AN 

I hope I am not losing you guys with this story! I really love writing it and enjoy all of the feedback you give me! Fenris's backstory was something I wanted to add in, as Fenris remains one of the most mysterious characters! Have any of you guys shifted from team!Fenris or team!Petyr yet? Let me know! 

The moonlight bathed Fenris's features in a blood-red mask, forcing his face to shapeshift before Marjorie's eyes. He should look harsher in the vibrant crimson beams. Instead, it smoothed the worried lines framing his dark eyes and forehead.

For once, he did not appear ancient.

He looked young.

"How did you survive it?" Marjorie asked. She reached a hand out to his elbow and touched the warm skin there. Goose bumps spotted his arm, proof the past continued to haunt the man.

"She needed a human sacrifice," Fenris whispered. "Do I look human to you?"

Petyr and Marjorie remained quiet, as they had been for the last several long minutes. Fenris sat on the leather couch, curled into himself as if he still felt the cruel touch of Vivian's hands.

"She tried to kill you?" Petyr asked. There was more curiosity in his deep voice than concern.

"There was no try," Fenris said, bitterness evident in each word. "She placed a dagger in my heart and left me to bleed. Then, she killed every last being in the Temple. Man, woman, child, it mattered not. Nothing mattered to Vivian—nothing except her daughter."

"But you did not die," Marjorie whispered. She ached to thread her fingers through his, or to press her palm against the wide expanse of his chest to let him know she was there, waiting with him through the storm raging within his jumbled mind. "Here you stand, telling us your story, living to see another moon."

"It takes more than a dagger to kill a wolf," Fenris admitted. "Vivian made one mistake. She left the thing to finish her sacrifices. Each Priestess, Greenkeeper, guard and Child meant another year of life for the infant. I woke bathing in my blood and all the dead around me. Then I killed that thing tens, hundreds of times, until I took every life it was ever given. Until it never woke."

He swallowed hard and then, hung his head between his pronounced shoulder blades like a wilted flower. Something inside him deflated with the memory, stealing all his mystery and trading it for a somber reality.

"I wish this was another story with another ending," he admitted. His hands folded over his cheeks, hiding his tired face from view. "I ran from what I was my entire life. But it always comes back. It is always my destiny to be this. To be a monster."

"I do not believe you are a monster," Petyr whispered from where he leaned against the wall, stretched out like a long, skinny feline. If there was ever an opposite to Fenris, it would be the young Woodsman with all his golden hair and skin. It was as though the sun and moon lived in the same room, fighting for each inch of moonbeam or sunshine.

"You did what you had to," Marjorie said.

"But I did not do enough." Fenris stood from the leather couch, yanking himself out of Marjorie's tender grasp. He paced to the other side of the room, stopping at the door until he spun on his heels and retraced his steps. He offered Marjorie a watery smile. "As we speak, your village takes another step closer to death. She practiced under the Temple for years, and in all that time, she lived beside and loved the people she murdered. She took the lives of those who would fall on a sword for her. Vivian has spent the last hundred years waiting for this Blood Moon to rise. As long as there is breath in her body, all of her magick, all of her life will be spent raising that beast."

She pushed her bandaged fingers forward to catch his hand. He jerked away from the attempted contact and curled his lips. Her gaze traveled up to his, where flat, dark eyes met hers.

"You did plenty," Marjorie assured him. "You did all of what you could." He showed no response.

"Why did you not kill her, Wolf?" Petyr asked. He glanced up from where he inspected the blade of his axe.

"I cannot kill a witch. Trust me, I have tried."

"Then who can?" Petyr swung his axe down in one, smooth glide. It rested against his thigh, always just a hand's width away from him.

"You are looking at her," Fenris whispered, anger in his voice, like the words hurt to admit. "Only a Spark can kill a witch."

* * *

The Blood Moon casted a red tinge over the earth, causing the steady surface of the Mother River to appear like a blood-colored mirror. Gone was the medley of colors that painted the forest in shades of warm oranges and ripe greens. The night was nothing more than a seamless pool of red.

