A mansion. A gorgeous, beautiful, huge mansion resting on top of that very high hill. It was more of a castle than a mansion, actually, the stone turrets reaching high into the sky. The entire thing was made of great tannish stones, piled up on top of each other to form a breath-taking home. Tala leaned back a little in order to see better, and saw her sisters doing the same, Halyn with more difficulty with the addition of a booster seat barrier.

Conner didn’t drive into a garage, but rather he pulled up to the highest peak of the driveway and parked. Tala instantly got out and began to help her sisters out; it was just instinct. After making sure Halyn was awake, Cora behaving, and Emily not trying to break against Tala’s grip on her arm (she had a tendency to run into things), Tala allowed Conner to get the suitcase this time without protest. She was tired and jetlagged, despite the remaining awe from her new house.

Their uncle pulled a dirty brass key from his pocket and used it to unlock the large oak door embellished with a matching brass wolf-head knocker. The door swung open easily, almost with a flourish, and Conner stepped back to give the girls their first look at where they would be living from now on.

Wow. That was the only thought on Tala’s mind as she gazed around, and what an eloquent thought it was. The entire entrance hall, if that’s what you wanted to call it, was huge. The walls were covered in cherry wooden paneling and the floor was made up of large cream colored tiles, a small black tile in between each. Looking upwards for the first time, she noticed something else that silenced her even further.

A beautiful mural, painted on tall vaulted ceilings; all colors of the rainbow were on it, as far as Tala could see. A breathtaking scene was pictured; although she could not altogether tell exactly what it pictured, she instantly thought of the old Bible stories her mother used to tell her before bed each night. One in particular came to mind; David in the lions’ den. That’s what it looked like anyway, if you had switched out the lions with timber wolves.

Another thing, not bad but strange nonetheless, was quickly noticed by Tala and her sisters. Portraits. Portraits everywhere. All shapes and sizes, too. A large round one here, a few small squares there. The people painted were all different, too. There was a stern-looking man in a Revolutionary War uniform in one that brought to mind images of her father when he was angry. Another painting depicted a young regal woman that had the same black hair and fiery eyes as herself.

Hundreds, maybe thousands, of portraits, almost entirely obscured the walls on which they’d been hung. Tala also noticed a similar symbol emblazoned on all of them in the lower right-hand corner; a silver paw print, similar to a dog’s, but she couldn’t place the exact animal of origin.

Cora, Emily, and Halyn, she noticed, were staring in awe at the many portraits as well, when a huge grey dog came barreling out of nowhere. It hurtled past the doorway towards the girls. Tala jumped out of the way, Cora pulled Halyn to the side, but Emily was knocked to the ground in the ruckus. Emily was frightened by the loud noises and sudden bursts of movement from her three sisters and the dog. She fell to the floor and backed up to the wall, her knees tucked to her chest, shaking.

All initial fear at the dog now lost, Tala went to her six-year old sister and pulled her back against the wall. Conner leapt over to the dog and grabbed his collar. “Întoarce-te, bestie fault!” He said loudly as he dragged him back. Tala hauled Emily backed up, but the latter still clung to the former legs fearfully. The dog whined and backed up, seemingly in understanding of Conner’s odd language. It walked back toward a large, double, ornate staircase, seeking refuge under the bottom steps.

Tala looked at her uncle incredulously. “Bloody hell, are you insane?! What are you doing keeping an effin’ bear-dog locked up in a house?” Conner sighed. “Look, I’m sorry. He’s my pet. Normally he’s really calm, I swear, he just gets excited around new people. But he won’t actually hurt anybody. That I can guarantee. And,” he chuckled, annoying his eldest niece further, if that was even possible, “although your theory on he being a ‘bear-dog’ was pretty good, I must point out the fact that he is a wolf. A tame one.” He added quickly.

Leaning to the right a bit to see better, Tala noticed that it was indeed a huge grey wolf that had spooked her and her family. “Cool!” Cora squealed, running over to the stairs to inspect her new friend. “Does he have a name?” Conner smiled. “Vârcolac.”

Cora grinned and scratched Vârcolac behind his ear, making his leg thump on the ground like an over-active puppy- dog. Emily was still clutching Tala’s leg, but she let go and ventured over slowly when she saw her older sister playing with the great beast. “Why Romanian?” Tala asked, curiously. Conner’s eyes widened. He instantly tried to play off his initial appearance of being shocked. “What Romanian?”

Tala rolled her eyes. “You’re not a very good liar, you know. We all know Romanian.” Conner shut his mouth, realizing it had been open.

"Ei bine ... vrei să vezi camerele dvs., atunci?"
"Sigur. Dar numai dacă putem vorbi în limba engleză."

Conner led them up the elegant staircase onto the second floor, only to reveal another simpler staircase that brought them to the third floor, which, if you can find the pattern now, had an even simpler staircase. It was a black spiral staircase in the very middle of the floor, leading to the center of the next. This was the final flight of stairs, however, and they led the four sisters and their uncle to an attic space, divided into four equal square areas.

“You know, I’ve never actually been up here,” Conner admitted, looking around curiously. Cora wondered out loud, “But isn’t it your house?” Conner nodded. “Well, yeah, but this sued to be the attic. I never came up here before; never felt a need to. Only after your parents… well, you know.” They did know. They knew the entire sick truth.
They knew that while they slept, four masked figures had snuck into their large-for-London house, prompting what seemed to be an endless string of barking from the neighbor’s dog. Waking up from what was normally a deep slumber, sixteen-year old Tala had wandered down the corridor, finding her sisters standing groggily at the top of the staircase.
“Wazzat?” Cora muttered sleepily. Not knowing whether her parents were awake or not, and choosing to whisper because of it, Tala said, “I’m not sure. Let’s go downstairs for a bit. I’m certainly not going to sleep a wink until that damn dog shuts up.”
So it was then, that hallway down the steps, Tala heard voices not belonging to her parents, and stopped in her tracks, crouching so she was hidden, yet so she could still see through the bannister. Four unrecognizable people, dressed head to toe in black, complete with stereotypical break-in ski masks, stood in front of the couch, their parents sat on, blindfolded and gagged so that even their muffled noises were practically silent.
Tala was afraid. Tala was freaking out. Tala was forgetting how to breathe. She watched as the figures grouped around the couch her mother and father sat on and talk amongst themselves. “What do we do with them?” One asked, the heaviest with small sprigs of blonde hair poking out of the back of his mask. “What do you mean ‘what do we do?’ We came here to kill ‘em, so let’s get on with it!” Another one replied, this obviously a woman, and the more rational, too.
The other two people walked so they were behind the couch, removed the gags, and un-did the blindfolds, falling forgotten onto their lap. Isabela Canis’s golden hair was rumpled and spread across her face. Tears streaked down her cheeks as she said, her voice slightly wobbly, “You won’t get away with this, you know. They’ll catch you!”
The woman laughed. “The Lunar Guards will do no such thing. They lack the brain cells capable of doing so. A filthy mutt could do better.” This was somehow hilarious to her comrades and they cackled with laughter almost as loud as the yappy Chihuahua.
Please help us, somebody help us, Tala pleaded to an unknown listener in her head. The thought behind the joke and the term “Lunar Guards” did not seem to penetrate her thoughts, and she continued to cower on the staircase, only vaguely aware of her sisters’ presence.
Archer continued after his wife had been silenced. “You’ll be caught. She will rise to the role of the Beings’ Princess. It’s been her destiny since the dawn of time. We’ve known it, too.” The group laughed as millions of thoughts, none of them remotely comprehendible, ran through Tala’s mind.
“Her?!” The heavy masked man asked incredulously. “She’s not even one of them!” The senior Canis’s refused to speak from then on, instead staring at their intruders, hatred burning from their eyes like fire from a dragon’s snout. “Well! Cat got your tongue? Tsk, tsk, too bad.” One said, clucking her tongue. “We were done with you anyways, I suppose.”
And with that, and a lot of terrible ear-splitting BANG!s later… they were dead. Blood spattered against the couch and the people in black were gone, having slipped out the door immediately after, leaving the Canis sisters orphaned and with ringing ears. And that’s how her parents died, the four of them witnessing the entire thing.
A loud noise brought her back to the present, and Tala had to shake her head a little to give her that metaphorical jolt back to her current state of mind. Okay, I’m here now, that’s all over. I’m here in bloody Canada and- Jesus, I really hate Canada. Tala realized that the sound was Conner accidentally pushing the door back so far it hit the wall.
It really was a nice space. The spiral staircase was engulfed in an astounding five square foot circle of ancient hardwood. Then they stood in a rhombus of walls, sort of. Each of the four walls (assuming you passed sixth grade geometry, a rhombus has four sides) had a door on it, adorned by a black plaque. Each one had silvery lettering on it, spelling out their full names. Great, thought Tala. Heaven forbid I ever bring someone home from school they’ll know that I’m Tala Silene Canis.

“You should know, by the way,” Conner said, “that your parents made up these rooms for you if anything happened to them.” He allowed each of them into their corresponding door.

Tala liked her room. A lot. She could tell it was made just for her. All the walls (besides the door and a place for the bed obviously) were wrapped in grey shelves, ready to be stuffed with the life library she’d collected over the years. The fiction could go there, and the dictionaries could be put in that spot there… yes that would do nicely. She speculated, standing in the middle of the room.

She had a nice desk in a spot where there were only shelves going halfway up the wall. Then she could just stand and reach for a book instead of making the trek across the room. Her favorite part was the bed, though; it was attached to the wall, a large, white triangle fused to a spot in between two shelf levels. It was more of a daybed, actually, and had light bluish-purple bedding and matching pillows on it.

By the way the pillows were arranged, the drawers on the desks had been organized, even the scent of her mother’s perfume on the curtains, she could somehow tell it was she who had placed everything there. It was comforting to know that she could still feel her presence around her if she wanted to, somehow knowing that Isabela was like a guardian angel to her, and she considered this, though she barely even thought about when her mother would’ve come to North America unbeknownst to her.

The window over her bed was large and overlooked the acres upon acres Havenwood rested on. There was a heavily wooded area at the foot of the hill, and Tala could already imagine the bumps and bruises she would have to treat on her sisters from tumbling down it. But there would be fun times, too. They might even be able to go sledding if they could find a flat board somewhere.

The night before, over a foot and a half of snow had fallen on most of Canada, specifically where Alberta was located. So when Tala, Cora, Emily, and Halyn rejoined in the common space and realized that their uncle was no longer on that floor, they decided to explore.

The Canis girls were famous for their explorations in their old London neighborhood. Everybody knew that Tala led these expeditions, Cora and Halyn only too happy to follow in their eldest sister’s wake. Goody-two-shoes Emily was normally pulled along anyway. Nobody had much of a problem with this, though. They could tell that the eldest Canis was very overprotective of her sisters and would never allow them to be injured or brought under a bad influence, especially her own.

They covered the entire third floor in one hour, working their way down gradually. They’d “snooped” around a ballroom, dining room, the majority of what appeared to be an old observatory (?), and about fifteen unmarked closets. Tala noticed a likely-looking doorframe behind a portrait and requested Cora to help her open it.

Her oldest younger sister ran over and together they pried the door, attached to a painting of a bowl of fruit, open. Clouds of dust obscured the room through the doorway, making Tala and Cora cough and wave their arms through the grime to clear it. Eventually, though, the cloud cleared and they could see through to what they came to realize was an old, abandoned office.

Immediately, Halyn stood casually by the doorway, performing her role as what Cora had teasingly dubbed “watch-toddler.” Emily carefully began to rifle through cardboard boxes she’d found under a thick rolled-up tapestry. Tala and Cora were less cautious than her, bumping around the room as they moved from desk to desk.

Once, Cora had accidentally opened a drawer with a dead mouse inside, reduced to a just a skeleton. She squealed so loudly Tala had had to leap over to her and clap a hand over her mouth while Cora had a minor panic attack. Now, Tala was praying they didn’t have a repeat of that episode. She didn’t think Conner would be particularly angry if they were caught- it was their house, after all. But he may not appreciate the fact that they might be disturbing old stuff that holds some significance to his family tree.

At around two o’clock they were ready to give up hope of finding anything interesting when Emily exclaimed in her high-pitched voice, “I found something! I found something!” Tala, fully expecting it to be a spider or a bat or some equally gross animal, went to her in the hopes of not having to kill anything, but instead found Emily clutching a set of fancy leather-bound journals.

Tala gently wrenched them from her hands, examining them. They weren’t as old as some of the things she’d found, but looked as though it had seen a few decades. She un-did the thick buckle and cracked it open, breathing in the scent of old paper. She could see dark blue initials marking it as someone’s, but she couldn’t make it out. The rest of the journal was the same; a few words stood out- “moon” “hate” “full” “Havenwood” “pain”- but for the most part she could not tell what was said.

