Chapter 465: The Language That Haunts

The Day Before Sophia Regained Consciousness

Garrett stood just outside, and Orion sent him to get a parchment and a quill.

Garrett immediately nodded, and within minutes he was back, breath steady, parchment held carefully beneath his arm and the quill already inked.

Orion took them and returned inside the hall.

He placed the parchment on the table in front of Jeffrey and slid the quill across to him.

"Put down anything you remember."

Jeffrey picked it up. The hall went quiet as he began to write the strange symbols—at least the ones he remembered.

"...No," he muttered.

Orion’s voice was low.

"What is it?"

Jeffrey did not answer immediately.

His eyes tracked over the lines he had written, the shapes and everything.

He swallowed.

"...How did I miss that?"

He groaned quietly to himself.

"How did I miss it?"

Orion’s eyes stayed on Jeffrey. The parchment still lay on the table between them, its fragile surface bearing the faint, uneven scratches that Jeffrey had just made.

"What’s wrong?" Orion asked again, his voice calm but firm.

Jeffrey didn’t answer immediately. His fingers hovered over the parchment as though touching the symbols might give him an explanation he didn’t yet understand himself. Finally, he spoke, low and hesitant.

"Now that I’m really looking at it..." He exhaled slowly, shaking his head. "...this language... it’s similar. To the one Eldric spent years trying to translate. The one on the altar of the shrine."

Orion’s gaze sharpened. He reached out and picked up the parchment, letting the light wash over the jagged, imperfect runes Jeffrey had drawn. The shapes were strange to him, though. Jeffrey had remembered only fragments, and the symbols wavered on the page.

☽ᛚᚢᚾ’ᚹᛖᚦ ...ᚾᛟᛋ ...

ᛖᛚᚨ ... ... ᚺᛖᚱ ...ᛖᛚᚨ ...

"There’s only one person in the pack who can translate this," Orion said quietly, setting the parchment down so everyone could see. "Especially if it’s the same language that is on the altar of the shrine."

"Sophia." Brynhild said quietly.

She was very much aware, along with the elders, that Sophia and Eldric had been translating what was written on the altar of the shrine.

Orion nodded once, sharply. Jeffrey’s face mirrored the motion.

"Yes," Jeffrey said, his voice catching. "Sophia. She... she’s the only one. Eldric... Eldric was excited when he found out someone could finally translate it."

Orion raised an eyebrow.

Jeffrey chuckled softly, almost bitterly. "I know this sounds doubtful coming from me, especially after..." He swallowed and let out a breath. "...especially after what’s going on with my husband. But I knew Eldric. I knew how he... well, actually," he muttered, "He... he was elated."

He ran a hand over his face, jaw tight. "When Sophia first translated the one Eldric copied from the altar, we stayed up talking well into the night. He... he couldn’t stop. I have no idea how I missed it before, but... it’s the same language. It has to be. I remember Eldric showed me something similar."

Orion let the silence settle between them for a moment, eyes still on the parchment. It was scattered, almost indecipherable, but it carried a weight he could not ignore.

"Perhaps," Jeffrey continued, "everything could be linked. The shrine outside the pack... the rocks we found... the ruins... maybe it’s all connected."

Orion nodded slowly, though his mind wasn’t on the ruins or the shrine anymore. He didn’t voice the thought, not yet. The thought that gnawed at him was sharper, more dangerous. That perhaps everything—the language, the rocks, the beast, the increasing chaos—was connected to Sophia.

She was the only one who could translate the language. She was the one Eldric had insisted must be present before he spoke. She had been the target in the cave; he had specifically said he called the other beasts around Nirvana to try to stop her. It was also after Sophia came to the pack that the beast sightings increased. Skylurs and Trihydras were working together in ways that hadn’t happened before she arrived at the pack.

Orion’s jaw tightened. And the day he found Sophia in the shrine, someone had led him there. A woman had led him there, to Sophia.

And now, even if he wanted to, they couldn’t ask Sophia who she truly was before she came to the pack. She didn’t remember anything, and even the little she did remember had come at a cost.

He forced a deep breath and looked up at Jeffrey. The man’s hands were still trembling slightly over the parchment. Orion reminded himself to be calm. And it didn’t matter if Sophia was at the middle of it all; to him, she was a part of the pack.

Jeffrey’s voice cut through the thoughts. "The shapes... the spacing... I didn’t get it right. I tried, but I couldn’t remember all of it. The crescents, the hooks... some of them are in the wrong places. Others are missing entirely. We’ll have to wait until Ronan is back to get more information."

While Orion and the others were in the council hall, Eldric was in his home, writhing on the floor.

Pain tore through him, and he groaned aloud, clutching his head, voice echoing between himself and the wolf that shared his mind.

"One more day," he begged. "Just one more day... and I can tell her... even a little. Just one more day."

The wolf growled, resisting, but he ignored it, squeezing his eyes shut against the pain, whispering the same plea over and over. "One more day... if she doesn’t come, I’ll leave... just let me have one more day."

When the agony receded slightly, he adjusted the glasses on his face. He shakily picked up the fallen chair, settling onto it with trembling hands.

Breathing heavily, Eldric whispered a prayer to the moon goddess, silent, desperate.

His hands shook badly. His breathing was shallow. Even if it was only a little, he told himself, he was going to tell Sophia.

She and Orion would have to work together. The path of the chosen Luna was never smooth, and it seemed Sophia’s own was going to be filled with pain.