22

My hands gripped the cups as if they were a life preserver that might save me from drowning. Although small clouds of steam rose from the cup, showing how hot the drink was, my hands shook.

No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't stop the trembling, the goose bumps, or the focus on the here and now.

Everything seemed to blur in front of my eyes and black dots danced in my field of vision.

At first I didn't even know why I was so nervous, so scared. My brother showed me the labs today. I was only able to bring myself to enter this area of the village with a queasy feeling.

Just thinking about the labs had thrown me back in time. In my old village, the place I could always consider my home. But now I knew the secrets of this place. Just the thought of the laboratory under City Hall terrified me. Actually, it wasn't that long ago that I was standing in my old village, but it felt like years had passed since then.

To my surprise, the labs here had been very different. Actually, they were more reminiscent of gardens. A wall of pointed wooden poles built by the residents surrounded the area reserved for the laboratories. Only one gate allows entering or exiting the area.

As soon as you passed the gate, you were already surrounded by plants, trees and bushes.

Red, Yellow, Green, Purple, Orange, Pink, White, Blue. The colors of the blossoms and buds seemed to know no bounds. It had taken a moment until I was able to pay attention to my brother again, as I was completely captivated by the lush colors.

How could there be so much beauty in a place like this?

My brother had walked with me along the fields. Again and again he called me the plants, but I found it difficult to concentrate on his words. Most of the faces I spotted among the flowers looked familiar, but I couldn't place a name. But a little later, when we were standing between large reddish flowers, I could see a familiar face in the distance. Kate.

Thomas seemed to have followed my gaze and gave me a friendly smile. "She works here when the kids are at school." he had explained to me.

I could only nod thoughtfully and we continued on our way. We stopped again at a field in which little was blooming. Thomas crouched down and pointed to a small purple bud pushing bravely through large dark green leaves.

"This is Cyreen".

The way my brother had talked about the flower, reverently and proudly, made me realize it had to be something precious. And I was right.

"Do you remember when they attacked our village back then? The giant wolves?"

I nodded tensely, how could I ever forget that?

"Do you remember how big they were?"

Another nod from me.

"Have you ever seen a transformed wolf that big?"

Memories hit me. Cyrian's transformation in the arena and the fight in the packhouse.

Sure, the wolves had been big, but nothing compared to the size of the attackers. A shake of the head from me answered Thomas's question.

"If a wolf brews the leaves of Zyreen in warm water to make a tea and drinks it, he will be larger in transformed form for a few hours. Of course, this also has a lot of negative consequences, severe pain to be precise, but for an attack highly effective."

Surprised by this explanation, I also got on my knees to look at the small, inconspicuous plant.

"Look, the others don't want me to confide in them just yet, but there's an interesting property in all plants that has an effect on wolves. There are two sides to every plant. You boil the leaves of a Zyreen and the Wolf drinks them, it grows, but if you squeeze the bright green sap from the stalks and give it to a wolf to drink, it shrinks.

This works for all the plants we grow here. The bark of the grom tree causes wolves to heal faster, but the leaves are like poison to them. "

Thomas's grin widens and suddenly doesn't seem so friendly anymore. " A small but fine trick of nature that helps you can also harm you. "

Thomas winked at me and then stood up again. Unable to even think, I followed him. Eventually we left the fields behind and came to some huts.

Thomas pointed to two: "Our camp" was all he meant, but entered one of the other dwellings.

Eight people worked diligently in the hut. This time Thomas didn't have to explain anything because even I could tell that this is where they processed the plants and bottled the finished products.

An elderly gentleman saw Thomas and me at the entrance and stopped what he was doing.

"Thomas, Alexandra. Nice to see you." he greeted us. His mouth curled into a sincere smile and his wrinkled face looked vaguely familiar.

"Gerd." my brother greeted back.

"Mr. Lock." I breathed when I realized who was standing there. Thomas old teacher and a friend of my father's.

Gerd Lock had been known throughout the village, a nice man who always had a few candies in his jacket pocket for us children. Suddenly I felt nauseous at the thought of it and would have liked to have rinsed my mouth out. Just the thought of accepting candy from a killer made my stomach feel sick.

"Nice to see you again. Unfortunately I haven't had the opportunity to greet you here lately, there's a lot of work to do." the older gentleman explained and then turned in the direction of my brother. "We need more people here, it just takes too long to make the Balrin."

My brother had promised to take care of it. We had a quick look at the work before we made our way back.