“Hey, troops,” she said, calling her sisters over. She passed the book around. “What d’ya guess this says?” Cora took the journal from Tala and inspected it, flipping through pages at a time. “Well, this here could say ‘The pain is almost too much to pear.’” Tala looked over her shoulder. “Um, I think it’s ‘bear,’ sis.” “Oh.”

“Why don’t we show Conner? He might be able to tell us whose it was.” Emily suggested. “Er- I don’t think that’s the best-,” Tala began. But they were already off and running. Tala sighed desperately and took off after them.

Tala caught up with them just at the bottom of the ornate staircase and tried to whisper-scream to them. But it was too late. They’d already seen Conner, sitting at the table with a stack of papers he was reading. Tala nervously chose to stand in the doorway so it looked like she objected. She didn’t want the little ones to get into trouble, but she knew any punishment they got would be much better than what she’d get.

She watched as they handed over the journals, as Conner flipped through them, as his face contorted from light-hearted to disapproval. She watched as her uncle questioned them about where they’d found the books. She held her breath, then breathed a sigh of relief, when her sisters went with the default answer: they’d been walking through the [insert unsuspicious room] and [insert one of them] had tripped over them.

Conner looked angry, but obviously tried to control himself, so Tala hurriedly said, “I can take them down to the village. They’ve been wanting to go down there all morning, pestering me about it, and it’d get us out of your hair.” Their uncle looked as though he were contemplating the newly brought forth option, and Tala expected him to say no, but instead he sighed and said, “Fine. But don’t talk to anyone suspicious and be back by five. Take some cash from the bowl next to the door and get lunch while you’re out.”
Tala quickly agreed to the terms and conditions, then hastily shooed her sisters out of the dining room to get ready. After making sure all of her sisters were bundled up and warm enough for the harsh Canadian air, she grabbed $25 from the bowl as requested, and figured that would be enough- she’d seen a fast-food place while they’d driven through. Though not the healthiest choice, and no doubt her mother would’ve disapproved had she been alive, it was cheap and quick. They had exploring to do.
The hardest part of the mile long journey to the town was the trek down the suddenly terrifyingly steep hill. Swiftly rejected was Cora’s idea to simply roll down, for fear there would be a concussion involved. So instead they laid down on their backs in the wet snow, Halyn clinging to Tala’s shoulders in a makeshift piggy-back ride per her insistence, and shimmied down the hill. They made it to the bottom alright, but it had taken a good ten minutes and their backs were soaked. They stowed their gloves in their pockets to dry and carried on down the dirt path to the town. Halyn was especially pleased that Tala allowed her to stay on her shoulders for a real honest-to-goodness ride.
There was a small patch of dirt and a few fifty-foot tall evergreens that Halyn quickly dubbed a forest, so for her sake, they pretended to go on an adventure, complete with pirates and fair maidens and knights in shining armor. When everyone had been rescued and returned safely to their homelands, they had finally reached the town, a small wooden sign welcoming them to Forest Creek (“See! I told you it was a forest!”).
The town was small, a few thousand people living there, but it seemed everyone was out and about. Probably for last-minute Christmas shopping, Tala thought as the snow crunched beneath her. Men and women were bustling everywhere, hoping to get out of the cold as soon as possible while children ran through the crowd, chasing each other with snowballs.
“I want to go to the bakery,” Halyn said, tugging on her eldest sister’s vibrant purple hair, which, Tala had noticed, had made a few adults’ eyes turn towards them, disapproval clearly evident. “And this one’s dying to go to the library,” Cora said, motioning to Emily, who was shuffling her feet- what she always did when she wanted something but was too afraid to ask.
“Hey, wanna go to the library?” Tala asked, so she didn’t have to. Emily nodded breathlessly, glad not to have to shuffle anymore. “Well… I can take Emily and you can take Halyn. We could meet back here in an hour for lunch?” Tala looked at Cora.
“Oh, come on- she’s ten! I’ve watched her loads of times. And she’ll be good- won’t you, Emily?” The girl being addressed nodded vigorously, grinning. “Well… alright. But make sure she’s not too hungry, or cold, or nervous. We don’t want a panic attack in the middle of a public library. And for Jesus’s sake, please don’t lose her!” Tala exclaimed. Cora rolled her eyes, replying in her best sarcastic tone, “Oh, please. Have some faith, will you? I’m her sister, too, you know.” Tala nodded absently.
“Okay, see you back here in forty-five minutes. And not a second later!” She called to her sisters’ retreating backs, and was pleasantly surprised to see Cora gripping Emily tightly by the shoulder, leading her through the crowds.
“Well.” Tala looked up at her remaining sibling, perched precariously on her shoulders. “Shall we go to the bakery now?” Halyn squealed, nodding furiously. “Alright then.”
Fifteen minutes later found Tala and Halyn Canis enjoying their warm chocolate chip cookies, hot from the oven, on a wooden bench outside the bakery. Inside every table, booth, and chair was taken, so they settled for outside. They could still smell vanilla and sugar and everything else lovely that goes along with Christmas. Plus, Tala had edged them close enough to the door that they could still feel the warmth of the building leak outside.
Nobody else was sitting on the three benches outside of Goldie’s Baked Delights that day, so Tala sat with her sister in solitude, gazing about and hoping to see their other sisters, an excuse to rein them in and again claim the role of oldest present Canis. It wasn’t until the cookie wrapper Halyn had been clutching blew away in the sharp, icy wind that her social interaction for the day was extended from a long-lost uncle and his monster wolf to that plus a decidedly friendly-looking boy her age, and a girl standing next to him.
She’d sighed when she heard Halyn shriek and looked over to see the wrapper sitting a few feet from its origin. Tala stood up and walked over, kneeling in the snow, positively soaking her jeans further than the shimmying down the hill, and come face to face with two pairs of boots. She picked up the paper-thin wrapper and stood up, coming into eye contact with two teenagers about her age.
“Hi!” The boy said enthusiastically, holding out his hand to greet her. Tala was startled. Was this normal in Canada? In England, it was customary to not touch someone until at least a standard relationship had been established, definitely not until you’d met and conversed a few times. She slowly shook his hand, feeling confused and idiotic at the same time. “My name’s Jed, and this is Israel,” he continued, jabbing a thumb at the girl, who smiled kindly. “What’s your name?” He said this as Halyn walked over, obviously not too keen on seeing her most responsible sister mess around with strangers while she was abandoned on a damp bench.
“Tala. Tala Canis,” she replied, picking up Halyn and brushing the fiery red hair out of her little sister’s face, while she noticed her purple bangs slip into her peripheral vision, then pushed them to the side as well. “Who’s this?” The girl said friendlily.
Halyn, surprising Tala by not ducking her head timidly, held her head high like her sister had and said, “I’m Halyn.” Israel smiled and turned back to Tala. “So where’re you from? I mean, I’ve never seen you before and it’s sort of a small town and you’ve an accent so…”
Tala, still slightly staggered by how forward people were her, replied, “My sisters and I just moved here from London. We’re living with our uncle, Conner Canis, now.” They were still smiling, which she took to be a good thing, and Jed asked her, “Are you gonna go to the high school here then?” At her nod, he said exuberantly, “Great! Then we’ll see each other again for sure!”
“I like your hair, by the way,” Israel added. “I’d love to dye my hair, but my mom would probably kill me. How’d you get yours to give in?” Tala hurried to think of a suitable reply, in reality having done it in an act of rebellion at the orphanage. “Erm… we don’t live with our parents. They- they’re in England.” But Jed and Israel didn’t pry, which Tala was grateful for because she couldn’t promise that she wouldn’t start crying.
“I should get going,” she mumbled apologetically. The two insisted they meet her before school started and exchanged phone numbers, promising to call when they got the chance.
Tala smiled a little as she hurried away, but her grin faded when she heard Cora yell, “Oi! Tala, come here!” But it wasn’t a friendly greeting. This was a troubled yell. Knowing better than to casually saunter over, she hurried to the second Canis girl, who sat by a door marked “Forest Creek Public Library” and had store hours listed below.
“What’s the matter? Where’s- Where’s Emily?” Looking into Cora’s nervous and guilt-wracked face, Tala knew that she had no idea. Setting Halyn down, she threw her hands up into the air, all feelings of sadness gone and instead replaced by anger. “Cora Vivienne Canis, what the hell did you do?! You lost your baby sister in a sea of thousands of bloody Christmas shoppers!”
Cora nodded and looked at her hands, knowing she deserved every swear word her sister had just shrieked, even earned the use of her middle name. Then Tala noticed the tears running down her sister’s face and sighed, guiltily dropping to her knees so that she was eye-to-eye with the obscenely short thirteen-year old. “Hey,” she said, gently brushing away the tears with her thumb. “Hey, I’m sorry, mate. Come on, Cora, we’ll find her. Let’s just start looking, ‘kay?”
Cora nodded mutely, and Tala instinctively took her hand, remembering it was something their mother used to do when one of them was upset, and took Halyn’s in the other. She knew Cora probably still felt like crying, which was new for her. She was the tough one of the bunch. But she guessed it changes you when you screw something up that bad. Knowing that Emily wasn’t completely helpless made Tala feel a bit better, although not much.
For the next twenty minutes they wandered around, calling out for their sister and looking out for places she may have gone. Eventually, though, all three Canis sisters were about to begin pulling on their hair and give up. Suddenly not Tala, though, for she had just seen a flash of neon-green, the color she’d been wearing that day. It was a long shot, but enough for her to drag Halyn and Cora through the ruckus just to see.
When they reached the source of green, they were thrilled to see that it was indeed their sister. Tala was far too busy looking for invisible injuries she was convinced were there to even think of reprimanding Emily for running off. Cora was even relieved enough to plant a kiss on Emily’s head, something surprising both of them.
Remembering she still had to feed Cora, Emily, and Halyn somehow, she pulled the crumpled bills from her jeans pocket and walked them all to the restaurant she’d seen before. This, unlike the majority of the town, was not very crowded, meaning Tala was able to pick a booth next to the vent so they could be warm while they waited for their food.
At the eldest Canis’s instance, eager to compensate for her lack of focus on her sisters, she allowed them to eat not-so-healthy, even letting them get some hot fries to share on the way home- which was a good thing, as it turned out to be even colder than last time. They didn’t dillydally, leaving the pirates and maidens and knights to solve their own problems, and instead ran up the hill as one can best, which is primarily lying on one’s back at the bottom and start moving your feet quickly back and forth. They’ll find themself running up a steep hill in no time.
When they did get to the great oak door with the big brass knocker, they were able to unlock it themselves with a key Conner had bestowed on Tala just before they left. But just before they opened it, Cora stopped her sister. “What-?” Tala started, but Cora shushed her. “I have to tell you this before we go back inside or Conner will be angry with us.”
At Tala’s annoyed look, she continued hastily. “Well, as he was flipping through those journals I caught sight of a name…” Her older sister muttered incoherently. “Dad’s name, Tala.” That got her attention, though only for a second. Her look of surprise was quickly replaced by one of disbelief.
“Archer Philip Canis- the full name, I swear. That is him, right?” Tala nodded, now believing what she was hearing slightly. “But,” she said, “You can’t tell Conner about it. He knew they were Dad’s journals before we did, and that just made him mad. So we better not let him know that we’ve figured it out.” The girls all agreed to remain pretending as though they were in the dark about the whole thing, so Tala proceeded to push the door open with a noisy, echoing creak.
Conner met them at the door, and he didn’t seem so angry anymore. More concerned, which was a new emotion for them to see on the young man’s tired and scarred face. “Geez, where’ve you guys been? The snow is nearly up to two feet! Come in and warm up for Pete’s sake.” Tala herded her sisters in, glancing at the clock above the mantle as she did so.
“It’s only four fifteen!” Tala exclaimed. “So?” Conner asked incredulously.
“So you said to be back here by five o’clock. We still had forty-five minutes, technically.” Conner rolled his eyes, leading them to the kitchen where a large bowl of hot soup was waiting. He helped Tala ladle it into four smaller bowls, and set it out in front of them. Suddenly thinking back to the last time they’d had soup, Tala grabbed a napkin and stuffed it under the collar of Emily’s shirt, along with a few others for the area around her soup. Or, what would soon become simply her soup.
Then, just as Tala, Cora, Emily, and Halyn were bringing their first spoonful to their lips, a woman walked in. She was pretty, but in an old-fashioned, gothic sort of way. She had pale skin, a black bob to her shoulders, and startling electric blue eyes. Her short gray dress stopped mid-thigh, and the rest of her legs were covered by black tights. Her hair was pinned back by a gray flower. Conner smiled as soon as she came in, his eyes crinkling at the sides. “Hey, Mara,” he said in greeting.
“Hey, Conner. I just came by to drop off some paperwork. Are these the world famous Canis sisters?” She said, smiling at them. Tala looked up at the woman. “Yeah,” their uncle said. “These are them. Guys, this is Mara. She-er- works with me.” He blushed when he said that, leading the two older girls to glance at each other with matching smirks and believe it wasn’t strictly a business relationship.
“Mara this is Tala, Cora, Emily, and Halyn. My nieces.” Tala smiled in greeting, as did her sisters when she kicked them under the table. Maybe spoken greetings could wait, or at least Tala hoped. But Mara seemed friendly enough, though, and she was staying for dinner, too.
Conner sent the girls up to do something while he made the food, so they ran back up to the attic and chose Tala’s room as Canis sisters HQ. “Well?” Tala said. Cora was puzzled. “Well what?”
The oldest sighed, exasperated. “‘Well what?’ she says! How do you like it here?” Halyn nodded, hugging her knees. “I like it. Conner seems nice when he’s not angry. But I wish Emily hadn’t gotten lost. I was scared.” She hugged her sister for emphasis. “Yes, Emily, please don’t do that to us again. If we hadn’t found you, we’d have had to go find Conner and then we would’ve been in BIG trouble.”
Emily, who was leaning against one of Tala’s shelves sighed. “It’s not my fault- someone bumped into me and I couldn’t find Cora after that. ’m sorry,” she muttered softly, crossing her arms over her chest.
Now they were bored, what with the meeting done and all, so they picked up a soccer ball Cora had brought from home and sneaked down to the ballroom on the third floor. There was nothing in there, nothing at all, and they figured they couldn’t break anything. So for the rest of the evening they played a rigorous but silent game of soccer, Cora and Halyn against Tala and Emily, which was altogether was pretty reasonable because Tala was excellent, Emily was dreadful, and Cora and Halyn were pretty fair all around. At one point, Vârcolac wandered in and they started playing a thrilling game of keep-away.
And that was how Conner and Mara found them, laughing and giggling and throwing out only semi-light-hearted trash talk like any normal sisters, their “dog” snapping playfully at their ankles all the while.

