Iona started walking towards the courtyard and then she broke into a run. At eighteen she should have shifted into her wolf, but she hadn't so far. And when she was running at the moment, she wanted to shift. Her instincts to shift were so strong that her lungs were heaving. Not now, not now… she reminded herself. Her lungs had opened and the cool air around her was filling it. She could feel her bones cracking, skin rippling with fur. She had to shove it down. If she shifted, she was doomed. 

Iona leaned against a pillar in the corridor barely able to register the commotion that was going around her. Her skin was sweating as hell. Her first shift and that too in the presence of Etaya and Seraph. This was going to be painful as hell. Her vision changed and became blurry. Why was it that her senses had heightened to an all new level? She could feel her claws jutting out and fangs lengthening. 

First shift was very painful. She had heard it long back. 

Strange voices, strange vistas and strange smells filled around her. Don't shift, she willed herself. She pushed her wolf down and it growled against her command. It had never arisen all these times and suddenly what was wrong with it? 'Stay down, please,' she begged her. 'I need to focus on what is going on.' 

'We are two of us now,' a voice hissed at the back of her mind. She didn't know whose voice it was, but it was deep and very… possessive. Was that her wolf? 

A soldier stopped right in front of her. The girl was in a terrible state. Her skin was covered with sweat and her half-hooded golden eyes were flickering a deep shade of brown. "Is everything okay?" he asked as he rustled his wings in tension. He tried to touch her, but she shoved his hand away. 

Instead of going to the courtyard, she staggered back to her room where she bent down with pain in every muscle and bone in her body. She fell on the floor and curled in a fetal position. Shifting for the first time was very painful but stopping from shifting was unbearable. It was like someone flogging yourself, like chaining yourself and tormenting yourself mentally. Tears ran out of her eyes. 'You can do this Iona,' she reminded herself. She had been through worse times. Etaya had whipped her for not conceding to Seraph. Seraph had used his magic, used the Diumbe against her to concede to her demands. She remembered the time when they had left her to rot in a basement after whipping her for over a month. And at that time, she was only fourteen. 

Iona laughed. This was nothing in comparison to that. She closed her eyes as her teeth chattered and she fell unconscious soon after. 

She didn't know for how long she stayed on the floor but when she woke up, she still found herself in her room. She pulled herself up, feeling weaker than usual, half panting. She checked for the signs if there were gouges on the furniture or wood or any blood, but there was none and she took a sigh of relief. Iona pulled herself up, walked to the pitcher in her room and without pouring water in the glass, she drank directly from the pitcher. Why was she feeling as if she was on fire? Rest of the water of the pitcher, she dropped on her head. 

She looked out the window at the dense gray skies and wondered for how long she had remained in that position. The fog from her mind cleared and she heard soldiers yelling at each other. Iona darted out of her room again and this time she ran towards the southern bend of the palace. It was where they entered the wilderness of Sgiath Biò. On the way she found soldiers gathering in divisions with their swords and other armor and Yion shouting orders. She didn't stop to see them and continued to run. 

She found Aed Ruad, ready in his armor, flanked by a dozen guards talking to Etaya. As she ran, she could feel Etaya watching her. 

She ran faster. Just a few more meters and she would reach the southern bend. 

"And where are you going?" a voice hissed behind her. 

Iona came to a complete standstill. She felt his tentacles slithering towards her. She backed a little. 

"Did you think that you are going to go, unprepared, Dark Witch?" he said in a disembodied voice full of hatred. "Where are your Diumbe?" 

Fear skittered down her spine when his tentacles reached her waist, her belly. "Th— they are waiting for me outside," she lied. 

"Then you are going to let them in you, now!" 

A shudder passed through her body. If she let them in, then her mind would be addled. She wouldn't be able to remember what she was doing now. "Yes Master," she replied. She turned to walk and he started following her. Goose bumps lined her skin as dread surged through her heart. He was feeling her with his tentacles. In order to distract his mind, she said, "What are you going to do after the war is over, Master?" 

He didn't reply, only hissed. 

"What are you going to do with me?" 

The answer was obvious, but neither of them was speaking it aloud. 

"Will you go back to your body?" she asked. 

A tentacle lashed at her and she stumbled in the front. "Do what you have to, Dark Witch!" he said in a ravenous voice, as if he would kill her and throw her to the vultures or eat her, now. 

She straightened and walked as fast as possible to stay away from his sewer-like smell. She wanted to gag but then she had no time. She pushed bile back down her throat and broke into a jog. Seraph kept up with her.

When they reached the southern side of the palace, she summoned the Diumbe. And they all came like a gust of wind. They stopped right in front of her—a mass of inky, slimy creatures with broken limbs and fangs and sick smell. 

"You are leading the army," said Seraph. "I hope you remember." 

"Yes Master," she replied. From the corner of her eye she saw a division of the army marching through the corridors and coming towards them. 

"Now go!" he commanded. 

She took a deep breath and turned to walk through the bend. Her Diumbe followed her in an inky serpentine trail. Seraph watched her closely as he slithered in the shadows. 

The overhead sky thundered and lightning forked inside the dense clouds. Iona crossed the bend and reached the outside. The division of the army, headed by Ráild, followed her. 

She heard a battle cry in the distance and a smile tugged her lips up. She narrowed her eyes towards the horizon, towards the wilderness where gray skies met white earth, where through the fog and mist, she saw black silhouettes of men in black and silver armor, marching towards them. Thousands of them. 

The wizard army had come to attack Vilinski along with its allies.

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