The Mate They Called A Mistake

Veyra's POV

I was still on my knees where I had fallen, the veil was wrinkled next to me, and each and every face in that crowd looked at me like I had another head. I heard my father's voice above the whispers somewhere.

"Get her up," Caedmon said, moving forward, his voice trembling with rage, which he was not hiding. "Take her up and bring  her to the council chambers now."

My arms were gripped by rough hands, and pulled up to my feet. I stumbled, my mouth opened to beg them to be gentle but no words came out,  legs shaking from the shock of what just had taken place, and was hauled toward the elders platform as the whole pack looked on.

"Father, I didn't..." I began, but he was not paying me attention. His face twisted with rage and humiliation he was looking at Ysolde, at the other elders.

"She's done something," said Caedmon. "She has disrupted the ceremony, I want to know how!"

Ysolde raised her hand, but the wolves holding me didn't drag me anymore, they just held me in front of the platform. Her eyes scanned me slowly, absorbing the scar that was now exposed, the veil that had fallen to the ground forgotten, the fact that I was still breathing.

Ysolde replied, "Veyra Noctelle. What just happened?"

I said, "I don't know. I swear it, I don't know. One minute, I was standing in the crowd the next the  essence approached me and then it just..." I gulped. "It just came to me, I didn't call it, I didn't do anything to make it come to me. Please you have to believe me."

"After the stars themselves rejected a wolf as noble as  Elaris, you expect us to believe that?" Caedmon asked. "Rhydian's own wolf  abandoned its intended match to choose you .. an omega instead?"

" I don't expect anything from you." I said, keeping my voice down. "It's what really happened and I have no other answer to give you. All I said is the truth."

"If the truth has to give you a king, it's convenient," said one of the other elders, a chunky fellow named Baltram.

"I don't want this. I don't really understand what this is." I begged, frustration finding its way into my voice. 

"Sister why? Why did you do this to? Is it my fault you're an omega? Is it my fault that the moon goddess blessed me and not you? Did you do this cause you hate me?" 

I said quietly, "I never hated you. I've not been able to hate anyone, Elaris, I've been trying to stay out of everybody's way my whole life. I don't care about you or whatever you think you have that I don't."

"Then tell me about this," Baltram said, pointing at me as if I were a specimen on a table, "Describe how a cursed omega, untrained, without any standing, and no magic of her own, managed to steal a Lycan King's Wolf essence from his destined mate."

"I can't say anything,l I said. "I don't know, I don't have an answer to that, I don't know what happened."

The council was arguing at the same time, their voices overlapping, some pointing at me, others at Rhydian, who stood off to the side, his expression I didn't have time to read - somewhere between confusion and something more, something I didn't have time to study before Ysolde raised her hand again for silence.

"That's not an issue which can be solved with accusations," Ysolde replied. "If magic was used to disrupt a sacred bonding ceremony, we need evidence before punishment, bring the seer."

An echo reverberated through the mob. I didn't know very much about seers - they were rare, kept to themselves, summoned only when the pack itself could not find a solution. A few minutes later, a woman, older than Ysolde, was escorted through the crowd, wearing dark unadorned robes, her eyes an unsettling shade of pale grey that appeared to look through people rather than at them.

Ysolde said, "Seer Ilyenne. We need your sight, something has disrupted the ceremony between Rhydian Vael and Elaris Noctis, his wolf essence has selected this girl." She gestured to me. "We must find out whether there was magic and who it was."

I forced myself to  stand my ground and not move away from her under her stare as I turned to her.

"Come closer," Ilyenne said and I did. 

"What's your name?" she asked.

"Veyra Noctelle."

"Explain to me, Veyra, what happened, from the start, don't leave anything out." She said in a gentle voice that made me almost trust her. 

"I was helping set up the ceremony grounds," I said. "I stood at the back of the crowd watching like everyone else, when the star-reading failed between Rhydian and Elaris and then the elders told Alpha Rhydian  to release his  wolf essence, it went toward Elaris first, but it passed her and moved through the crowd until it reached me, then it went into me. That's all I know."

Ilyenne looked at me silently for a long time. Then, she touched me and applied two fingers lightly to my temple, next to the edge of my scar. Her touch was cool, I felt something move under my skin though, like she was looking through more than my face.

"Have you ever practiced magic?" she asked. "Have you been tutored by anyone? Went anywhere, made any incantation, made any bargain?"

"No," I said. "Never, if I tried I wouldn't know."

"Have you ever wished for something like this? Wanted to steal what didn't belong to you?" She asked again. 

I was stung but I didn't break my voice. "No, I've never wished to be with the Lycan King."

Ilyenne lowered her hand and stepped back, her face unfathomable. She went to Ysolde and the other council members.

"I can't tell you what exactly happened here," she said, "but I can tell you one thing for sure. There's magic here, I can feel it, but it will take me time to see who created it, who's hands did it, and I'll have to perform a deeper ritual, one that looks at the girl and the essence of the wolf."

"What will it take, how long?" Caedmon demanded.

"As long as it takes," Ilyenne replied without a care in the world. "Rhydian, I need you to come with me to set up the ritual circle, too-the essence of Rhydian is something I need to view."

All the people were moved back to make room and I was forced to kneel in the middle of a circle that was hastily marked out in the dirt, with herbs and old bone charms scattered around the circle. Rhydian was forced to stand at the other end of the circle, so close that I could feel his eyes on me but not look into them.

Ilyenne was kneeling between us, her hands moving in slow, rhythmic patterns, speaking in a language I didn't understand. One by one, the charms around the circle started to illuminate, and something tugged at me, unpleasantly, at my ribs.

I didn't move. I didn't dare.

The ritual was a strange experience in terms of time. I don't know how long it lasted, minutes or hours - every minute seemed to follow the next, as Ilyenne's chanting changed, the charms danced and faded and came back to me, and the people around us stood in frozen silence, waiting.

After all, the sparkle dimmed from the charms and Ilyenne opened her eyes.

She slowly stood up, dusted the dust from her robes and looked at the council. Each one of those people on that platform bent forward a little bit, waiting.

"Well?" Ysolde asked. "What did you discover?

Ilyenne's eyes were white and darted from Ysolde to Caedmon to Rhydian and back to me.

"It's black magic."