Over the next few days, Tala grew accustomed to living at Havenwood. Her sisters and she had developed a basic routine they would execute each day. Tala lived for monotony; it made her feel so normal and basic she forgot all about her screwed up, abnormal life.

First, they’d wake up, waiting in their rooms patiently if they were not the last to get up. Then they’d adjourn to the kitchen, where Conner was normally waiting for them, breakfast in progress. The rest of the day was spent playing in the snow, or football, sometimes even venturing into town, but only after Tala threatened to strap Emily to Vârcolac’s dog leash.

Christmas was a quiet affair, a few gifts exchanged and a small feast prepared. What happened a few nights later, however, would obliterate normality in Tala’s life forever.

Lying in bed, Tala could hear birds chirping from the woods and see the outline of the monstrous pine trees from her attic-level bedroom. Glancing at her alarm clock (2:38 AM), she decided to get up and wander downstairs, maybe get some water. She ignored the fact that she could easily get a drink from the bathroom just a few feet away and crept down the spiral staircase, careful to skip the step that creaked. When she’d repeated her half-ninja, half-secret agent ballerina tip-toe down the other two sets of stairs, she came to the sitting room, where she saw a few things strewn about, including Vârcolac, who lay on the rug, head resting on his paws.

Sighing, she moved a stack of papers to the side and sat down on the loveseat, curling her legs up underneath her. Her brow furrowed when she heard an odd squeaking sound when the cushion sank a bit under her weight. Leaning forward so that her forehead was almost touching the floor, Tala peeked under the sofa into the dirty darkness, choking when a dustbunny found its way into her mouth.

Vârcolac came to see what she was doing, licking her face happily before she shoved him away. She frowned, noticing that one of the floorboards was higher than the rest, and got up to push her seat back a foot. She kneeled, and used her fingernails she rarely found the time to trim under the sides of the wood and pried it up, then set it to the side. A smooth wooden box was laid carefully inside, surrounded by cloth for protection.

Tala inhaled sharply, awed by what she had discovered. There was elegant gold lettering engraved on the lid, and she brushed her fingers against them delicately, reading as she did. “’The Beings’ Princess will rise one day,’” she whispered to herself.

Something stirred in her memory. “She will rise to the role of the Beings’ Princess..” What had her father meant by that? And what was a “Beings’ Princess” anyway? Placing both the lid and her memories aside, she looked into the rest of the box. In it were three more things: an ancient, tattered scroll, a silvery star-shaped locket, and a small book. Tala went for the scroll first.

Struggling for a moment to open the rough yellowed paper, she flung it open, momentarily forgetting to be quiet, and held it out in front of her, letting a breath out at the beautiful calligraphy that adorned it. She read:
The Prophecy of Light
Only the daughter of one and one not,
Can deflect our civilization’s rot.

She will come by sky across the pond,
With baggage of which she is most fond.

Through trials and hardships she will stand tall,
And one day in the future inspire all.

Everything on earth will at once bow to her,
But only through pain will she learn further.

“Holy crap,” Tala said quietly to herself.
“Yep, that pretty much sums it up.” She whirled around and saw…

“Conner! Don’t do that! You nearly gave me a heart attack!” He chuckled and sat down on the loveseat and motioned for her to join him. Tentatively she did so, but stayed on the edge of her seat nonetheless. He took the scroll from her gently, and inspected it for himself.
“Geez, it’s been years since I’ve seen this old thing,” he breathed, fingering the faint words. “Wait, so you’ve seen thing before? What about this?” Tala asked, picking up and showing him the locket and book. He subtly avoided the necklace, but took the other item from her, cracking it open as he did so. Tala realized that it wasn’t a book at all, but a photo album. The wolf on the floor stretched like a cat.
“Sure; this is mine. I started asking around for old pictures of the family, ‘cause… well, you see, about four years ago I was in a really bad place. I was depressed and I didn’t have anyone around ever, so to clear my head I’d start looking at pictures of everyone I cared about, everyone I wanted to know again.” Tala nodded absently, listening but not really knowing what to say in response. Instead, she focused her attention on the pictures, scratching Vârcolac’s shaggy back.
“Who’s that?” She said suddenly, pointing at a black-and-white picture in the album, one of a woman and a man standing next to a barn. The woman, eyes full of humor and spirit, was a sharp contrast to the somber man she stood near. Conner inspected it, and answered a second later, “I’m pretty sure that’s your great-aunt and uncle, Deirdre and Harrold. It’s hard to tell with no color, though.”
“She’s beautiful…”
“Yes, she was. To her dying day, though, she never cared about her appearance, was never vain. She was very kind to your father when he married your mother.” He stopped suddenly, trying to appear as though what he had said was nonchalant, but failed miserably. “What’s that supposed to mean?” Tala asked.
Conner shook his head. “Nothing.” But Tala did not relent. “No, you did mean something. Why shouldn’t she have been kind to my dad when he married Mum?” She realized that her voice had become louder than the whisper they’d been using previously, but she didn’t care. Now she just wanted answers. Her uncle put his finger to his lips and looked around, but no little sisters were to be found. Or seen, at least.
“Come on,” he said, taking her hand and leading her back up the endless stairs. “Where are we going?” She said, back to speaking in hushed tones. “Somewhere you can understand.” He continued to direct her up, first the stairs, then to the attic, then (quietly) to her room, where he leaned over her bed and opened her window, gesturing for her to follow him when he climbed out and disappeared from view.
Sudden curiosity clouding her better judgment, Tala clambered out of the small opening, finding herself on a large slab of concrete coated in shingles like the roof. Looking around, she realized that they were right above a great granite terrace that hovered over the extensive back lawn. Conner Canis was sitting a few feet away, feet hanging over the edge. She went to join him, and sat down.
“So, tell me. Tell me whatever I should know about this ‘family knowledge’ I’m so deprived of, because I think that right about now I deserve to know.” Tala used air quotes to emphasize her feelings as she said this. Conner sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose with his thumb and index finger. “Alright,” he said after a pregnant pause, relenting. “I’ll tell you. But there is one thing I cannot share. One thing that will change everything you ever thought or believed in. But-,” he said, cutting off what he knew his niece was about to say. “You will find out soon. Very soon, in fact. I can feel it. However, I must prolong your knowledge of said thing as long as possible. If only to protect you and your sisters.”
That shut Tala up, for even though she wanted to protest further, Conner wasn’t stupid. If he thought not knowing one little thing would somehow protect Cora, Emily, and Halyn, then so be it. “This story begins,” he paused, “with the stars.” At the mention of them, Tala mechanically looked up at the night sky above them.
It was a beautiful sight. In London, the moon and stars were normally covered, but here there were not even enough people to produce smog. Before, when she’d looked to the stars, they were little more than hazy lights, as though someone had held tiny lightbulbs up behind a great sheet of black paper. But here every individual celestial body twinkled, each separate from its closest brethren, though working together simultaneously to make one gorgeous scene. “The thing about your parents is… well, they never told you much about the family, did they?” Conner asked.
Tala shook her head. Any mention of the Canis family when her parents were alive would earn her a fierce look from her mother and self-imposed guilt from seeing that sad gaze on her father’s face. “No, barely anything. I mean, I didn’t even know that I had an uncle until the lawyer told us so. And then the next week we were being shipped off to you.”
“Yeah… and I really wish that wasn’t true. But that’s not relevant; the first thing you should know about the Canis’s is that we’re very powerful in terms of… politics. But see, the ancestors really liked their privacy. So some Canis way back when built this place. This is where your dad and I grew up you know.”
“Oh.” Tala still wasn’t sure how to respond to these hordes of information being thrust at her.
“Anyway, as many powerful people do, we threw parties. Balls, really. I hated them. If you couldn’t tell already, I’m more the bookish person than anything else.” Tala giggled. “But your dad… Archer loved these extravagant festivities, loved to be the center of attention. So one night, when he was 18 and I was 10, I think, our family threw their annual Christmas Ball.
“Your dad, who had finally gotten tired of being the ladies’ man at about midnight, wandered out onto the terrace right below us. he loved to watch the stars, said that if people sat outside and looked at the stars each night that they’d act a lot differently. He met your mother out there. I suppose she’d gotten tired, too, and come out to get some air. They ended up talking and dancing then talking some more far past when I was sent off to bed. Three months later they were engaged. And your dad was disowned.”
“Why?” Tala spluttered. Conner sighed. “Isabela came from a family that… let’s just say they weren’t in the same league as ours, at least in our father’s opinion. So your grandfather kicked him out and sent him to Britain in shame. Then he died and your parents had you and I just sort of stayed here.”. “That’s bullocks,” Tala muttered coldly.
“Yes, it is,” her uncle said. “But your grandmother had just died and Dad wasn’t in the best shape. He was never the best father, but Mom’s death hit him hard. I don’t think he was ready for it. None of us were.”
Neither of them talked for a while. Finally, Tala gathered up enough courage to ask the question that’d been itching at her. “So… what was up with the scroll- Prophecy of Light? What does it mean? And the locket and book?” Conner, who’d been casually slumped over, suddenly sat up, his back ram-rod straight, a frown marring his scarred features.
Choosing his words carefully, he said, “That’s part of the thing I can’t tell you. Just… don’t tell anyone about that scroll; not your sisters, or friends, no one. The less you know, the better off you’ll be. And as for the book, that’s of no importance. Just memories. You can have it if you want. The locket as well. It was your mother’s. Your dad gave it to her when they got engaged.
“I think it was sort of a symbol for what he meant to say. You know, a ‘you’re allowed an out.’ He didn’t force her to stay with him. He always gave her the option of leaving if it all became too much. And, yes, that is part of the thing I can’t tell you yet.” Tala sighed and nodded. Even if she was still lacking all the knowledge she’d been hoping for, she now had something from her parents. Something she hadn’t known about, that is.
“You should go to bed. You start school the day after tomorrow. You have all your things ready, clothes, backpack, et cetera?” Tala nodded. All of their clothes had since arrived in cardboard boxes from London, and any school supplies had been bought and were packed away in the closet.
She followed orders, slipping through the window earlier than before, and settling down in bed once Conner had bid her good night. But she couldn’t help but notice Conner’s furious and somewhat inconspicuous swiping at his eyes, nor the guilt pecking at her from the inside, until she finally fell asleep.

“Tally, wake up. You start school today.” Conner’s knock on the door and then voice sounded distant at first, but with each passing word they gained new clarity to her ears, although dread quickly clouded her mind. Throwing the covers aside, she ignored her sisters’ childish shrieks of laughter coming from the rooms opposite her own, and slipped into the bathroom to shower.