Fenris delicately laid Sicily's body on the makeshift wooden pillar. He asked to carry the old woman from her bedroom to the river's shore. All Fewfolk were his in a way Marjorie did not understand.

Petyr dragged spare wood down from beneath the treehouse. Marjorie had run to the surrounding vegetation, plucking up green sprigs of moss and tiny flowers most would consider to be weeds. She placed the flora on the wood with a delicate hand, piecing together a mosaic made from the earth.

This would be her Grandmother's final resting place.

It was all they had time for.

Petyr inched the pillar closer to the edge of the river, until it lapped at the end of Sicily's bare feet. Marjorie purposely left her shoes off. Wherever her Grandmother was going, she would want to feel the soil between her toes.

Long silver tendrils dipped into the water, turning her hair into dancing river reed. Marjorie pushed her hand through the locks, like this, floating in water, they were as soft as the silk curtains hanging in Sicily's bedroom. Although the bruises of Brushpaw turned her skin into a muddied mess of white, purple and blue, beauty remained where life once thrived. If Marjorie concentrated long enough on the sharpness of her sunken features, dread would wash over her. Instead, Marjorie traced her index finger over the smart curve of her cupid's bow, which once crinkled with a clever smile.

Although a want inside her chest wished to fall to the gravel and wither alongside Sicily's body, Marjorie remained upright. She could not break now, even though the image of sinking to the bottom of the river, with all the air in her lungs replaced by the cold steady rush of water and her body pulled down to the muddy riverbed, seemed like a peaceful end.

"Are you ready to say goodbye?" Petyr asked from where he waded thigh-deep in the river. His hands kept the weight of the pillar above water, allowing Marjorie another moment with her Grandmother.

The young woman pushed a strand of white hair from Sicily's temple. It fell limply against the other long tendrils. Marjorie's hand disappeared in the folds of her red cape, where she patted around the interior fabric until she found what she searched for.

One red fern of Devilhair lay in her grasp.

Underneath the Blood Moon, with every inch of her surroundings bathed in the same color, the plant did not appear so strange. She tucked the red fern above the woman's ear and then, leaned down to kiss the still surface of Sicily's forehead. Like Cedar, the temperature of her skin was neither cold nor warm, it just was.

Although Sicily's body lay before Marjorie, what made her Grandmother was no longer present. Her curled fingers and slackened jaw acted as a shell of what once was— what could no longer be. The dead Sicily paled in comparison to the living Sicily.

Marjorie once believed her Grandmother's beauty came from her long silver locks or the symmetrical curve of her brows. But now, she understood. What made the old woman beautiful was the ever-present glimmer in her foggy, blue eyes and the once-sure rise and fall of her chest.

Marjorie traced a hand around the soft point of the woman's chin and smiled softly to herself. Then, she curled her fingers around the edge of the wooden pillar Sicily lay on and pushed.

Petyr understood. He released his hold. The board was helpless to the weight of her grandmother, slipping deeper and deeper into the red water with each passing second. The linen on her Grandmother's body floated up and up and up, until only the tip of her nose and the floating cloth remained above the surface.

Marjorie waited until the body moved once again. Bubbles of air and gas still trapped inside the woman's body filled with water, and then, she sank like deadweight.

When Marjorie was young, they used to play in this river together. Sicily washed a day of hard work off in the lazy current while Marjorie overturned river stones and chased after running crawdads. When Sicily dipped her head under the water to soak her hair, she would always come up with a mouthful of river, spraying it over Marjorie while they both tried to hold in their laughter. Marjorie never could. She always laughed until her belly ached from the force of the noise.

The young woman remained standing in the water, patiently waiting. She moved her palms flush against the flat surface of the river, searching for Sicily's bobbing head, for a crooked smile or perhaps, even an unsuspecting spray of water coming from a pair of pursed lips.

But none of these ever came.

Instead, Marjorie turned slowly on her feet, disbelief heavy in her steps, and walked out of Mother River.

AN

A short but sweet update! Expect the rest to be updated in rapid fire! 

Also-- I'm working on a new novel soon, a contemporary love story I have yet to name-- either the Draw or the Butterfly Effect! Be sure to be on the lookout for that one soon! 

Much love! <3 June