Page 66 of Untethering Dark

She expected an uptick in anger from him, not worry. “Shaken and scared but otherwise okay, for now.”

“What did she find?” The worry in his voice deepened. “Tell me, Astrid.”

She stared out the mouth of the den to the garden beyond, watching how the snow glittered in snatches of sunlight. A little oasis untouched by the outside world. It seemed wrong to givevoice to bad news here, a desecration of sacred space, but he needed to know.

“Flayed wolves.”

Chapter Twenty-Eight

The witch’s words froze him to the bone.

All the memories that eluded him, slipping through his mind like oil through water, solidified into one macabre picture.

Flayed and broken bodies, stretched out on tanning frames, backs splayed open.

He’d seen such horrors before, a long, long time ago, but it hadn’t been wolves subjected to such evil. It had been people.

Reaching under his sleeping pallet, he withdrew the circular amulet he found in the ashes of the fire, the one etched with a crude visage of himself. He shuddered as he swiped a claw over its stone face, now remembering how very, very hard he’d worked to perfect the art of forgetting. For a time, he had succeeded as only one with thousands of years to spare can do.

He didn’t want to believe that the amulet’s progenitors could be involved. But truthfully, there wasn’t a historic record of the village that had once resided in this corner of the forest. That had once worshipped him.

There was nothing of them left behind for neophytes to copy in the modern age, and it was a mercy to the world.

The abject suffering they had caused...

Hot tears rolled down his bony cheeks. He hastily swiped them away before Astrid could see.

Somehow, they’d returned. He didn’t want to think about the sheer amount of power they must have amassed through sacrifice to accomplish the feat.

“Gudariks?” The witch trembled with uncertainty, fear even.

His silence must have been unsettling.

When he handed her the stone disc, her eyes widened. “How old is this?”

“Two thousand or so years. I found it last night at the campsite. They must have carved up the wolves after I left.”

“So, you know who’s responsible.”

“I do now. Although I couldn’t even begin to tell you how it’s possible.”

She placed a cool hand upon his heated skin. “Tell me everything you do know.”

For most of his life—twelve thousand years, by his estimation—he lived alongside humans, but never with them, roaming from group to group. Watching. Learning. The way they crafted and used tools fascinated him; their sense of community and use of language did, too. He spent thousands of years doing this, watching this species’ evolution unfold without meddling in their day-to-day affairs.

But then curiosity no longer sustained him; a slow, crushing monotony and loneliness seeped in. He wanted, no, needed more.

And he meddled.

There was a human village, smaller than the neighboring ones and of fewer means, which made it an easy target for raids.

It had been so long ago, he forgot what exactly the inciting incident was that spurred him into action, that demanded he intercede on their behalf, but he adopted the little village and its people as his own, protecting them from invaders. Chasing off some, devouring others. It became something he did every day, year after year, receiving food and gifts as tokens of gratitude. A routine that had become as natural as breathing as generations of these villagers lived and died.

One hundred, two hundred, then three hundred years ticked by.

The change into something more was so gradual he hadn’t noticed it, but what were once presented as gifts became offerings, and what was once a display of gratitude became worship.

Gudariks wasn’t born a god, but these ancient humans made him into one.

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