After she’d dried off she slipped into tattered blue jeans and a silver blouse, tying the laces on her scuffed Converse tightly. Just before she walked out, she noticed the locket Conner’d given to her a few days ago; her mother’s. She clasped it behind her neck and took a deep breath, stowing it under her shirt collar for safe keeping. She glanced around at her room, melodramatically wondering when she’d see it again, and weaved her right arm through the loop of her backpack, walking out and closing the door behind her.

Loaded with new notebooks, highlighters, and pens her bag weighed quite a bit, but Tala ignored the tightness in her shoulder and shifted it a bit as she came down the spiral staircase. Cora was already downstairs in the kitchen, sloppily eating a bowl of warm oatmeal at the table. She slid into a seat next to her sister and asked, “Where’s Conner?”

Cora held up a hand and swallowed, then said, “He’s getting Emily and Halyn ready, I think.” Tala frowned and shook her head. “Nope. I was just up there and he isn’t.” Cora shrugged. “Well, in that case I have no idea.”

Emily came in a second later, fully dressed, Halyn in tow. They sat down across from their two oldest sisters, both of them grabbing a piece of fruit from the bowl in the middle of the table. Cora said to them, “You two know where Conner is?” They both shook their heads. “Uh-uh,” Halyn eloquently stated.

Emily rolled her eyes. “What she means is that no, we don’t know. Why d’ya need to know?” Tala shrugged. “Just curious, I guess.” A few minutes later, everyone had finished with their breakfast and had put their dishes in the dishwasher. They stood in the foyer with their backpacks and Halyn in Tala’s arms. Tala said, “Maybe we shouldn’t leave without him knowing. He might get worried.”

Emily shook her head. “Nah, let’s just- oh, here he comes!” And indeed he was, walking up the hill with a thin jacket despite the feet of snow. The girls began their trek down the hill to meet their uncle before they left. In the days since their first journey to the village they’d mastered the art of little steps down the hill, so they no longer had to lie on their backs, something Tala was very grateful for.

When they crossed paths with Conner, he said to them, “See ya later, guys.” Tala made to continue down the hill after her sisters, but turned and asked to his retreating back, “Where were you?” He stopped. “When?”

Tala didn’t let up. “This morning. We woke up, but then you weren’t anywhere in Havenwood. We looked.” Conner went rigid, and turned to face her, his gaze fixed firmly on her. “I wasn’t anywhere. And it’d do you good to leave it at that.” Tala looked down and nodded stiffly, a little embarrassed and guilty for poking in where she wasn’t needed. Or wanted, she thought miserably.

It was a new feeling, she decided as they finally reached the bottom, not knowing as much. When her parents were alive, as the oldest, she was kept pretty informed of what was going on at all times. Conner was much more secretive, and it would take some time to get used to living with someone like that, she supposed.

The dirt trail was covered in ice and frost, and the four sisters held hands to ensure that no one slipped and fell. There were fallen branches littering the edges of their path, but if one strayed too far close to their stride it was quickly kicked to the side. No one talked much. They were all too nervous for their first day. It was one thing to start at a new school in August, but an entirely other thing to start in the middle of the year. Halyn didn’t seem to mind, though, but of course she was only going to daycare.

They reached Building Blocks Child Care first. Securing Halyn’s bag onto the toddler, Tala handed her over to the cheerful woman standing just inside the door. It was the day everyone came back from winter break, so she was obviously in charge of arrival matters.

Next stop was Forest Creek Grade School, where Tala squeezed her two remaining sister’s shoulders tightly in a farewell, and ushered them to the front door, where the principal was waiting to show them to their classrooms and whatnot.

Time to brave the storm, Tala thought miserably as she continued the short walk to the high school, but then remembered something her mother used to say. “’I am not afraid of storms,’” she whispered to herself. “’For I am learning how to sail my own ship.’” With her confidence boosted a fair amount, she reached her fate: two large oak doors many students were already walking through nonchalantly. Following their lead, she tried to appear at ease while coming through the doorway, knowing that she was supposed to go to the school office first instead of her classroom.

Conner had taken her, Cora, and Emily to see the schools and their respective teachers one day, so she had the route to the office memorized, but that didn’t stop her legs from trembling and wishing she was back in England all the way there. The school office was a cramped set of rooms where visitors sighed in and kids who were going home waited to be picked up. The only person there was a nice middle-aged woman named Barb who Tala’d met on her tour- she’d sneaked her a peppermint from underneath her desk- and Tala hesitantly knocked on the door to signal her arrival.

“Oh, Miss Canis! It’s wonderful to see you again!” Barb said as she looked up from her old clunky computer. She grabbed a thin folder from a tall stack of them off of her desk and handed it to her, then stood up, motioning for Tala to follow. She exited the office and went down the hall to the principal’s office.
The principal, an old, strict, but kind enough woman, gave Tala a tight-lipped smile and turned to Barb. “Thank you for bringing her. I’ll take it from here.” Barb winked at the new student and left, leaving Tala standing uncomfortably under Ms. Boggs’ stern gaze. “Well, Miss Canis. Before I take you to your homeroom, you should know that I expect great things from you. After all, I was your uncle’s chemistry teacher.”
Tala’s head shot up. “You taught Conner?” Ms. Boggs nodded. Tala didn’t know what to say, but before she could figure out a good thing to say, she’d been whisked off to Mr. Rickman’s classroom. The principal rapped on the door sharply with her fist, and when the door opened, everyone in the room looked over.
Tala fought the urge to curse under her breath, and instead tried to look into her teacher’s eyes, as her uncle had said it was the mature thing to do while meeting new people. “Ah, our new student has arrived! Wonderful! Not many people are here yet, so just choose a seat and make yourself comfortable before we begin,” Mr. Rickman instructed.
She nodded, and bit her tongue rather than her lip so people couldn’t tell she was nervous, and made her way over to where a familiar face was frantically waving her arms. Tala couldn’t help but smile a little at the friendly gesture, and made her way over to the seat next to Israel’s.
“You survived mean old Ms. Boggs! A legend, that’s what you are, hear me? A leg-end!” Tala grinned, and was suddenly not as afraid as when she’d come in. “Hey, Israel. What’s up?” Her friend’s dark brown hair had been braided into a long plait down her back, which she toyed with casually.
“Not much. Hey, you nervous?” Tala nodded hesitantly, shifting in her seat. “Don’t be,” Israel chuckled, prodding her in the shoulder playfully. Tala looked up at her. “It’s hard not to be, you know. It’s hard to take nerves like black static behind my eyes and the extra heart in my throat and shove it where it belongs. Forget hard- try damn near impossible.”
Israel shrugged, then grinned. “How’s the old wolf treating you up at that mansion? I hear he’s a right piece of work.” Tala frowned. “What do you mean? Conner?” Her friend nodded earnestly. “Oh, yeah. I was a little kid when we moved here, and he was a mean guy, Tala. Really truly. Whenever he’d dare venture into town he’s always snap at everybody and that sort of thing. Feel bad for you honestly, having to live with ‘im.”
For the first time, Tala felt a bit of a wall go up between her and Israel Ali. She sat up a bit straighter in her seat and tried to muster up a cool gaze to match her feelings. “I’m not sure what you mean by that, but I suggest you hush up about it, Israel. Conner is one of the nicest people I’ve ever met and the only relative I have left, so it’d do you good to not speak of him like that again.”
Israel blushed and looked down, and Tala thought she’d made her point, vaguely realizing she’d borrowed part of Conner’s speech from this morning. She felt a bit bad about saying it, but it had to be done. She couldn’t let people carry on thinking those terrible things about her wonderful uncle. Even if he does snap at you every once and a while, she thought. She shook her head to clear her mind. She’d give Israel the silent treatment until lunch, she decided. That’s be enough time to think about what she’d said.
The bell rang, and it jarred her from her own thoughts as she realized that everyone had arrived, and that Jed had taken the seat opposite her. He gave her a tiny wave and looked forward while Mr. Rickman began. “Now settle down, students. You may remember me telling you that we’d have a new student in our class when we all got back. Please stand up, Miss Canis.”
Tala stood and saw every head swivel to face her. “This,” the teacher continued, “is Tala Canis. And she is from England, isn’t that exciting? London, I believe?” She nodded, trying to figure out who to look at, and settling for the teacher.
“Why didja move?” A scrawny boy with a newsboy-cap and the beginnings of a wispy goatee asked. “Adam,” Rickman said in a warning tone. But Tala decided she’d play with them today. “Oh, no, it’s quite alright,” she said cheerfully in a sing-song voice, making sure to emphasize her accent. “See, my parents were murdered about a month ago, so they shipped me off to live with my uncle up on that big hill at the end of the trail.”
She sat down and tried not to laugh at their shocked faces, focusing instead on her chemistry textbook on her desk. “Yes, well,” the teacher stuttered, clearly not knowing how to respond. “Well, we’re happy to have you nonetheless, Miss Canis!” She almost snorted but remained quiet.
He carried on with announcements, which were not very interesting; just that the special in the cafeteria was Sloppy Joe’s and that the history teacher had her baby a week ago. When he had finished that and had since called roll, the second bell rang and they were sent off to class.
At three-thirty five she was making her strides as long as possible to get up the hill as quickly as possible. She had called Conner and asked if she could have a friend come over and he, apparently rid of whatever anger that had infected him that morning, had happily agreed, delighted that she was already making friends in Forest Creek. As an “I’m-sorry-for-being-a-jerk” gift, she’d invited Israel over. Her friend had been hesitant, but quickly agreed when Tala had told her that accepting the invitation could be her “I’m-sorry-for-being-a-jerk” gift.” Even better, since she had a guest, she didn’t have to pick up her sisters.
She turned around and shouted gleefully to Israel, still far behind her, “Come on, Izzy! It’s not that steep!” It really was, but Tala wasn’t going to admit to that. She continued on as she heard Israel shout from a few yards away, “Yes, it is!”
However, five minutes later they both reached the top and Tala, who’d forgotten her key that day, picked up the brass wolf knocker and let it fall with a heavy CLANG!, that made Israel jump and Tala chuckle. Cora pulled the door open for them and let them in, handing her sister her key. “You left it in the ballroom last night when we were playing Twister. Don’t lose it!”
“I didn’t lose it if I knew where it was, now did I?” Tala teased, sticking her tongue out. Cora rolled her eyes and said as she went up the staircase, “Conner said to come into the kitchen and have a snack before you start homework. You should hurry up, too, before your friend’s mouth starts to catch flies.”
At the mention of Israel, Tala turned and chuckled, seeing that she was frozen, gazing at the paintings and windows and ceiling in awe. “Let’s go eat, Izzy. The sooner we eat, the sooner you’ll come out of the fog. At least I hope so.” She led the way to the kitchen, where Conner was sitting at the table, poring over numerous stacks of paper.
He hastened to put his work away and, remembering their argument that morning, Tala knew not to question him about it. But before he hid it from view, she caught a glimpse of the words, “Lunar Guards.” Her curiosity compelled her to say something, but she squashed it and instead tried to make small talk.
“Hi, Conner,” she said, making her way over to the fridge to get their snack. “Hello, girls,” he said. “And you are?” He asked politely, turning to the other girl, and which made Tala wonder what her friend thought of him now.
“Erm, Israel Ali,” she replied, fidgeting a little under his gaze, but she smiled gratefully when Tala pushed one of the two plates into her hands. “We’re gonna go do homework in my room. See ya later, Conner!” They quickly exited, but Tala couldn’t help but notice that Conner seemed awfully tired, and maybe a little thinner than usual. She only hoped that Israel hadn’t noticed.
She led the way up the ornate staircase, the regular staircase, and the spiral staircase to her and her sisters’ common area in the attic, where she pushed open the door to her room and motioned for Israel to join her inside.
“So, this is where you live. Huh.” It wasn’t exactly a question, and Tala wasn’t sure if it was a compliment or a statement. She simply nodded and sat down on the bed, looking out the window to the woods across the yard. “Was your first day alright? It’s always a bit hard.” Israel asked, and Tala nodded absent-mindedly, focusing on a shadow she thought she’d seen outside.
A few minutes passed in silence, both of them opting snacks rather than conversation. “So… did you see Felix Solitar checking you out in Spanish?” Israel said nonchalantly. Tala’s head snapped up. “No. Who’s that?” Israel guffawed. “Who’s that? Tala, he’s only the cutest boy in the whole school! You know- he sits next to Wendy Hawthorne and Dennis Bridges. ‘Cept he never talks to anyone. He’s super quiet. Most of his classes are with seniors. If he was checking you out, it’s a big deal! And those eyes,” she breathed. “Undiluted and old-blooded,” she teased. Tala nodded absently, though a small smile played on her lips.
An hour later they were finished with their thankfully minimal amount of homework and decided to take Halyn sledding for her first time. But they were only letting her go on the back of the hill, which was less steep and much further from the house than the front of it.
“Okay, Halyn, just hold onto the rope tightly and lean forward a bit,” Tala said to her youngest sister, nudging the sled further from the top. “Yeah, but no too much, or you’ll fall off and break something,” Israel shouted from the bottom of the hill. Tala glared at her, then turned her attention back to Halyn.
“I changed my mind, I don’t wanna-.” Tala cut her off. “Sorry, no refunds!” And with that she pushed her sister down the hill. All she could see was a bright pink coat and hear lots of screams and squeals on her way down.
She saw Halyn reach the bottom in a large heap of snow. Running down, just to make sure she was still, you know, alive and all that, she found Halyn giggling like mad and begging to do it again. But then Conner, looking a little nervous and worried, came to announce that Israel’s mother wanted her back home. Israel’s brow furrowed.
“My mom is out of town.” Conner threw his hands up in the air, clearly exasperated. “Your dad, then. Does it really matter? Tala, go get Halyn and the others and dish out dinner. It’s already on the stove. You’re in charge tonight. And don’t ask why,” he said, glaring at her when she opened her mouth to.
Tala nodded stiffly, cheeks flaming, gathered Halyn and the sled, and bid her friend good-bye, making her way back to Havenwood. She was vaguely aware that her uncle was not following them, but she couldn’t have cared less. Once inside she did what she’d been told, calling her sisters to the kitchen and giving them the grilled cheese sandwiches that sat on the stovetop.
She only picked at her food, but didn’t feel the slightest bit guilty when she scolded Cora for doing the exact same thing. All through dinner, as she got ready to go to sleep, and even when she lay in bed, trying to drift off, Tala wondered what was making Conner’s attitude shift so suddenly.
Brrrring! Tala almost had a heart attack when the phone in the hall rang. She took a deep breath as she got out of bed and picked up the phone from its holder on the wall.
Her “hello?” died in her throat as she realized that her uncle had already picked up the phone downstairs. Silently, she crouched to the floor and listened intently. “Are you coming tonight?” an unfamiliar female voice asked.
“Are you insane, Azha? Of course not!” Conner said, his voice sharp and gravelly, a heavy contrast to his normally soft nature. He continued, “The girl doesn’t even know what she is!”
Tala clapped a hand over her mouth to prevent her loads of questions from accidentally slipping out. “Seriously, Conner?” The woman threw out, saying a moment later, “You couldn’t have told her before now?! It doesn’t take a lot of embellishment! ‘Hey, Emily, you’re a werewolf.’ See? Not that difficult!”
Tala couldn’t help it; she inhaled sharply. The voices paused.
“Did you hear that?” Conner asked.
“It was probably from my end. Calm yourself, sweetheart. It was just one of the guys. They’re starting to go. Hurry! Take Emily to the barn now!” The line went dead, and Tala was left kneeling on the dark wooden floor, staring at the cold plastic phone clutched in her hands.
She stood and staggered back into her room. And that was when she passed out.

