Chapter 112: Memories of the Plague

Orion’s words still hung in the air like smoke, thick, suffocating, impossible to ignore. Sophia’s heart clenched at the way his voice had cracked, at the venom he spat against himself. She had seen Orion angry before, seen him fight, seen him command an army. But this? This was different. This was the raw, unguarded wound of a man carrying ashes inside his chest.

Her voice trembled, even though she tried to make it steady. "Orion... I don’t understand what you’re talking about. I.."

His eyes, burning with that grief-soaked fire, finally flicked to hers. For a long moment he didn’t speak, and she thought maybe he wouldn’t. But then his hand tightened on the wineskin, knuckles white against the leather, and he exhaled slowly through his nose.

"That’s exactly what I told you, Sophia. You don’t understand. You don’t know what happened. You only know a version of what happened." He told her.

He leaned back against the tree, eyes lifting to the darkness above as though the branches themselves carried the ghosts of his past.

"Then tell me what happened. Tell me what’s eating you up. Explain it to me better so I can understand." She told him.

Orion stared at her and she saw how glazed his eyes were and how he looked tired and drained. She hated the look on him. It didn’t suit him. This wasn’t the Orion she knew and she hated that he looked so tired, sad and even...scared.

Silence passed between them as he looked back up at the canopy above them before speaking quietly.

"It started with the sickness. A plague...no one even knew where it came from. One day people were fine, and the next they were collapsing in the middle of their work. The first sign was the cough. It was Harsh and long like it tore the lungs from the inside. Then the fever followed. High fever that burned so high that one touch could blister the skin. And after that..." His jaw tightened. "...after that, their bodies would shake until they stilled. Children. Elders. Warriors. It didn’t matter. The sickness didn’t care. It took anybody."

Sophia’s eyes widened. She could almost see it, the image of people falling one after another, the sound of hacking coughs echoing through streets that should have held laughter. She pressed a hand over her own chest, suddenly chilled.

Orion continued, his voice rougher now, as if he was right there, watching everything happen. "Our healers tried everything. Every root, every leaf, every powder we had stocked. Nothing worked. Within a week, more than half the pack was bedridden. The medical halls we had, overflowed. Warriors were too weak to stand. Mothers couldn’t hold their children upright." He swallowed hard, the muscles in his throat working. "And my mother...my mother was a healer and a warrior. When the plague took over, she spent time caring for those who had fallen until she too became sick herself."

Sophia sucked in a sharp breath at his words.

"My father...he was Alpha then. And he was desperate." Orion’s eyes unfocused, as though staring not at Sophia but at a memory so vivid it still burned behind his eyelids. "It was so bad to the point that I watched his prod self kneel outside the Enclave’s gates for hours. Hours, Sophia. In the dirt. In the rain. The strongest man I ever knew on his knees, begging. His voice hoarse from shouting for help. He offered everything, gold, trade, even alliances. He cried. My father, who had never bowed to anyone, cried in front of locked doors. Begging for even just a little assistance from a body that was meant to protect our kind."

Sophia kept quiet as she listened to his words.

"But even with that, even with how much he begged, the enclave didn’t lend a helping hand. Instead they called us infected and made sure the doors remained locked." Orion’s voice was flat now. "They let him stay there until the sun burned him and the night froze him. And when nothing came...we left. We came back to us empty-handed, with bloodshot eyes and no hope. And I..."

His breath faltered, but he forced himself on.

"I couldn’t stand it. I couldn’t stand seeing him fall apart. Couldn’t stand watching my mother’s body burn with fever while he could do nothing but wait for more to die. I couldn’t watch my family, my friends and every teacher I know die." His hand curled into a fist against his knee. "So I decided to fix it by myself. Add to the fact that I over heard my parents talking one night about how my mother was pregnant and I was excited because I always wanted a sibling. All my friends had one... except Lysander but Brynhild had a sibling, Ronan did too I wanted one. So I took matters into my own hands."

Sophia blinked, leaning closer. "You..."

"I gathered my friends. Brynhild, Ronan, Lysander, and even Brynhild’s twin sister, Raina. We were just children, but we thought we could save everyone." His voice cracked, then steadied. "We snuck into neighboring packs, stole anything we thought looked like medicine. Roots, dried herbs, flowers. We didn’t even know what half of it was, but we brought them back anyway." 𝕗𝗿𝕖𝐞𝐰𝗲𝕓𝐧𝕠𝕧𝗲𝐥.𝚌𝐨𝚖

"Most of what we found was useless. Some of it made people worse. But then...by some miracle, one herb worked. Just one." Orion’s lips twisted into something almost like a smile, though there was no joy in it. "It broke the fever. Stilled the cough. Gave people breath again. But we only had a handful. And the medical hall was overflowing. For every one person saved, ten more were still dying."

Sophia pressed a hand to her mouth. Her throat burned with the weight of his words.

"We needed more," Orion whispered. His eyes darkened as though the shadows of that night crawled back into him. "And more children heard what we had done. They wanted to help too. So we planned to sneak deeper...into the Enclave’s leader’s pack. Because that was where we had found the herb the first time."

His shoulders stiffened, his voice dipped lower, heavy with grief. "I was the one who told them we could do it. That we should do it. That if we just went together, if we just took enough, then maybe none of our people would have to die."