Chapter 138: The Blood that Devours Corruption

Another council meeting.

The elders had called for a council meeting twice just yesterday, and the discussion has always remained the same.

What is the Rot-blood’s whereabouts since she was found beaten at the marketplace?!

Is she somewhere in the pack?

Was she dead?

Has she awakened again?!

They weren’t even trying to solve the major problem on ground, which was the rogues. According to more scouts, they were gaining even more ground around the forest.

Malachi has another bad injury on his shoulder from last night when he had left the castle to get rid of them as much as he could. And he had observed something strange.

It’s almost as if they were getting stronger, faster...and probably more intelligent. It was incorrigible because everyone knows rogues are simply mindless and would attack any wolf on first sight, and they are pure predators... but last night had proved something different.

Those wolves had attacked him in a coordinated manner, catching him off guard and almost tearing his right arm clean off.

"My Alpha," Elder Ravaryn was asking, "Are you quite sure...you have no idea where she could be hiding if she’s alive?"

Malachi’s attention was pulled back to the small crowd of eight sitting in front of him, "No!"

That was true.

He had no idea where she could be right now because when he had returned last night and went to check up on her at the healing wing, he’d found her room empty.

And Moira was in tears.

She and the healer had escaped again, to only God knows where this time. He had a feeling she left because of their last night, and he wanted to feel relieved that she was gone again.

Instead, his hands wouldn’t stop shaking uncontrollably and his heart would not stop attempting to tear itself apart.

Just then, they all heard footsteps rushing toward the Hall of Ashes, and everyone straightened.

No one in their right mind would ever barge into the room like that, but the hastened footsteps suggested that it was a big emergency.

Malachi immediately recognised the footsteps approaching the door, and for the first time since he walked into the Hall of Ashes, his expression changed as his eyes widened slightly.

He knew who it was.

The footsteps stopped right outside the door, and Malachi didn’t waste another second standing here listening to people he wanted nothing more to do with than to rip off their tongues and hang them by the marketplace.

"This meeting is adjourned!!" He announced unshakably, giving no space for anyone to say anything else.

"But my Alpha, we haven’t—"

Malachi stopped for only one second, and his eyes snapped dangerously toward the old man and his rather annoying staff, staring at him with big, red eyes and an aura that made the walls start to shake.

Ravaryn might be audacious, but he always knew when to step back.

Slowly, he lowered his head and submitted.

With that, Malachi turned back and walked out the door.

"Alpha,"

Malachi’s shoulders relaxed a little as he looked down to see the person standing outside, "Rowan, you’re back,"

"Yes, Alpha," Rowan replied, holding a small box. He looked up at Malachi, and his unblinking stare said more than words ever could.

"Follow me," Malachi ordered.

They walked around the castle till they arrived at the war room. The war room was a cold, heavily guarded chamber buried deep within the castle, its stone walls lined with ancient maps, dusty records, and weapons.

A massive wooden table dominated the centre, covered in territorial maps and scattered documents, while dim firelight cast long shadows across the room.

The moment Malachi walked in, he instructed all the guards to leave the vicinity and make sure that no one, absolutely no one, came in here without him giving them priority permission to come here.

All the guards quickly left, leaving the room to Malachi and Rowan.

"Tell me, what did you find?!"

Rowan placed the box on the table, and then he looked up at Malachi again, "I need you to hear everything before you decide what to do with it."

Something about the Beta’s tone made Malachi’s jaw tighten, "Open it."

Rowan lifted the lid, and inside of it were scrolls.

Old ones.

Some were so yellowed and brittle that Malachi wondered how they had survived being handled at all. Beneath them were several thin books bound in cracked leather, loose pieces of parchment, and what appeared to be fragments of stone tablets covered in writing.

"What the hell is this?"

"The reason I was gone so long." Rowan replied before he carefully removed the first scroll and unrolled it across the table.

Malachi stepped closer, and took a close look. The writing was ancient, and some of the symbols were so unfamiliar that even he couldn’t recognise the language.

"I told you to find out what truly happens when a Rot-blood awakens."

"I did." Rowan placed another document beside the first, "And, Alpha..." His finger tapped against a particular passage. "I think we’ve misunderstood Rot-bloods for centuries."

