Mythic Read online

  *Mythic appeared in Blood Moon Zine and Dreaming Blood

  Mythic

  by

  Kate Hill

  They were born at the same moment, one female, one male, but otherwise identical.

  A soot-colored cloud darkened the moon on that night, but as Myla and Marin tumbled squalling into the world, the cloud momentarily shifted and the moon bathed the land and water with its light.

  The mothers were allowed only a few precious seconds with Myla and Marin before the infants were bundled, concealed, and whisked from the village, but even that slight delay had nearly cost their lives.

  Hunters, armed with vials of poison to destroy their helpless enemies, galloped through the well-trodden dirt roads. They ravaged the village and all those surrounding it in an attempt to rid the world of Myla and Marin, but the children had been taken to the safety of the wood. The moon had once again donned its cloak of clouds, and the hunters’ poor, human eyesight made it impossible for them to track their victims.

  Myla was fostered in the wood by a woman she called Mama Gayle, but Marin was taken farther from his birthplace, through a cold and churning sea, to a secluded kingdom where he was raised as the son of a childless King and Queen.

  Though his keen intelligence was nurtured by the finest teachers and his vigor challenged by riding, fencing, and swimming in the rough river flowing through the meadow behind the palace, he longed for something inexplicable.

  To the distress of his parents, he often rode away alone and disappeared for days. He would return looking wild and unkempt with frustrated desire gleaming in his silvery eyes, but no matter how he was prodded, punished, or begged, he would not discuss what he did or where he went during his solitary wanderings.

  He feared no one would understand why he felt the need to race barefoot through the half-frozen, rocky forest. He knew they would call him mad if he told them that he lay naked in a clearing, gazed up through the web of slender tree branches, and saw the vision of his phantom lover in the face of the yellow moon.

  ***

  In a different wood, far from Marin’s brisk country, Myla lived without riches and without regimented lessons, but happily and freely with Mama Gayle. They gathered their food from the wood, fished in the brook trickling down from the distant mountains, and sewed their own clothes from animal skins and cloth bought during rare excursions to the local market. Myla spent her days as wildly as the forest animals. She wandered through leafy paths, bathed in gentle cascades, and pondered on the beautiful youth she saw in the pale, shadowy surface of the moon.

  “Is it possible to love someone you don’t know, Mama Gayle?” Myla asked on the eve of her eighteenth birthday.

  “If you were anyone else, I would say such thoughts are childish fantasy. All of the young are obsessed with finding the perfect lover.”

  “I’ve imagined a man.” Myla closed her eyes and smiled. “Tall, rangy like a beast, but handsome.”

  “Like a beast.” Mama Gayle extended her gnarled, brown hand with its claw like fingers and lovingly stroked Myla’s cheek. “And how like a beast you are, Myla, but you’re better than a beast. You have the beauty of the wild, but you can reason, and you are good.”

  “I try.” The young woman drew a deep breath, her small, firm breasts swelling beneath the scanty muslin gown she wore. “But sometimes I feel too much like a beast, especially when the sky is cloudless and the moon is so clear that I can see the man’s face in it.”

  “You will meet him one day.”

  Myla giggled, but lost her mirth upon noticing the happiness and sorrow at war in Mama Gayle’s eyes.

  “One your twentieth birthday, you will meet.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “The story is long and I’m too tired.”

  “Mama Gayle, please,” Myla begged, fearful and curious.

  “Don’t be afraid.” Mama Gayle patted Myla’s knee. “You were born for each other. It will all make sense when he arrives.”

  “But I want to know now,” Myla pleaded, dropping to her knees and burying her face in Mama Gayle’s lap. The old woman merely stroked the tangles from the girl’s knee-length, moon-yellow hair.

  Though Myla never forgot Mama Gayle’s words of foresight, she did her best to put them from her mind. Mama Gayle refused to offer any more information, so Myla was left to her own dreams and suspicions.

  One month before her twentieth birthday, her desire for her imaginary lover became an obsession. She spent less time at home and more in the darkest core of the wood.

  Her favorite place was a clearing through which flowed a stream with several wide, flat stones overlooking the water. Myla would often lie on one of the stones, close her eyes, and dream about her lover.

  ***

  In the kingdom across the sea, Marin had become as fine a Prince as his parents could have wished for in a child of their own blood. He was strong, handsome, the epitome of grace and manners, and the finest hunter in the land. Though the King and Queen displayed obvious pride in their son, Marin noticed concern in their eyes when they thought he wasn’t looking. Because of their vigorous questioning in his youth, he had learned to be discreet in his solitary wanderings. No one knew when he left after dark to pray to the night for the exquisite phantom who stirred his body and mind. As he neared his twentieth year, the desire for the woman was almost as unbearable as the pull of the moon that called for him to reach toward it and cry out to it until his throat ached. The moon never answered but would stare down at him with a tender smile in the shape of her lips.