Tala sat on the same piece of roof she and Conner had talked on just days before, hugging her knees to her chest and rocking herself back and forth quietly, trying to gather her thoughts.

That’s the one thing he couldn’t tell me, she told herself. So much made sense now; Conner and Emily were werewolves! Maybe more of their relatives had been! She still couldn’t figure out why her sister hadn’t turned into a blood-thirsty wolf every full moon before then, but there had to be a reason for that. After all, it couldn’t be a joke. The woman on the phone and Conner hadn’t known that they were listening in on their conversation. They’d been completely serious.

That’s why Conner had been so tired and thin; she’d seen all the movies. Turning into a werewolf was hard, according to what she’d seen. She twiddled her thumbs and looked down in her lap, making a feeble attempt at calming herself.
She wondered if her parents’ murders were related to the family lycanthropy. No, she thought. There can’t be many people who know about this. But she knew in her heart that the two almost certainly had to do with each other, and she thought about whether or not it was some kind of motive.
“Wait a minute,” she breathed. “Wait. A. Minute!” The papers from that afternoon! “Lunar Guards” was on them. And she remembered her father saying something the night he was killed. Something about the Lunar Guards (whatever they were) catching the murderers.
And just then, Tala knew that she didn’t know the entire sick, ugly truth. She realized just then that amidst her late-night sobbing and trying to restrict the tears from falling onto her mother’s journals and her father’s photographs, she’d never really questioned the murderers’ true motives. Besides a multitude of silent moans of “Why why why why” Tala hadn’t considered that there was a real reason behind shooting her parents seventeen times beyond sick demented insanity. And now, just standing here on the attic roof, she desperately need to know. And she planned to find out.
With this newfound determination pulsing in her mind, Tala took a deep breath and fell onto the terrace beneath her, ignoring the burning protest of her ankles, and took off into the house.
She reached the back door less than a minute later, convinced that she’d just beaten some sort of record for speed, and paused when she saw movement in the backyard. Two shadows, creeping silently towards the woods. Looking a bit closer while still not daring to turn on any source of light, she realized that it was two dogs. No. Two wolves.
She waited until they’d disappeared from view until carefully cracking the door, avoiding any creaks, and then slipping through the gap. Tala’d always had good running skills, and even better sight. She thanked her lucky stars for being granted those gifts as she sprinted across the dewy grass barefoot, almost slipping a few times.
She slowed down and crouched lower to the ground as she thought she was coming closer to the wolves. An idea gathering in her mind, she ducked behind a large oak and began to climb. She’d climbed trees with her sisters before, but not so often as she did now. There weren’t the best trees for climbing in England after all, but Canada… well, it was mainly trees. She got to the top, momentarily inspecting her battered hands, not even registering the fact that she was bleeding a bit.
Tala gazed over the forest, until she spotted the animals creeping silently towards a building she’d never noticed before. She glanced backwards and confirmed her original presumption that they were not far in, for she could still see the house very clearly. Carefully, she began to ease her way back down, breathing hard. About three feet from the ground she let go of the sturdy branches she’d been holding onto and fell in an ungraceful pile. Tala stood up, brushed off her pajamas pants, and noticed that her eyes had finally adjusted to the darkness of night.
Glancing to her left, she moved a few steps and could see the building much more clearly. And it wasn’t a building at all, Tala realized. It was a barn; an old, decrepit, and rotting, but a barn nonetheless. She saw a faint glow emanating from a window, and crept over to it.
Years later, Tala would vouch for the fact that real werewolves are nothing like the dramatized Hollywood version. “They’re just… wolves,” she would say, then chuckle along with her family at her inability to explain. But it’s true; they are just wolves (formerly human, though). The same size and everything. Conner was the larger of the two, and auburn-colored. Emily was pure white- silver if you tilted your head a certain way- but was only about the size of a German Shepard.
Among other differences, werewolves can also talk in their original human voices. Actually, that is only truthful for a select few. And tame werewolf can. The especially vicious ones can at best howl a lot. Tala hear her uncle and niece whisper.
“Can I safely assume that you figured it out?” Conner said.
The white wolf snorted like her human self might. “No, no I didn’t. I just randomly decided to wait for you at the back door at midnight. Seemed like a fun thing to do,” she said, her voice dripping with sarcasm.
“Geez, way to wound a wolf. Just an expression we toss around,” her comrade said, and Tala knew without looking that Emily had probably opened her mouth to ask. He continued, “Other questions?” She shook her head and pawed the ground. “Explain. All of it; and don’t leave anything out.”
“Doubt we’ll have time, we only have about two more hours,” he joked. Emily glared at him. “Okay, okay, fine. No jokes. Alright… how to begin?” Emily’s icy look did not waver. “The beginning might be a nice start,” she said coldly. “Fine,” he said again, preparing himself for what was sure to be a very long discussion.
“Long ago,” he started, “There were five siblings, four men and a woman. Back then, men were considered much more important as you might know, but the father favored his daughter more than his sons. The old father was on his deathbed, and as he died he was to bestow a gift onto each of them. The men, knowing that their sister Hana was going to get the best gift, decided to trick their father. The night that they were to go see him, they kidnapped Hana and the oldest, Petr, tied her up.
“They threatened to kill her if she didn’t say exactly what they told her to. When they went to get the gifts, they made Hana say that she was ready for her gift and stand on the opposite side of the room. While Petr went to get the gift bestowed on him instead. But the old man was smart and said to Petr, ‘Hana, my dear, I have always loved you more than your brothers. You are to receive the gift of the wild. All creatures shall bow down to you.’
“He brought his staff down and touched Petr’s forehead with it. And thus, Petr had been tricked into becoming the first werewolf, along with his three brothers. You see, it’s true that all animals bow down to the wolf as their leader, but even the wolves have a ruler. And that would be-“
“Hana,” Emily interrupted. Conner nodded, smiling. “Yes, Hana was instantly free of her bonds, so she went to her father and he gave her the title of the Beings’ Princess.” Tala, from her spot under the window, breathed silently. “Hana’s father proclaimed that from that day forth, all living things on earth would see her as their princess.”
“The Beings’ Princess…” Emily said quietly. Her uncle replied, “Yes. See, the Beings’ Princess does not rule strictly over humans or wolves separately, but humans, wolves, and all other creatures as one. That is what makes her so special; she does not care for one species more than another. She is literally the Unitor of Earth. You know, the last Beings’ Princess died about fifteen years ago. It was your great-aunt, Deirdre. And as she died, she passed along her powers to the girl she deemed as her rightful Heir. Something the Prophecy of Light foretold.”
Suddenly, Emily gasped. “You don’t mean…?!” Conner nodded, his face torn between worry and pride. “Yes. Tala is the Beings’ Princess.” Tala almost passed out again, but took some deep breaths and the tiny black dots floating in front of her disappeared. “I’m afraid,” he continued, “that Tala is more powerful than anyone, even herself, realizes. See, the Beings’ Princess has always had certain powers; I know that she can control the four elements, earth, water, fire, and air, possess extreme observational skills… even fly. We’ve got a very dangerous Princess on our hands, Emily”
Tala wasn’t so sure about that, but then again, what did she know about the ever-growing problem of hostility between various species on earth? Not much, she theorized. She leaned back to listen more. “I get the Princess thing and even Tala being, like, animalistic royalty? But tell me about the other stuff the bloody killers said. What’s the Lunar Guards? What did it have to do with my parents?” Conner sighed. “Now we come to the hard part.”
Emily waited. “Alright, so... there is a group of people, humans and werewolves alike- I’m pretty sure we’ve got a few vampires, too- that call themselves the Lunar Guards. They’re sort of… the Beings’ Princess advisors-slash-army. We take an oath to protect her and work solely for the betterment of all living creatures’ lives. Your parents were in it, Emily. I still am; me, and a bunch of my friends.
“You see, about twenty years ago, there was another group; this one… not so good. They don’t really have one leader in particular. They’re all equally as evil as the rest. This group- the Inequality Legislature- works to euthanize all werewolves and anyone else who is not purely human. Primarily… they’re trying to wipe us out.” Emily sat down, and leaned her head against the wall, trying to absorb everything she could at once.
“Should I go on?” He asked quietly. She nodded stiffly, motioning for him to. “Well, a few years ago, your dad called out a high-ranking soldier of the Inequality Legislature, Simon Petrov. I don’t even remember what he said exactly, but Simon never really forgave him. That, coupled with the fact that Archer and Isabela had been very outspoken in their political agenda, finally made him snapped. I suppose he sent some of his cronies out to finish the job. And they did,” he finished quietly.
“Is that all?” Emily asked after a long pause. Conner gave a feeble smile. “Almost, I promise. The only thing left that you should know is that the IL is… becoming stronger. More supporters are signing up, more riots are breaking out, more people being killed. Not just wolves, but anyone that disagrees with their ideas. You just… need to be careful. Promise? I wish I could tell all of your sisters, but I can’t. Not without revealing the truth to them, which, let’s face it, would put them in even more danger than they are already.”
Tala knew it was time to make a speedy exit. She stood, but kept low to the ground so they would not see her. She began to walk backwards carefully, watching to make sure they didn’t look out. Snap! A twig snapped beneath her foot, and Tala bolted. Sprinting back to the house, but making sure to be hidden by the trees and darkness, she doubted that anyone could see her.
Now she just wanted to crawl into bed and think. It’d been a long night.

The next day, Tala woke up in a fog. She didn’t remember much about the previous day, but what she’d discovered during the night was engrained in her memory, and would be forever. Only one thing stood out in her mind, though: “Tala is the Beings’ Princess.” She had a thousand questions, but none she could ask without revealing that she’d spied on her uncle and sister in their werewolf forms (!).