But the most important thing had been an aside from my brother that had burned itself into my brain. That one sentence caused me to tremble and get goosebumps. But not because I was afraid, no, it was nervousness, because now I had a plan and could only pray that it would work.

"Balrin" my brother said on the way home "is our most important plant. We give it to the wolves and they can't communicate with other wolves with it, it blocks their mind language. Well, at least the roots. You know, every plant has two sides ,..."

Again I just nodded, but in my mind I had completed the sentence.

"...and when the roots block their mind language, other parts of the plant can reactivate or even amplify them."

Ballin.

The name of the plant was burned into my memory. I caught myself mumbling the name of the plant over and over again.

Basically, my plan was pretty simple. I just had to prepare the plant properly and give it to a wolf. This could then inform Cyrian.

But the plan had quite a few snags. How am I supposed to get hold of Balrin? How did you have to prepare it? Which wolf should I give it to? And how am I supposed to get anywhere near the wolves?

The answers to the questions were easy to find. Kate.

She worked with the plants, she could certainly get some and also knew how to prepare them.

But could I trust her?

I didn't like that my plan depended so much on another person. I hardly knew Kate. The hope that she would help me was based solely on the fact that I had seen the pain in her eyes and knew that she was suffering from the situation with her mate. But would that be enough?

The risk was huge. She could tell Thomas, or worse, one of the other council members.

And even if she did, there was still the wolf I needed. Of course, Pike came to mind first. He was the only wolf I knew at least a little bit. On the other hand, he didn't like me and as far as I knew had been banished by Cyrian. Would he still contact him? Was that even possible after he wasn't part of Cyrian's pack anymore?

Once again I realized how little I knew about the wolves. Their laws, their abilities, their way of life. Everything was foreign to me.

The day passed slowly and most of the time I didn't even notice what was going on around me. Could I trust Kate and Pike?

This question kept buzzing through my head and I knew I would never be able to answer it.

The only other option would be to wait. Maybe I would be the leader. Then I would certainly have access to all areas. But then my plan would drag on. Even if the vote goes in my favor in about a week, I could hardly ask how to make Balrin right away without drawing attention to myself.

And then straight to the prison cells with it? No chance. The villagers would slit my throat before I even got to the cells.

Also, this plan assumed that I would be elected. What if not? Then I would have simply let my chance at life, and thus at a life with Cyrian, pass by.

My sigh theatrically shattered the silence in the house.

"Are you all right?" amber eyes study me thoughtfully.

"Yeah, everything's fine, thanks." I mumble after a few seconds.

I hadn't even noticed Kate, I was so deep in my thoughts. Kate nodded and smiled at me.

The smile still didn't reach her eyes. She seemed to be getting thinner and her pale skin made her look sickly.

"Are you all right?" I asked quietly after looking around and being sure that nobody was within earshot.

Kate froze. Her eyes darted around the room nervously, but like me, she realized that we were alone.

I continued to study Kate. It hadn't been a dangerous question and revealed nothing about the secret she had confided in me. Still, this little question upset her so much.

I could hardly imagine what was going on inside her. She must have grown up hating wolves. Now she lived in the community that utterly despised wolves.

She got married and started a family. But that mate tape had ruined everything. Had destroyed them. Wreaked havoc on their hearts and minds.

I realized that this woman had probably suffered more in her life than I had.

"hey" I tried to calm her down but didn't know what to say.

"I" I started, not knowing how to talk to others in such situations. Comforting hadn't been a requirement at training camp. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to scare you," I whispered simply.

To my surprise, she seemed to calm down. "It's okay, I'm fine, I'm just feeling a little weird today, you didn't scare me." Kate explained, but avoided eye contact.

We both knew she was lying.

"Are we alone?" I resumed the conversation.

"Yes, Thomas is in a meeting and the kids are still at school." Kate breathed a sigh of relief and the milky haze that had briefly flitted across her eyes disappeared again.

"I probably shouldn't overreact to a normal question." she added. "Sorry, maybe I'm a bit..." she seemed to search for the right word for a moment "...tense"

"Can I discuss something with you?" I asked, still whispering. Even though we were alone, I was too scared to discuss it out loud.

Surprised by my question, she nodded. I could tell from her face that she knew this wasn't the normal conversation we usually had.

Kate swallowed once, but then sat down across from me. I was sitting at a small table near the kitchen and now that we were sitting across from each other I could look her in the eye even better and above all speak more quietly.

"I have a plan and I need your help."