Page 38 of King of Moon and Claws

Bastian veered through the forest, the sounds of war drowned out by the smacking of the bullet-sized raindrops. He came to Iagan’s cabin faster than he’d ever moved, prepared to fight a man he would have trusted with his offspring.

He could feel Elora, her soft but vengeful presence. He spoke to her before rapping on the door of the cabin, where the scoundrel was no doubt hiding.

Elora, can you project to where I am? I want to speak with him first. This villain needs some harsh confronting.

Yes, Elora replied. I’m widening the telepathic link now. We can see you.

Bastian was glad that Serife was there to guide Elora through the use of her blossoming powers. He imagined that Elora had already confronted her but that the witch ambassador had been patient and wise about the accusation.

He was sorry he ever thought of her as snobby.

I’m going in.

He rapped on the door and began to bellow inside his head as thunder sputtered above.

Iagan, this is your king! Come out and face me!

Bastian felt something shake between them mentally. He heard footsteps in the cabin, but they weren’t panicked. He took a step back from the door, in case the rat had palmed a butcher’s knife or more black magic to use against him.

Iagan pushed the door open with an irked look, his empty eyes peering through the heavy rain. Bastian took another step back, preparing himself for any attack.

“What kind of intrusion is this?” the shaman said, teeming with rage. “You are using her telepathic link, aren’t you? Now you are on the witch’s side?”

You drugged me, Bastian began, snarling as he spoke. You drugged me with Catmint to start some useless, pathetic war. Show your true face, Iagan. Stop hiding behind the sins of the paranormals.

The shaman’s eyes rolled upward, searching. He must have felt Elora with Serife’s guidance piercing into his mind to uproot the truth behind his motives.

“I feel you in there,” he called out into the storm, avoiding Bastian’s eye line. “Get out now or suffer the consequences!”

It’s too late, Iagan. Elora and Serife have seen too much. I have seen too much. You are a traitor, and you must pay for what you have done.

The shaman cast his eyes downward. A thunderclap resounded above while lightning lit his sallow, willowy features.

The lightning also acted as a lantern into the sullied depths of Iagan's soul. What the king, Elora, and Serife saw there was a spiteful spirit, decaying under the weight of malice and resentment.

They saw inside Iagan’s mind that he had indeed drugged the king to make him more susceptible to the shaman’s suggestions. They also saw how he had orchestrated Elora’s kidnapping and the subsequent punishment Vasilis took for his failure to obtain the witch’s power. All of the orders for the attacks had come from Iagan’s tongue, not the vampires. They were just the ill-fitting paranormal suit that the snake had worn to slither into the sea of destruction.

“Stop!”

The shaman’s scream was penetrating and pulled all three from his mind like smashing a plate against a wall. Bastian was dizzy, but only for a moment, returning to his warrior stance as Iagan advanced on him.

“You want to know the truth then, don’t you, my dear king?” Iagan hissed in a dark, sinister tone that Bastian had never heard emerge from his lips. “The truth of the matter is that I utterly detest your kind. Your generation. The increasing population and piety toward some naive notion of peace. All of you, you mutts, you vampires, you fucking sorceresses.”

Bastian felt a nerve being struck through Elora’s telepathic link, but Serife was present to keep her stable. Paranormals all had their own slurs to cope with, and sorceress was as offensive a name as they came.

Bastian walked backward, keeping his eyes glued on the shaman who continued moving toward him. His cloak was soaked from the rain, his gray wispy hair knotted to his face as his fury swelled. He looked quite feeble at that moment, but Bastian wasn’t going to make the mistake of underestimating him. Not again.

“None of you care for the ways of the old, what your ancestors fought for and forged through centuries of oppression and sublimation. You think you can wipe all of that away for the sake of progress and contemporary trends?”

Bastian’s heels touched the base of a tree as the shaman started to unravel. He felt Elora in his mind doing the same as him, being cautious and paying close attention.

Iagan laughed uproariously. Slowly, his height began to increase. It took Bastian a second to realize what was happening as the shaman's voice deepened into a raspy growl, nearly demonic.

“So I found Elora. I wanted to use her against all of you. To limit the population. To start my own plague and rid the Wildwoods of the weaklings. The irony of using some stupid witch to execute you all!”

The shaman split from his cloak, growing to the point of nearly breaking the ceiling of the canopy above. He stretched his long, svelte limbs upward toward the shadowy sky, ribs poking out like bony daggers through the rice paper flesh. His mouth parted to reveal jagged teeth as he roared, an irate, monstrous beast. The sopping, white wispy hair remained, sticking to his inhuman wafer-thin muscle tissue.

It was unlike any creature Bastian had ever seen.

---