployment, none of them had bothered in years.

Damn the cold.

The main room was empty, as she suspected, and so was the kitchen in the back room. It was the first time she'd come into this room, despite August welcoming them to use it as they pleased. The charcoal cooking stove was enormous, and explained how the inn was sufficiently heated with only one small wood stove in the room she and Elise shared, and the fireplace in the main room that had been cold and empty since their arrival.