Tala knew she should get ready for school, but moved slowly, hoping she’d woken up a bit earlier than she was supposed to have. Her hopes were confirmed when she noticed that it was only 6:00 in the morning. She wriggled into her black jeans and buttoned her grey shirt while contemplating how to confront Cora about it. It wasn’t a matter of inquiry; she would, no question. Sure, Cora was a little annoying and headstrong at times, but she was Tala’s second-in-command. She should know, Tala thought.

The school day was uneventful, math too hard, English too easy, and Spanish “muy abburido.” But as Tala trudged up the hill with Cora and their younger sisters, she was at a crossroads. Finally settling on a quick conversation with her in private, she shoved it to the back of her mind until after dinner.

Tala laughed convincingly when she saw her sister in a pile of homework folders and binders of varying sizes later that night in her bedrooms. “Ha bloody ha. Look at me! I’m a stock photo of a middle school student, now what do you want?”

“Cora,” she said to her more seriously. “I need to talk to you. Privately.” Cora nodded, curious, and Tala led her to the ballroom, where she could insure they would not be found for a long while. “I found something out this week… about Conner. And Emily,” she added nervously.

“What do you mean? What was it?” Cora asked. “They’re alright, aren’t they?” Tala bit her lip, unsure of how to continue. “They’re… okay, I guess. But they’re not like us, Cora.”

“In what way?” Cora narrowed her eyes. “They’re… werewolves.”

Cora stared at her sister without blinking for a moment. Then she frowned and crossed her arms, eyes blazing. “This is about stealing your gingerbread yesterday, isn’t it?! You actually had me worried there for a second there.”

“Cora-,” Tala started. “No, Tala! Don’t lie to me. If something’s bothering you, just say so! Don’t make up some dumb story to trick me. I’m not four, you know.” She turned on her heel and stalked off, leaving Tala feeling hopeless.



“Emily, we need to talk.” Tala told her other sister a few hours later, just before they climbed into their beds. Emily nodded, and followed her into Tala’s room.

“What’s this about, Tala?”

“I know about it, Emily. And don’t pretend,” she added sternly as Emily opened her mouth, then shut it. “Why would you hide something like that from me? I’m your sister, for Christ’s sake!” Emily glared at her.

“Well, it’s not like I had much of a choice! Don’t try to pin this on me. Conner told me to keep it quiet, and I chose to honor his order! Maybe that’s why he likes me best.” She said the last bit under her breath. Tala shoved her lightly to get her point across.

“First of all, he doesn’t like you because you’re secretive. He likes you best ‘cause you’re the same as him. And secondly, I still don’t believe you. I can’t wrap my head around this nonsense!” Next thing Tala knew, she was sprawled on the floor, holding her shoulder.

“What the hell’d you do that for?!” She had to fight not to scream. Emily glared at her. “You know nothing,” she hissed. “You know nothing about ‘this nonsense.’ And it scares you! Oh, it scares you that for once, something is bigger than you! And this is way over your head! Because of this, I’m going to grant you a favor. I’m not going to tell Conner that you were eavesdropping! I will tell him I was under too much stress with a secret like this, and decided to go to someone I could trust.”

Tala didn’t say anything.

“Fine- be that way. I’ll go tell him. But before I do, you should know that if you tell anybody, you’ll have to face far worse than me. I feel more human as a wolf than as a person, so think on that before you go blabbing.”

She marched out, leaving Tala to fight the stinging in her eyes and the throbbing of her shoulder.

Tala sat on one of the wooden captain’s chairs in the school office, trying not to… do anything, really. The tears of anger and shock had long since faded away with minimal streaks on her face and now she just stayed still, preventing herself from swinging her legs a bit as they hovered a few inches off the floor (she really wasn’t that short). She suddenly tensed, though, because she had heard someone who sounded like… yes, damn it!

Conner. She wished that the vice principal hadn’t called him. But honestly who else should they? she wondered miserably, missing her mother more than usual. Sure she’d be grounded for weeks and practically not allowed out of the house, but Isabela Canis would still be alive. And that was more important than anything else, or so Tala had decided.

“Alright, thank you, Miss Boggs. You have my sincerest apologies,” her uncle said as he swung the door open, speaking to the principal still sitting in her office, who replied with something indiscernible. Praying that she hadn’t been expelled, Tala hesitantly stood up, refusing to meet Conner’s eyes.

He shook his head, resigned, and gestured vaguely to the door, making his way to it without waiting for Tala, who hurried to catch up while slipping on her jacket. She fell into step beside him and for a few minutes there was only the sound of remnants of winter frost crunching under their feet. The snow had mostly melted, but one still had to be wary of every small patch of ice, even in early April.

“Tala,” Conner said, actually sighing it more than speaking her name. “Why the hell’d you do it?” Tala shrugged and stared at her the scuffed toes of her brown boots, not daring to answer. He stopped, and she did as well, but did not turn to face him as he did her. “Is he going to be okay?” Conner nodded, but not sharply like she expected him to, nor dodging her change of subject.

“The nurse suggested his mother make an appointment with the doctor to take care of that nasty black eye he already has, but no lasting damage.” He still had an edge in his voice, however, and Tala wished he didn’t, but had no idea how to get out of this one. They were standing at the edge of the forest, almost exactly halfway between the town and Havenwood. Residents of neither Forest Creek nor the mansion would be able to see them, Conner had assured.

“Tala Silene Canis! You need to control yourself! This kind of stunt could cost you your life with the kind of way we live! Now, you have ten seconds to tell me why you punched that guy. Ten…,” he began the countdown. Tala felt her eyes sting. She definitely had to tell him now. He was already down to seven. “Six… five… four…” He continued on and Tala thought hurriedly for an explanation. “Two…,” he said warningly.

“Because he was making fun of Emily!” Tala broke down and fell to the ground, ignoring the knees of her jeans becoming soaked by the wet soil, ignoring the desire to not let Conner see her cry. He never had, and that was something she used to pride herself on; her ability to hide her emotions. Conner was starting to know her all too well. Maybe everyone was.

Tala covered her face with her hands and sobbed into them. She felt strong hands rub comforting circles on her back, but tried to disregard them. “H-h-he was so terrible, Conner!” She cried. “So t-terrible!”

“I know, sweetheart, I know,” he whispered, helping her stand, though she remained hunched over, shaking violently. He led her up the rest of the way to Havenwood and sat her down on the loveseat in the sitting room. And he sat with her while she cried, a good twenty minutes. And when her tears had stopped and been replaced by an occasional hiccup, he wiped at her face with a warm towel. Just like Dad used to do, she didn’t let herself think.

“Better?” Conner asked gently. She nodded, not even embarrassed like she guessed that she should be. “Mmhmm.” He shifted from where he was sitting next to her and faced her. She did as well, but tried to focus on things on the wall rather than his face in particular.

“It’s fine…” He whispered. She didn’t even glance at him and she replied quietly, coldly even, “No, it’s not, Conner. It will never be alright. You may think I’m a little crazy, but I only let people see the tip of my crazy iceberg. Underneath this veneer of slightly crazy and socially inept, I’m a complete disaster…”

“Tala.” He only had to say her name once and she turned her blue and brown eyes to face his, the eyes so similar to her own.

“I’m sorry for yelling, love. I really am. But you still shouldn’t have punched him. What did he say exactly?” Tala shook her head vaguely. “It’s really not worth repeating. And I’m sorry for hitting him, I really am, but still…” Her uncle nodded, though he was still frowning.

“Remember, Tala- we’re all just searching for someone whose demons and angels play well with our own. And obviously, that boy’s did not agree with yours. I know that. So I am going to make the decision to not punish you. This time. But rest assured that there will be consequences should you choose to continue this sort of behavior. Oh, yeah- between you and me, the school secretary said it was an excellent right hook.” Tala breathed a sigh of relief and nodded furiously to show her understanding, then hurried upstairs when he shooed her away, a tiny smile finally playing on her lips.

Mark Gorton had gotten what he deserved.

The next full moon was the night after the Mark Gorton incident, and although Conner had made sure that Tala’s sisters were kept completely out of the loop, she was sure that they suspected something. Thus a good distraction was being invited by Conner to stay in the barn with them. It was a Friday after all. Not to mention that it was his indirect but nonetheless formal apology. Her acceptance was hers.

So that night, instead of creeping across a freezing field in secret, Tala strolled through the tall, dry grass beside the two wolves, pleased to be included in something at last (Conner still didn’t know the truth behind how she figured out the secret of their lycanthropy, but they were sure to not let him, Emily seemingly having forgotten about their fight.

The night was beautiful, the moon unobscured by clouds and the stars shining as bright as ever. Her mind drifted as her fingers reached out to brush back a stray piece of white fur that’d come loose and was hanging in her sister’s eyes. Emily snapped playfully at Tala’s fingers, and the teenager laughed at her antics. She kept her hand on her sister’s back, though, because even though there’d been two more full moons since her first, it still scared Tala to pieces.

When they reached the old barn with peeling paint, far into the woods, Tala shoved the door hanging off most of the way to the side, proud of herself for not so much as squeaking at the large spider that’d made a home out of a web in the doorway. The floor had long since rotted away and been replaced by dirt, but that only added to its mysterious charm.

They really didn’t have much to do, so Tala found an old mutilated ball in the corner and was entertaining herself by seeing how many times she could hit a certain spot on the wall. She was actually doing pretty well until Emily snatched the ball out of mid-air. And then they were left with few options.

While they were contemplating whether or not they could make a fair game of tug-of-war with a stick between a human and a wolf when the sound of a branch snapping pierced the air. Conner and Emily’s ears pricked up, and Tala followed them to the door hanging off its hinges, which they peeked around to see outside.

It was dark, but one didn’t need great vision to see the small blue orbs of glowing light hovering a foot above the ground, all in a line, forming a path through the forest even deeper. Conner growled in the back of his throat, but Tala failed to notice that her purple hair had started to emanate the same color light at the ends and spread up, nor the fact that she’d began to take smooth, graceful steps toward them.

She didn’t notice anything. She was in some sort of trance, and if she knew it, she didn’t care and did nothing to resist. Tala ignored her uncle and sister’s desperate attempts to pull her back to reality (literally) and continued her agile trek through the woods. Conner and Emily glanced at each other worriedly before following her through the brush.

They didn’t keep track of how far they walked; they just did. Conner would one day estimate it as a little less than an hour, but no one could be certain. At one point they lost sight of the blue orbs, but Tala suddenly rounded a corner and there they were; it was as though she didn’t even need to follow them to know where she was supposed to go. It was near impossible for the wolves behind her to lose sight of her, what with her glowing blue hair and all.

Eventually, they came to a clearing where the spheres of light formed a circle. Conner and Emily stopped, but Tala continued until she was dead center in the middle of the circle. All of the orbs disappeared, leaving nothing but a faint fog and an oddly vanilla-ish scent hanging in the air. Tala seemed to snap out of it, and the life returned to her eyes.

Turning to face the two, she and they were shocked to see that they had been returned to their human states. “It can’t be time yet,” Conner exclaimed, looking up at the still-present full moon. “We should still have at least another half hour until we change!” And indeed, the moonlight would continue to rain down on the inhabitants of Havenwood in waves for a long time after that.

But that didn’t seem to faze their inner humans. Just as Tala was about to comment on this, she heard her uncle inhale sharply and looked at him quizzically. “Jesus bloody Christ. I know where we are. I never thought… the Eternal Coronation Grounds. That’s what this is! God, I’m such an idiot! It was here all along…” Tala snapped in front of his face.

“Conner, I am not in the mood to play guessing games tonight! Would you please tell me what’s going on?” He sighed and glanced around before facing both she and her sister. “Now, you need to swear on your lives that you’ll never tell anyone what I’m about to tell you.” He bit his lip before continuing. “Make an Oath on the Moon.”

Emily blanched, but Tala was confused. “What’s an Oath on the Moon?” She wondered aloud. Conner explained. “Simply put, it’s a promise to execute a task, in this case, not revealing what I’m going to tell you, or else it forcibly takes away the most important thing to you or…”

“Or…?” Tala prompted. “You die.” Now it was Tala’s turn to pale. “Yeah. Cheery, isn’t it? Now hold out your non-dominant hand.” The sisters held out their left hands, which Conner took, hesitantly. “Alright, now repeat everything I say.” They nodded in understanding, still wary of the prospect of death.

“’I,’ say your full name.”

“I, Tala Silene Canis,” and “I, Emily Glenn Canis,” sounded throughout the round clearing.

“’Solemnly promise to never personally reveal…’”

“Solemnly promise to never personally reveal…”
“’My knowledge of the location nor the mere existence of the Eternal Coronation grounds…’”
“’My knowledge of the location nor the mere existence of the Eternal Coronation grounds…”
“’For fear that it would put the entire community of lycanthropes and others in unmeasurable danger.’”
“For fear that it would put the entire community of lycanthropes and others in unmeasurable danger.”
“’Kay, so you know the basics of the Beings’ Princess deal?” Tala snorted at the irony of it all while Emily nodded and glared at her. “Well, where did you think the title is made official? When the Orbs of Destiny appear to the future Princess, she is almost ready to take her crown. When she’s accepted her fate.” He looked at Tala pointedly. “You’ve been thinking about it.”
Tala looked down, but she could still fell their eyes on her. “Well, it’s bloody difficult not to!” Conner chuckled. “Yes, I suppose it would be.

