Page 53 of Heart Broken Mate

Hayley looked at the man skeptically. She didn’t believe that they had nothing to hide from each other. She grew up on the street, where information was a commodity.

I looked around and couldn’t find anywhere to sit. There was only a small lamp that was burning with a sweet smell in the center of the room and then a lump of cloth in a corner and a thin mat that made up a bed. Besides that, there was nowhere to sit. I looked up at the man, asking for answers.

“On the floor,” he said finally. “Sit on the floor.”

So, we sat on the floor, and it was cold, just like the rest of the hut, watching as the man moved about in the room, searching for something. I looked at Hayley and smiled at her. At least we were here now. They would have more information for us, and then we would know what we were supposed to do. The man returned with something in his hand, which he passed to us.

It was the two halves of the pendant we had but carved out of wood.

“I have had that since I was a child,” he said and sat down. “My father gave it to me, and his father before him did. They all waited for this day. For the two of you to come, but it never happened, and they never gave up. They knew the order of things would be restored to the status quo, how nature meant it. Now, here you are inside my hut.”

“Can you tell us about it?” I asked, passing the wooden medallion back at him. I had seen enough of the design on the pendant to last two lifetimes. I was bored of it. I wanted to knowwhy I had it, though. What made me worthy of it and the moon stone?

“I’ll tell you as much as I can to my ability,” the man said.

He picked up a small effigy of a wolf and ran his fingers over it as he told his story. He took on a new countenance, like that of a wise historian, and I felt like a child listening to him.

“It started with three friends. They were powerful, but only two came from royalty, and only two were deemed worthy because of their birth. One was a Peline, the other a Heline, and the last one a Tarloux. The first two ruled the werewolf world in peace, and there was no trouble, but then there was a disagreement between the three friends, and the Tarloux believed he would make a better leader than the two that were currently leaders. He went to the council of werewolves, and told them leadership should be given based on merit and not inheritance, but it had never been done that way before, and this way, there had never been trouble. So, they didn’t listen to him, and he became a rebel. He walked through town, preaching his new philosophy of merit, and surprisingly he wasn’t met with as much resistance as the council gave him. There were people who shared his sentiment. They wanted different leaders. They wanted one that they had put there themselves and not pompous boys that had inherited their positions and wouldn’t know what it was like to struggle, to suffer.”

He moved the effigy from his right hand to his left. Then he dropped it on the floor before he continued with the story. Hayley and I paid rapt attention to him.

“Back then, werewolves had communities like humans. There were the royals, and there were the peasants. Tarloux found loveamong the poor and the people in general. He was going to give power to the people. When he had amassed enough of a crowd, he returned to the council, thinking they would listen to him now that he had the backing of the people. But the council had never listened to the people because they didn’t think them relevant. They were not as powerful as the royals, and that power was the reason the royals were the leaders. You don’t make the inferior stock your leader. To them, that wasn’t going to change. They chased him away and didn’t listen. He was infuriated. Then, the two other friends invited Tarloux for a conversation. He was becoming a nuisance, and it was their job to rein him in. After all, he was their friend, and they thought he was only blinded by ambition.”

The man chuckled slightly as though he was telling a joke only he could understand. He nodded and continued the story.

“Tarloux was from a powerful family himself but not powerful enough to be royalty. But they were rich, and one of their sons in a position of power would strengthen their stance in the community and make them even richer. So, the two other friends decided to make Tarloux a regent. A regent back then was a big position. He gets to control dynasties and have autonomy. But he was slighted by their offers because they were proving his point. They were in no position to appoint him ruler over a group of people. He threw their offer back in their faces, and returned to his people. By then, it was obvious that the Royals wouldn’t listen to him, and he needed to get them off the throne somehow. He was the heir to a rich empire, so all he had to do was wait. But during his wait, he continued to recruit people into his belief system, and soon, it was like a church. They met to discuss what was wrong with the royalty, and it wasn’t hard to come up with a reason for them to uproot the royalty. Itwas a cruel system that assigned unfavorable benefits to a group of people just because they were lucky enough to be born into a particular family. The people demanded more than that. Tarloux showed them they could have more than that.”

The man looked up at us suddenly. “Pardon me, but when I get into a story, I get lost in it. Do you want anything to drink or eat? You must be tired from all the walk,” he asked as he had realized that we might be thirsty and hungry, and we were. At least I was, and when I looked at Hayley to ask, so was she.

“Yes, we would like something to eat and drink.”

“Alright, come with me,” the man said, and we followed him out of the tent. It was now totally dark outside, and the only lights in the night were those streaming out of the tents. It was night, but the village was still lively. Kids were still running about, and laughter was pouring from tents. Everyone looked happy and content here.

“How do you do it?” Hayley asked. “How do you stay hidden with this large population?”

“Oh, we’ve been hidden for a long time, even before the time of the Pelines and Helines. We have our ways, and we can’t expose them.”

Hayley nodded and looked around at the village again.

It was simple, yet so beautiful. There was something refreshing about the collective sense amongst these people. They knew each other and not just in the way I knew of my neighbors back in Nillport. They were a big family here. Loving and supportive of each other.

“We never got your name,” I told the man and moved closer to him until I was standing right beside him. He was old but so agile and fast.

“Just call me Merine. Everyone does.”

A kid ran past them and dropped a ball made out of leaves. He stopped to pick it up and looked at Hayley and me. He found us very curious as he could tell we were strangers. He called his friends over to look at us, and soon we had a herd of children surrounding us, but they didn’t say anything. They simply just looked.

Merine said something to them in an archaic language, and the kids skittered off, throwing their ball into the air again.

“What language is that?” Hayley asked.

“Our language,” he said.

“You all don’t speak English?” I asked, surprised.

Merine smiled at me. “There are many misconceptions about the lost tribes. That is what you call us. But we don’t think of ourselves as that. We call ourselves hidden, although the tribes at the end of the Alps just call themselves shaded, blocked away by the mountains.”

“There are more of you?”

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