  When he abruptly told his parents he was leaving on a sea voyage, he was surprised by their happiness.

  “It’s good for a young man to explore the world on his own,” the King said.

  “Just be careful, Marin.” The Queen kissed his cheek before he left, placing the gift of a gold earring in his palm. “Listen only to your instincts. They will never lie.”

  Marin had no choice but to listen to his instincts. They were masterful in their demands, and though he’d never left his kingdom, he knew exactly where to go.

  He found ship travel difficult since he couldn’t shriek to the night sky lest the crew think him mad. He longed to run through an open field and pick his way along the twisted paths of a forest, but he had to make do with nightly walks across the tilting deck. Once the ship docked, Marin walked alone through unfamiliar country, yet he still knew exactly which paths to take. When he finally saw in the distance a forest as vast as he had dreamed about, his heartbeat quickened and he raced toward it. When he reached the trees, he slowed his pace only long enough to discard his clothes and the few belongings he’d brought from home. Naked, as wild as any animal, ignoring the branches lashing his skin, his pace increased with every step.

  After what seemed like hours, he reached a clearing. He stopped abruptly, breathing heavily from his run, his heart slamming painfully against his ribs as his eyes fell upon her. Perched on a flat stone above a stream, her slender, muscled body swathed in silken, yellow hair, was the woman he’d always desired.

  Myla had heard his approach, heard the rustling of the trees and the swift pounding of his footsteps on the fallen leaves. She’d caught his alluring scent on the wind and felt her belly tighten with desire. She waited for him to appear, her entire body tense. Though it was impossible, she knew who it was.

  He stepped through the trees and stood before her. With his lean, well-muscled body drenched in sweat, and his long, flaxen, hair grabbing at his sculpted arms and shoulders, he was more beautiful than she’d imagined. A guttural sound erupted from her throat as she crawled toward him, animal-like. He grabbed her, fingers gently squeezing her shoulders as he lifted her so her gray eyes stared lustfully into his own. He growled as his lips closed over hers. His kiss
was deep and searching as his arms pressed her to the hard length of his body. Myla’s eyes closed and her palms splayed against his broad back, slipping down his sweat-slicked skin.

  Words were lost to them, and they communicated with carnal, inhuman growls. Marin’s mouth explored Myla’s, and he pierced his tongue on her canine teeth which had suddenly grown long and sharp. The taste of his blood caused them both to shiver with desire, and he lifted her easily into his arms and carried her to one of the rocks. Her arms locked around his neck, and she licked his throat, tasting the saltiness of his skin.

  He eased her onto her back and loomed over her, his gray eyes dark with passion above the sleek fur of his flaxen muzzle. Myla howled shrilly as her claw-like nails raked across his back, and he threw back his own head and wailed to the brilliance of the full moon.

  ***

  Mama Gayle welcomed Marin by name. She beckoned the lovers, now clothed and in vulnerable, human form, to sit with her by the fire and dine on meat so fresh that the blood still ran warm over their tongues.

  “You were separated as children so that the hunters wouldn’t find you. There are humans who know about our kind and want to destroy us though most of us have done nothing to deserve their scorn. It is true that on occasion there is a mad wolf who likes to dine on human flesh, but there are those among their own kind who commit murder.”

  “Why did they want to kill us?” Marin asked. “What makes us different from the rest of our kind?”

  “The wolf blood runs through us all, but few of us can actually change shape and procreate. The legend states that only two wolf children born at the exact moment beneath the light of the full moon will have the gift of change and fertility.”

  “We have the gift of change all right,” Myla smiled, snuggling deeper into Marin’s embrace, “but only time will tell if I will have a child.”

  “You already are having a child.” Mama Gayle’s eyes gleamed with unshed tears of happiness. “You are the legend, but it’s not safe for you to stay here. You must return to Marin’s land.”

  “What makes you think we’ll be welcome there now that I know what I really am?” Marin narrowed his silvery eyes.

  “Trust me, children.” Mama Gayle placed a hand to each of their cheeks. “Trust me.”

  As if summoned by the same force that had drawn Myla and Marin together, the hunters came that very morning.

  Mama Gayle heard them marching through the woods, and she hurried to the cascade where Myla and Marin were enjoying a swim.

  “They’re close, you must go now,” panted Mama Gayle, staggering against one of the largest rocks, her arthritic legs scarcely able to support her. “If they catch you, they’ll kill you both and end the bloodline.”

  “I’ll fight them.” Marin snarled, his teeth already lengthening and his eyes glinting like mica in the sunlight.

  “The wolf’s blood is strong in you, but there are too many. They will destroy you,” Mama Gayle said.