“Anyway, this is the Eternal Coronation Grounds. Legend says that only someone in the company of the Beings’ Princess is able to find it. Whenever somebody is ready to become the Princess, the most important leaders of each species come to watch her be coronated here. Pretty big deal if you can imagine.”

“I can imagine,” Tala said sarcastically. “So those blue things were the Orbs of Destiny or whatever?” He nodded. “And you said I’m almost ready.” He nodded again. “So how do I become completely ready?” For once, no one in the clearing knew what to say.

“Go, go, go, go, go!” Tala’s uncle sprinted over the twigs and brush on the path towards Havenwood, his two eldest nieces right on his heels. “What’s going on, Conner?” She asked, a bit frightened by the urgency he hadn’t even attempted to hide since he picked them up early.

“Just a few more minutes more, I swear.” Tala gripped Cora’s hand as the oldest Canis’s shared a worried look. That April was warm but uncomfortably humid, and it was impossible to not break a sweat running the distance from the school to the mansion. The hill seemed not even half as steep to Tala as they slowed their jog once the gray stone turrets were clearly in view. Conner, she noticed, was either extremely angry or extremely nervous, since he had never fumbled with the worn brass key until this point.

Finally, hearing the lock click, he swung the door open, and Tala had the initial impression that much of the town had gathered in her foyer. Indeed, it was not an outrageous assumption. She estimated that almost a hundred people were hurrying about and talking with each other seriously. Many heads turned in her direction, but she couldn’t figure why the looks were laced with sympathy, though it worried her.

“Conner, stop playing around. Tell us what’s going on right now.” It wasn’t a suggestion, and Tala was quite proud of her younger sister for stepping up to say what she had been about to. “Okay, okay. Remember what I told you, about the Inequality Legislature?” They nodded hesitantly. “Well… they’ve got Emily.”

Tala knees buckled, but she caught herself before she fell to the ground. Her throat was painfully dry all of a sudden. “Where- where’s Halyn?” She heard a familiar shriek from behind her and spun around, obviously relieved that at least her youngest sister was safe and sound. She scooped the hurricane of fiery red hair in to her arms, smoothing down her- Halyn’s- bangs repeatedly in an effort to comfort herself.

Tala glared at Conner. “What do you mean, ‘they’ve got her?’” Her uncle looked down, but she felt not one drop of remorse for the sharp-as-a-blade edge in her voice. “She was on her way to school and, well, I looked out the window and saw her walking down the path. Three people decked head to toe in black just… ran from the woods and grabbed her.”

As he finished his sentence, a woman a few years younger than he, with skin and facial features obviously stemming from Indian ancestry, came up and tapped him on the shoulder, and he faced her. “Sorry, Conner. We need you for something else,” she said, sincerely apologetic.
He nodded absently. “Stay with them,” he ordered, and the woman nodded as he went off to discuss something quietly with an ancient man in a lab coat, tufts of shocking white hair sticking up from random places on his head.
“I… I’m really sorry about your sister. She sounds really great.” Tala “mm-hmm”ed almost silently, focusing rather on Cora, whose whole body was trembling violently. “Oh, Cora, she’ll be fine; this is Emily we’re talking about remember?” As she said this, she wondered miserably if it comforted Cora as little as it did herself.
She turned back to the older woman. “Do we… know why she was taken?” She asked quietly, setting Halyn down and shooing she and Cora upstairs. “Well, she answered, : All we know is that Conner… you know he’s the leader of the Lunar Guards?” Tala didn’t, but she nodded anyway.
“Well, let’s just say that our last leader was much more ‘docile.’ Conner’s a little more spontaneous, not as responsible.” Tala looked over at her uncle, deep in conversation with a man and woman next to him. She didn’t think she’d ever seen someone so serious.
“Anyway, at our last meeting he made some insane comment that he knew who the next Beings’ Princess was and she was almost ready to take the crown. Ha! As if!” She grinned, and Tala tried to as well, but it turned out as more of an accidental grimace. “I’m Azha, by the way.” Tala shook the outstretched hand she offered, but turned her attention to the center of the room, toward the ornate staircase that had captivated her the moment she caught sight of it.
The old man with white hair had climbed the first few steps to form a makeshift stage and was facing the room at large, Conner standing beside him. He had a high reedy voice when he spoke to them. “Attention! Attention, everyone! Thank you,” he added when they had all quieted down.
“As you well know, Emily Canis, third daughter of the late Archer and Isabela Canis has been kidnapped by soldiers of the Inequality Movement. We need to think of a plan. And according to Conner here, he’s got one. Conner?” He stepped aside and Tala’s uncle took center stage. To her horror, he motioned for her to join him. Accepting that there was no way out of this one, she shuffled up next to him.
“Hold out your arm,” he muttered to her. She did curiously, and he turned her hand over so her palm faced up. He said, in a frightening monotone, “I, Conner Greyson Canis, call for the ancestors-.” “Conner…” Azha tried to cut him off as some of the others exchanged nervous glances. But he didn’t stop. “-to assist in the recovery of one of our own, a child of the moon. Enter into our realm.” A silver paw print appeared on her hand, much like the ones on the portraits around them, glowing and tingling slightly.
A great flash of light, and thunder shook the house, though there’d been no storm when they were outside. The giant stained-glass windows trembled with the force of the shock. The knocker slammed down onto the heavy oak ominously, once, twice.
Dead silence rang through the entrance hall. Something moved outside; they could see it shift through the windows. Shadows danced up and down the cold stone walls. Tentatively the woman Conner had been talking to earlier edged toward the door, twisted the knob, and pulled it open. And Tala saw those damn black spots again.
Isabela Canis stood on the stoop, everything about her a glowing ivory-white color, her strapless dress the same. She did not walk, but rather she glided into the room gracefully as only an angel could, regarding everyone carefully. “You have called,” she said in a light, airy voice.
“Conner, what the hell did you do?!” Tala asked, cringing when her voice trembled, despite her foremost attempts to keep it steady. “We need her help,” her uncle replied simply. “We’re never going to find Emily unless we have grave-holder assistance!” Tala didn’t ask (more like she couldn’t, what with her dead mother in the room and all), but she had a good ideas of what that meant.
“Conner Canis is correct. The Beings’ Princess’s summoning me is the only way my daughter can be retrieved.” Mutters broke out around the room, and Tala wondered if dead women showed up at all the meetings since no one seemed to be at all shocked.
Light flooded the dark room, and when Tala look back at Isabela she saw that her eyes had gone milky-white. It was so different from the other memories she had of her mother she shivered, suddenly chilly. White fog appeared and crept its way around the room, keeping close to the ground. Then Isabela began to speak in a terrifying tone.
“She is the one who will save you, you the filthy beggars and creatures of the night. And she shall take the world by storm to recover her own, her right-hand. Those who follow will be rewarded with the choice of lunar eternality.”
As soon as she spoke the last word the light began to waver and jitter, and she disappeared, the fog going with her, leaving the room in complete and utter darkness. “Well, that was informative,” someone in the back said sarcastically. “You may laugh,” Conner said coldly. “But we’re a hell of a lot closer than we were five minutes ago. Now tell me what we know.”
“Well, we know that the Inequality Legislature has Emily Canis,” said someone.
“And that Tala Canis is the Beings’ Princess,” said another. For once, she didn’t look away from the stares.
“Wait! Wait, wait, wait! We know something else, too. ‘Take the world by storm.’ Tim, is the storm outside still?” Conner asked. The old man hurried over the window nearest him and pushed the drapes aside.
“Uh, yeah. But it looks like it’s headed East.” Conner snapped his fingers gleefully. “That’s it! ‘Storm!’ The storm’s the key! That storm came out of nowhere, as soon as we requested help. If we just follow it, it’ll take us to I.L. headquarters.”
Tala wasn’t convinced. “It could just be a coincidence, Conner. Storms can be rather sudden, you know,” she told him, suddenly very aware of her strong accent, despite living in Canada for several months. “Are you really willing to take that chance, Tala?!” He snapped. She paused, then shook her head.
“But we can’t just drive through random fields for hours and show up in their parking garage! How’re we gonna get there?” A woman asked a bit wildly, her hands gesturing frantically. Conner looks at his niece, a mischievous gleam in his eyes.
“We fly, of course.”

An hour later, if a simple-minded farmer were to look up into the gray sky, he would’ve seen about a dozen figures, clad entirely in black, holding hands as they flew through the clouds.

The first thing Tala learned about flying more than ten feet off the ground was… well, it’s wet. Really wet. After just a few minutes of propelling herself and ten others through the air, she was soaked to the bone ad pretty much exhausted. She powered on though, but didn’t realize how long this flight would be.

There was a long period of absolute silence about an hour long, and although Tala would’ve loved to have verbal contact with another person, Conner had expressly forbidden it. “Can’t have people hearing us chattering away up there, can we?” He’d say cheerfully, trying to stay cheerful. Not to mention that she didn’t know if she had the strength to talk.

So on they flew. It was a mostly peaceful ride, and they didn’t think anyone had seen them. Except for a scare with some geese, it’d been swell. But when the storm began to disperse unnaturally quickly, the small group saw what they’d been looking for.

A looming, prison-like structure stood in their path. It was surrounded by a tall barbed-wire fence. Easy to fly over, but Tala felt a tug on her sleeve and looked over to see her uncle. He pointed toward the clump of trees to their left, wordlessly telling her to lead them there. She did, and they landed surprisingly gracefully. She leaned against a tall oak, and slid to the ground carefully, breathing heavily.

Conner walked over and kneeled next to her as she sat, one leg straight in front of her, the other bent to the side. “Nice job, sweetheart,” he said, smiling fondly at her, offering up a genuine smile she hadn’t seen in a while. She offered up a weak smile in return. “Thanks, Uncle Conner.”

Cora joined them, standing and dragging the toe of her Converse through the dirt quietly. Conner took her hand and pulled her down to the ground gently until she was sitting cross-legged next to Tala and he. “I want you two to know that I’m really proud of you guys. I know that these past few months haven’t been… fun, per ce, but you are marking the best of it. We’re gonna get Emily back. I promise.”

Without even caring, Tala threw herself into her uncle’s arms, and he hugged her back just as tightly. She was only vaguely aware of Cora joining them until she heard her say quietly, “I love you, Conner.” The gangly man stiffened, but not in a bad way Tala decided, as he replied without much hesitation. “I love you, Cora.”

She figured it was her turn. “I love you, Conner.” This time there was no tentativeness. “I love you, Tala.” She leaned back, and used her sharp fingernails to pull herself up against the rough brown bark. The other Lunar Guards were standing in a small circle next to a pine tree. Conner and his nieces joined them.

“Alright, does everyone remember the plan?” Conner asked them. “Mm-hmm,” Cora replied. “You, Tala, and I pretend to try to start a riot, and when soldiers come to arrest us and take us to the dungeon, the undercover agents play along. We get Emily and bust out. Simple as that.”

“And how exactly do you expect this to work?” Tala asked anxiously.

Everyone exchanged glances.

“It has to,” her uncle said simply.

Tala leaned forward from her rested stance against the metal fence, walking quietly toward the center of the square. She glanced around and took a deep breath; no one had seen her yet. “All hail the Lunar Guards, protectors of the moon!” She screamed at the top of her lungs.

Everyone turned to look at her. “Oh, crap,” she muttered as she heard pounding footsteps behind her. Before she could look behind her, someone tackled her to the ground, and she couldn’t stop her head from whipping forward and slamming against the cement. All went black.



“So what’re they gonna do it? They say that it didn’t give adequate information.”

“Eh, probably whip her or something like that. Little torture never hurt anyone, did it?” Tala felt a hand stroke her cheek; not lovingly, though, and she fought the urge to snap at the slender fingers.
“She dead, boss?”
“Nah, she’s alive,” Tala heard someone say with a chuckle- a woman. She stirred and fought to open her eyes. Light blinded her as she did, and she squinted. “Welcome back to the land of the living, lass,” a large shadow said. Irish, Tala mused idly.

“Where am I?” She asked, looking around her surroundings. The woman cackled. “Hell, my sweet. Hell.” Tala stopped craning her neck, vaguely realizing that her wrists were chained to the table in front of her. “I’m terribly sorry, ma’am, but I believe this is an interrogation room of sorts.”