"Explain." Malachi’s eyes lifted.

"There’s never been an awakened Rot-blood in recorded history."

"Okay, then what the hell are these?" Malachi’s brows furrowed.

"Accounts of what happened before the awakening." Rowan turned another page, and Malachi’s gaze moved across the faded words, "Rot-bloods were always documented as strange wolves. They are able to touch Moonfire without getting burnt, and they were unusually resistant to many poisons. Some developed abilities that ordinary wolves didn’t possess, like the ability to notice things even Alphas can’t at first glance,"

Malachi’s brows only furrowed even more.

Rowan pulled out another parchment and continued, "Every single account ends the same way."

Malachi waited.

"The Rot-blood died before awakening. Most were killed by their own Packs."

Malachi stopped breathing for half a second.

Rowan continued before he could speak, "They were considered cursed. Dangerous. Some were executed as soon as their abilities started becoming obvious. Others were imprisoned. Some were beaten, starved, or forced into situations that eventually killed them."

Malachi’s eyes slowly lifted. Something even colder had entered them.

"And nobody ever survived long enough to awaken?"

"Apparently not."

"Apparently?"

Rowan’s hand moved toward another parchment again, "Because there was one exception."

Malachi stared at him.

Rowan slowly pushed the parchment across the table to him again, "One account from almost three hundred years ago. It describes a Rot-blood who survived long enough to reach the threshold."

Malachi’s gaze dropped to the page. The words were faded, but one sentence had been translated beneath them.

When the blood finally awakens, the Rot-blood shall cease to be a vessel of corruption and become its devourer.

"What does that mean?"

"I didn’t know at first." Rowan reached into the box again, "Then I found this."

He pulled out a much older piece of parchment, and the edges of it were burned, "An awakened Rot-blood can absorb substances that are inherently poisonous to wolfkind."

"Absorb?"

"More like they can...consume it." Rowan corrected.

The word seemed to hang between them, and then Malachi glanced toward the Moonfire diagram sketched on the parchment, "Moonfire?"

"Especially Moonfire."

Something shifted in Malachi’s expression. Everyone knows Rot-bloods can touch Moonfire, but absorbing Moonfire was a whole other level!

"The records describe the awakening as something that doesn’t happen because of age or training. It requires... extreme emotional conditions." Rowan continued his explanation.

"How extreme?"

"Death. Extreme loss. Betrayal. Grief. Rage. Fear. The body reaches a point where ordinary survival is no longer enough."

Malachi felt his stomach churn badly as his mind went back to when Della first awakened due to extreme fear, and probably... betrayal.

"Then the wolf awakens." Malachi finished with a nod of understanding.

"And that’s where it becomes dangerous." Rowan added.

"Dangerous to whom?"

Rowan looked down at the ancient writings, and then he turned another page, "That’s the strange part, Alpha. It says an awakened Rot-blood isn’t a threat to wolves." Malachi waited breathlessly, while Rowan’s finger traced the faded line, "They’re described as a counterforce to corruption."

"Meaning?"

"Meaning whatever destroys wolves..." Rowan looked him directly in the eyes. "A fully awakened Rot-blood may be capable of destroying it first."

The room became deathly silent, and then Malachi looked down at the Moonfire diagram again.

Then his mind went somewhere else.

To when she has been touching her and Gideon at the same time, and she was able to somehow start transferring Gideon back into his body, while filtering out the Moonfire that was merged to him all the way to the atomic level.

They had mistaken the mate bond being the trigger, but it had never been. It had simply reacted to the moment, as it always did.

Della herself...had been the main core.

"There’s more," Rowan said quietly, and Malachi’s attention was back to him again.

Rowan looked rather tense at whatever he was about to say, or do, or show Malachi, "What is it?!"

"Since the records never mentioned that...Rot-bloods carry actual rot, or are naturally evil wolves...I started to consider if...maybe Della didn’t actually do all those things that everyone thought she did,"

Malachi felt his blood run cold. He opened his mouth to say something, but he couldn’t even bring his lips to part.

"So, I started to dig a little into the Moonfire incident that happened on the day of the wedding...and I found a lot of things, Alpha,"