  Barking dogs and human voices sounded in the distance, the ground shook with the approach of horses. The reek of fear, fury, and death tainted the breeze.

  “You know these woods better than I do.” Marin grasped Myla’s shoulders, staring intently into her eyes. “Run north until you reach the seaside town where my ship is docked. Tell them who you are, and give them this.” He tugged off the gold earring his mother had given him and placed it in Myla’s trembling hand. She didn’t hesitate before piercing her lobe with the sharp edge of the earring, still warm from Marin’s flesh. “They’ll take you to my parents where you and our child will be safe.”

  “What about you?” Myla clutched his wrist.

  “I’ll lead them away,” he said, bending to tenderly lick the blood from her ear.

  “They’ll kill you.” Mama Gayle repeated, leaving no space for argument and no hope for a mistake.

  Marin tugged Myla into his arms and kissed her.

  “Go now!” Mama Gayle pushed the two apart, her eyes darting from side to side as each shifted easily into wolf form and bounded in opposite directions. The old woman dropped to her knees, ignoring the pain coursing through her ancient joints, and prayed.

  Myla ran, tears streaking her vision as her powerful wolf legs devoured the miles of rocky, root-twisted ground. Even when the forest ended and she reached an open field without a sign of the hunters behind her, she continued running until she could scarcely take another step. Stealing a tattered dress that had been hung out to dry behind a peasant’s hut, she wished she had something to leave as payment, but all she had was Marin’s gold earring, and she needed it to prove her identity to the ship’s crew. She only hoped that would be enough to convince them the dusty woman in peasant’s garb truly carried their Prince’s child.

  She needn’t have worried. The crew welcomed her and left the dock immediately, never doubting the real danger from those who pursued her.

  Myla stood on deck, watching the land fade in the distance and with it her memories, her mother, her home, and her love. She thought she would have felt it if Marin had died, since their feelings for one another were deep, though they had only met a short time ago. Still at night, when she stood on deck, the salty wind tousling her pale hair, she would look up at the moon and feel as if he was standing close beside her. Perhaps she sensed his life so fully because she was carrying his child.

  Her pregnancy was much shorter than a human woman’s, and her daughter was born on board the ship several days before reaching Marin’s land. She called the girl Marina, after her father, and even in infancy, Marina showed signs of possessing the gift of transformation.

  Myla, filled with apprehension, approached the palace walls with Marina wrapped securely in her arms. How could she bear to tell Marin’s parents of his loss?

  The doors of the great hall opened, and the crowd gathered inside welcomed her with applause and cries of joy. Myla stared in wonder at the wolves intermingled with men and women who carried the shapeshifter blood. The crowd parted, leaving a clear path for her to approach the King and Queen who sat on carved wooden thrones at the end of the hall. Myla approached on trembling legs and knelt before them, offering up the beautiful, pale-haired baby. They smiled at Marina, spellbound by the legend born in their lifetime, the child of their beloved son.

  “Where is Marin?” The Queen tore her gaze from the infant long enough to glance at Myla.

  The tears welling in the young woman’s eyes were answer enough, and the joy felt by everyone that day was shadowed by the death of the Prince.

  Myla was accepted affectionately by the King and Queen, and the love all three had felt for Marin was placed upon his daughter.

  Myla often walked alone at night through the fields outside the palace walls. She would gaze up at the moon, howl to it, slip into wolf form, and bound over the frosty countryside. One particularly cold night, just before the first real snow, Myla was thinking so forcefully about Marin that she believed she caught his scent on the breeze. A wolf howled in the distance, and it sounded too much like her lover. She sighed, lifting her face to the moon to worship it one last time before retiring for the night, but as she did, she saw him in the distance. Slimmer than before, and wearing a long, silver-blond beard, it was Marin!

  A pulse pounded in her throat, and she raced toward him, leaping into his arms, her legs locking about his waist. Starving for one another, their mouths met. Tongues slashed on gleaming incisors, blood mingled, desire flared, and hot tears fell on their cold cheeks.

  “I knew you weren’t dead.” She clung to him as she wept.

  “Almost,” he said, parting his cloak and revealing a jagged, pink scar across his lean chest. “They cornered me, and I fought them off. Mama Gayle found me and tended me. She’s come home as well. She and the crew will be here in the morning, but I had to run ahead. I couldn’t wait to see you and the baby.”

  When Myla finally placed Marina in her father’s arms, she felt overwhelming happiness. Together Marin and Myla watched t
heir daughter sleep before they slipped silently from the palace and out into the chilly night. The snow had begun to fall and covered the ground in a cloak of white. Discarding their clothes, Myla and Marin shifted into wolf form and bounded toward the wood, their paw prints leaving a dark trail in the moonlight.

  The End

 

 

  Kate Hill, Mythic

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