A sharp blow to the left side of her face erased any lingering feelings of dizziness or lethargy, including all those of sarcasm. The world came into focus sharply, and Tala was able to see the room she was in clearly. The walls were painted a dull grey color, the carpet only slightly darker. A large plain mirror hung on the wall opposite her, but she’d seen enough Law and Order to know that it was actually a one-way mirror. The only furniture was a table in the center of the floor, around which sat three folding chairs.

Tala cringed as she tasted blood on her tongue, and felt her cheek already begin to bruise. “So what d’ya want to know? I’m an open book,” she said, forcing herself to be casual. It’s for Emily, she thought, repeating that several times.

“Ah, you’re harder than that little sister of yours was.” Tala’s blood ran cold. “What did you do to her?” She demanded, discovering that she could, in fact, stand without too much resistance from her chains only after she tried.

The man laughed. “Got a temper like the uncle, too.” Tala sat down, feeling an odd mixture of fury and anxiety. “That’s a good girl.” She spat at him.

“If you hurt any- any! - of them, I will personally kill you one by one.” The man loomed over her and sneered, but his partner pulled out of the room, slamming the door behind her.

It was a few minutes before it opened again, and when it did a lanky man with dark skin stepped in. He, too, shut the door, and hurried over to where Tala sat. He ducked next to her chair, tugging at her bonds. She kept her head down, silent.

“Tala, I’m Adam Hughes; I knew your dad,” he said quietly, and her head snapped up. He nodded, answering her unspoken question. “Your uncle and sister are fine. They already interrogated them, though I must say they’re doing better than you,” he said, pointing at her face. She looked down and saw blood that had dripped onto her shirt. Her cheek throbbed painfully.

“We’ve still got a plan. Hopefully, it’ll work out. Act frightened, would you?” He pulled her wrists, now free, from the table, hoisted her to her feet, and leading the way out of the room.”

The hallway was bland and unfamiliar to Tala, but soon they were trudging down what must’ve been hundreds (maybe thousands) of stairs that clanged and echoed when you stepped on them. She kept her eyes on her feet, careful not to trip or look at passing soldiers.

When the stairs ran out, Tala realized with a start that they must’ve been miles underground, under the forest and courtyard and sunshine. But closer to her family than shed been in hours, she reminded herself. Adam came to a dungeon room- walls of stone and bars instead of walls- and shoved her in with an apologetic smile.

Tala fell to the ground and heard the heavy metal door clang shut behind her, followed by receding footsteps. Two strong arms helped her up and lead her to the wall. She leaned against it to steady herself as Conner hurriedly checked her for injuries.

“I’m fine, Conner,” Tala said; and she was. Almost. She would be once she had Emily back. “Christ, don’t lie about it! You’re bleeding in four different places!” She shook her head absently and used her sleeve, already smeared with red, to mop up some blood from her face. “You guys are just as bad,” even though they weren’t.

“Are we?” He asked curiously. She nodded. “Your hands are all scratched.” He glanced down and sure enough, they were. “Huh.”

“Oi, Tala!” Maryanne nodded for her to join the rest of them. “What’d you say to them?” Marcus asked her as she sat down. “Eh, not much. I guess they thought I was too sarcastic, so they just slapped me around a bit.” She could practically hear Conner count to ten in his head as he tried to control his anger. “So, wait… they didn’t interrogate you about Beings’ Princess stuff?” She shook her head at Azha. “Nothing about Emily?”

“Negative.” Maryanne asked, “Didja get the creepy lady with the Irish boy-toy?” Tala laughed dryly. “Yeah, they were creepy. Gave me chills. By the way, where’s Cora?” Nobody said anything.

“Where. Is. My. Sister?” She repeated through clenched teeth. “Well, um, she came down here just before Conner did. Didn’t look too well, either. They really ganged up on her. But then they said they didn’t have… adequate information. They took her back up.”

Tala felt the world falling beneath her despite sitting down and fought the bile in her throat back down to her stomach. “Oh, Jesus. Christ almighty, they’re gonna torture her.”

“Are you talking about me again?” The door creaked open, and light filtered through the bars, leaving striped shadows on the prisoners’ faces. “Sure are, you bitch.” Tala threw out before she could think it through. “Hm. I thought you might be nicer after I showed you what I have to offer.” The woman from the interrogation room flicked a switch next to her, revealing what was behind her. Tala inhaled sharply.

All of the undercover Lunar Guards, with Emily and Cora, stood, their wrists tied behind their backs and their mouths gagged. They were bloodied as well, scratches and bruises winding up and down their arms and legs, some stretching onto their face. The man was there, too, holding a crowbar to make sure none of them got any ideas about making a run for it.

The woman chortled. “Oh, the look on your faces right now. Simply priceless. Oh, dear, I really wish I had a camera. Anyway, you- little brunette- in the chair. Now.” Emily gulped and shuffled to the center of the room, where a chair had seemingly appeared out of nowhere. She sat, fidgeting with the rope around her hands.

“Why are you doing this?” Maryanne cried out, fingers gripping the bars restraining her. “Isn’t it obvious? I. Hate. Werewolves. They destroyed me, destroyed my life. They’re the reason life has no meaning. So, naturally, I set out to kill them. They die; I live.” She said the last word breathily, and it was so ominous, Tala shivered. Conner gripped her arm tightly.

“But why involve them in it?” Azha pointed at Cora and Emily. “They’re just children! Tala’s only sixteen!” The woman laughed and clapped her hands together. “Splendid! You, missy, hit the nail on the head! Tala. Tala Silene Canis,” she said, now addressing her. “The Beings’ Princess! Unofficially, of course.” She smiled sweetly at her. Conner’s grip was painful.

“How do you know that?” Tala asked coldly. “I have my sources,” she said simply. “Anyway, I know you’re all just dying to know my dastardly plans. Don’t suppose it’d hurt to tell you. After all, you’ll be dead very soon.” She giggled, strong too casually over to where Emily sat. She brushed a bright red fingernail against her cheek, and Cora had to be restrained by the Irish man.

The woman tsk-ed. “Now, Cora, do be quiet.” Cora fumed. “If you kill her, you will have the fight of your life,” she said quietly, her cold gaze locked on the woman, whose laughs echoed throughout the dungeon. “Oh, no,” she said at last, wiping the tears from her eyes. “I’m not going to kill her, silly! I’m just going to kill the rest of you. I’m taking away what matters most to her.”
Emily’s eyes widened and her fidgeting turned more frantic. “Ah, yes!” She continued. “Yay! You understand. Yes, they all know the problems you face as a human. The only thing that matters to you is the wolf. The wolf inside, clawing to get out.” Tala heard Conner breathe next to her. She was sure she’d lost circulation to her arm.
“After tireless efforts from our scientists here at I.L. H.Q., we’ve finally concocted a tonic to cure- you guessed up! – lycanthropy!” Dead silence overtook the room’s inhabitants. Tala tore her eyes away from the woman to look at Conner. His face was white, his eyes blank and unseeing. He had let go of her arm, and his was limp at his side.
“You- you bitch!” He stuttered. “Thanks!” She grinned evilly. “Anyway, I really hope you don’t hold this against me. See, I need you to like me, Tala. After all… I am your dear old auntie.” She held up a syringe, filling with clear glowing liquid, and pressed it up against Emily’s forearm.
Tala, too afraid to watch, couldn’t bring herself to close her eyes, settled for staring at the floor. She suddenly realized, though without looking, that everyone was staring at her (she knew the feeling well). She glanced up, ready to look back down just as quickly, but noticed they what they were staring at. She lifted her hand up to inspect it.
She was glowing. Like her mother had just hours before, she was glowing. Her ripped and blood spattered black clothes were gone, replaced by a low-cut white dress. It flowed past her feet and gathered in a heap on the floor. Tala saw her hair splayed across her shoulders, startled, for what had been dyed neon purple was now its original ebony color. Suddenly, she knew what she had to do.
As if a higher power controlled her, Tala lifted her hand toward the bars that held her and the other Lunar Guards back. They blew forward with an unbearably loud bang, the door flying off its hinges completely. A cloud of dust obscured their vision, but the people opposite her could still make out her glowing form.
Her mouth opened, and she could feel herself talking, though a different voice came out. “The Beings’ Princess has proven herself. She shall take back her kingdom now, and hold it for many years to come. O Ruler of the Creatures of both Day and Night, show yourself and free your subjects from their prison,” “she” said.
Just like with her, every one of her allies at once turned to face her directly, their eyes wide and confused, though her voices unwavering and confident. “Hail, O Princess of us Beings. You shall shelter us forever.” She shot them a lops-sided grin, and they, instantly released from their trance, smiled back.

“Are you ready, you think?” Israel asked Tala as she finished typing the sash behind her back. Her friend laughed. “Geez, Izzy! I’m not getting married you know!” the other girl smiled. “Close enough.”

Tala grinned, then turned to look in the mirror. After the escapade in April, she’d re-dyed her hair (teal this tome), but washed out the temporary dye for the ceremony. She’d decided to pin a lily flower in it, and she thought her almost-white green dress and it matched quite nicely.

The clock downstairs chimed noon, and Tala climbed off her bed to take off her Converse, blatantly ignoring the ballet flats Israel had lent her. “What about the shoes?” Israel asked. Tala simply smiled and shook her head.

They scurried down the stairs which creaked a little under their weight. Most of the guests had already arrived, and were mingling in the ballroom. When she walked in, no one noticed for once. Except for Conner, that is.

She saw him a few feet away from her, and was pleased to see that he’d taken her suggestion about casual attire. Everyone besides her was dressed in jeans and t-shirts, many of them also wearing sneakers and flip-flops. Her uncle caught sight of her and waved her over. Conner was once again regaling her little sisters with comical tales of his and their dad’s childhood. It seemed as though he would never run out.

“Hey, you ready?” Tala was asked for the second time that morning. “As far as I know,” she replied with a convincing smirk. “Well, head out there. You should get there first. I’ll tell everybody.” She smiled and threw him a mock salute before running to the kitchen and the back door.

Mother Nature must’ve taken a liking to her, for the day of Tala Canis’s coronation was beautiful, the sky the clearest blue and the clouds having long since deserted their positions. Her feet were damp as she strolled toward the forest with a new grace she’d only recently acquired. To make it easier on Conner and the others, when she reached the pine trees, she stopped and waited for them.
It wasn’t much later that one might find Tala leading a large group of people tromping through the brush. She could hear a few people muttering as their sleeves caught on large branches and mud spattered their socks, but she was able to dodge all of this somehow.
Tala didn’t waste her time in getting to the Eternal Coronation Grounds. She’d been back multiple times since she’d first discovered it. It’d become her thinking place, to a certain extent. After all, no one could find it without her, so her means of privacy were excellent. So it wasn’t long before she heard the stream gurgling and came across the circular clearing. A glowing ball of light, not unlike the Orbs of Destiny hovered on top of the highest rock.
Conner cleared his throat as the others looked around in awe. “Shall we begin? Tala?” She nodded hesitantly, knowing exactly what to do, though no one had told her. Her bare feet did not faze her as she pressed one foot onto the surface of the water, expecting to fall in. instead, it supported her weight, and she stood there on top of the creek.
She continued walking on water, down the slope and back up, until she stood just before the light; they were face-to-face. No one knew how it happened, but everyone in attendance that day heard in their minds, not out loud, the words Tala heard mentally as well.
She knew it was the light talking, as an unfamiliar voice penetrated her mind, and said to her, “Tala Silene Canis, daughter of Archer and Isabela, sister of Cora, Emily, and Halyn, niece of Conner, do you promise to protect all creatures of earth?”
“I do,” she said clearly.
“And do you,” it continued, “promise to work solely for the betterment of the environment and the many beneficial resources it personally has to offer?”
“I do.”
“And, finally, do you accept the role of the Beings’ Princess, successor of Hana, Dymory, Johanna, and all of those leading up to Deidra and you?” Tala paused, glancing over at her family, friends, and allies. Conner was smiling, holding Halyn up so she could see. Cora and Emily were standing next to them, almost bursting with excitement. Jed and Israel weren’t far away, blushing a little as they inconspicuously held hands between them.
“I do,” she finished, turning her attention back to the light.
“Thus, we crown you.” The light disappeared with a flash that lit up the whole forest, which had been slightly dark with the trees refusing to let in much light. In its place lay a delicate wreath of green leaves and pink flowers. She placed it on her head, and turned back to the crowd. Immediately, cheers erupted and various woodland animals chittered and squawked jovially.
Birds flew in a celebratory pattern as the flora and fauna craned their stems and roots to sneak a peek at their new ruler. Tala grinned. Everything would be fine, she told herself firmly, now that she was in charge. She allowed herself to grin, and hopped off the rock to join her family’s festivities.
Archer and Isabela smiled down at their eldest daughter.