In the banquet square, chaos had erupted.
Mix, one of the Nellings guards, dropped to his knees with a strangled gasp. His body convulsed, muscles rippling as though something coiled beneath his skin. Veins darkened to indigo, spreading like ink through glass. His eyes rolled white, then flared with a cold, oceanic glow.
The air warped around him. A low hum rose, vibrating through the air, and the scent of salt and brine thickened in every breath. His back arched, bones lengthening, spine cracking in rhythm like breaking waves. His shoulders broadened, chest expanding with an impossible grace. Skin gave way to fur. Short, sleek, black with a sheen of deep blue that shimmered like the night sea under the moonlight.
His face twisted, but not into something monstrous. The sharpness of his jaw remained, sculpted beautifully, yet wreathed in an otherworldly power. His nose flattened slightly, his features lengthening with the fluid symmetry of a creature born for cold depths.
He roared. The beastly sound wretched from his gut of despair and wrath. The crowd stumbled back. His jaw lengthened, lips splitting to reveal rows of pearly, curved teeth.
Then, with one last shudder, his form settled. A massive seal-like creature, a being of land and sea, glistening and muscled, his skin patterned with faint silver sigils. The ghost of his former face still haunting his gaze. The magnificent terror roared once more, a sound that split the air like breaking waves, before surging toward the horrified crowd. All around him, his fallen comrades writhed and reshaped, awoken to their curse. Bound by the same dark calling.
"Poison!" someone yelled amidst the chaos. "They have been poisoned!"
Ligon sprang forward, his voice cutting through panic. "Form a line! Protect the people!" He shouted the instructions at his commanders
Nox grabbed Valia's arm. "Get back!"
But she wringed out of his grasp.
"I can take care if myself Nox, help the women and children" she instructed, her gaze locked on the writhing bodies. Along with Mix, the Nellings' guards and servants under his unit were turning feral, their movements erratic, their strength monstrous.
Domoic acid.
Ligon shouted the words to his medic as he smelled the cup they drank from. It attacked a Seal's mind and heart, plauging on their insecurities and causing insanity.
Valia paused, the shouts making her head spin.
The sound of people screaming blurred into the background Her vision tunneled, memory bleeding into the present;
Children's laughter turning cruel, hands shoving her into a pit, fangs slicing into her skin, her own screams turning into something inhuman.
She remembered that sound.
The scream that wasn't a scream.
The power that had answered her pain.
Valia stepped forward, trembling. She pressed her hand against one of the poisoned soldiers convulsing at her feet, her grip strong. His pulse stuttered under her fingers.
Her voice changed. Soothing...almost seductive.
It wasn't speech. Notes like smoke rose from her lips, rising and falling like wind through silver reeds. The melody wrapped around the poisoned, soothing their spasms, cooling the fever in their blood.
Slowly. One by one, they stilled.
She didn't need to move far as the melody touched each of the poisoned, effortlessly.
Ligon froze mid-command. He saw it. He saw her.
The soft green glowing smoke spilling from her lips, her hair floating slightly as she healed the afflicted.
When the last of the Seals stirred awake, gasping like a man dragged back from the abyss, the courtyard burst into cheers and sobs. Wolves howled thanks to the sky in relief as people gathered their items.
King Kumie staggered back, clutching his chest—he'd nearly been devoured by his own guard.
From beneath the table, Demisule crawled out, hair wild and eyes wide, while Tupill, plopped on the ground, looked like his nightmare had come to life.
To the crowd, it was clear who had saved them. The Alpha.
No one dared question how he'd done it. No one wanted to. Fear still lingered in their bones, and so they celebrated the loud voice that had commanded their rescue. The voice that was never going to abandon them because it ruled over them. The voice that would always save them no matter the trial.
Ligon let them believe it, he knew their aversion to change and how much they needed the savior to be him. He stood tall and calm amidst the chaos. They bowed, praised, called his name in awe, but his sharp eyes, never left Valia.
She'd slipped back among the servants, quiet, pale, her hands trembling as if from simple fatigue. He wanted to seize her by the shoulders, demand the truth, but he knew she was hiding for a reason. He would let her be for now but he would have his answers.
(Author: Please suppprt my work and leave a comment. Thank youu)