Part Three | Parts One and Two
She was asleep, hands grasping at her chest (stupid, she had thought before she drifted off, there’s nothing in there, not anymore) and her sword carefully laid at her side. She fell into a wolf dream, hard, but it was different, and she could taste something at the back of her throat. Fear cuts deeper than swords, she told herself, the last thing she remembered thinking before she slid into the dream.
***
She was strong, always strong, in her dreams, muscles taunt and ready to spring, eyes bright and searching. Her lips were bared, and the wind hit her teeth, slipped between the cracks of her snarl, and she shivered, the cold pricking at her fur. Winter is coming, the girl thought somewhere, and the wolf shivered again at the words.
The wolf turned and ran, ran hard and fast, trying to escape the cold, trying to escape whatever it brought with it. It was night, but the sky was angry; reds and purples swirled above her, and the stars weren’t stars, but pinpricks in the fabric, holes the cold could get through. The moon was hidden, but it made no difference; the wolf’s eyes were sure, and she bounded along the river, ignoring the noises that were screaming all around her. But the war is over, the girl thought again, her voice dragged out in the wolf, the smallest of whispers until it might never have been said at all.
Still the wolf ran, her brothers gathering themselves behind her, falling into step with her, matching her stride for stride. Her eyes glowed under the moonless sky and her fur stood on end as she skidded to a stop, a growl starting low in her throat. A man stood over her, hair almost as shaggy as hers, but ink black (like another brother, a voice whispered, a brother lost). He held something in his hand and as the sky gleamed its red and purple, he raised it above her head until the iron shone dully.
And somewhere, the girl woke, breaths tumbling out of her mouth, hands reaching for the sword at her side. “Just a dream,” she whispered, and the words echoed back at her. Just a dream.