“Skelly! We're going to be late!” A voice called from downstairs. Skelwulf stood before a full length mirror in their bathroom, adjusting his cuff links and patting his long surcoat flat with his thick grey-skinned hands. The colorful overcoat extended down to two points that to his annoyance ruffled with the slightest breeze.
“Be right there, my sweet!” He called.
He'd slept in, the night before filled with celebratory drinks and dancing. He'd just advanced to Apprentice rank, after all.
Freya stood at the bottom of the stairwell. She was mostly wolf chimeran like him, but her legs starting at the knee were the scaly legs of an ostrich, the wicked claws capping each toe painted a sultry dark red. Her dress was similar in color, cut in places that made Skelwulf want to rip it off her.
He whistled as he descended the stairs. “Damn, baby! You look good enough to eat!”
“Not so bad yourself,” she pulled him into a deep kiss.
“We need to go,” Skelwulf said, his voice low with desire, “or we'll miss it entirely.”
She reluctantly pulled away, overly swaying her hips as she led the way out the door. With a shudder of desire, Skelwulf followed after.
The Storm Chaser induction ceremony was set to take place in the Lightning Arena, a wide amphitheater in the lower part of Tempeste. Even the wealthy people from the upper sections of Tempeste were filing into the theater.
The music swelled as Skelwulf accompanied Freya to her seat. She kissed him, more politely in front of the growing crowd, and sat. “I'll be fine here, my love! Go get ready.”
Skelwulf maneuvered through the crowd toward the entry to backstage. Several others shifted in excitement or fear.
He ignored them. He was about to become a Storm Chaser! And their lives would become so much better for it. Maybe in a few months they could even move to a higher level place in Tempeste. He felt the box in his pocket, cracking it to make sure the gem encrusted crown was still there. She was going to love it.
The ground shook, and Skelwulf's world became blinding light and immeasurable pain. His vision cleared slowly, and he found himself pinned under shredded structural metal debris. Gashes across his body screamed as he reached to push himself free.
Only his right arm responded. Looking to his left, he took a sharp breath as he spotted his left arm several feet away.
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Didn't matter now. Had to get to Freya. Surely whatever happened was focused on the new recruits, right?
His panic rising into blind rage, Skelwulf pushed the debris enough to free himself. He picked up his arm and ran. The smell of blood and death was thick in the air. The others backstage were either dead or too buried for his help to mean anything.
Kicking the door open, he surveyed the area. The Lightning Arena was a shambles. Numerous fires burned, people screamed in pain and grief, and the stands had been gouged like heavy fingers through sand.
The area for graduate attendees was worse. The once lightning blue seats were crimson spattered. Freya's seat was empty.
Skelwulf's stomach dropped and he surged ahead, throwing people out of his way.
Freya lay crumpled next to several chimeran children. It was obvious she'd tried to protect them. Shards of metal and stone jutted from her back.
A howl rose above the din, drowning out the noise.
Skelwulf fell to his knees before his beloved, turning her over to make sure. The loss of blood finally caught up to him, and he collapsed in her arms.
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Some time later, Skelwulf awoke inside a vat of a translucent red fluid. His body jolted as he struggled to give it commands. A haze hung heavy on his thoughts. A young human man in a white lab coat hastily approached. His voice was dull and muted through the glass.
“You're already awake?” He typed something into his slate. The haze thickened as something dragged him back to unconsciousness.
The next time he opened his eyes he was in the softest bed he'd ever laid in. The room was opulent, with storm ore evident in the room's trim, bed frame, and even the doorknob. He wore a long, loose fitting black shirt and pants.
Sitting up entirely too fast, pain washed over him, but he growled it away. Skelwulf rushed through the door, looking for anything or anyone that could point him to Freya. They'd saved him, after all. Surely they did the same for her. Surprise again struck him when he noticed that his once removed left arm was now a sharp and strong crustacean claw.
He caught someone's scent and followed. The doctor, or whatever the man he'd seen before was, was sitting at a large table in what Skelwulf assumed was someone's dining hall, big enough to fit their entire apartment.
In a flash the doctor's feet were kicking in the air as he was hoisted from his chair. Skelwulf spoke through gritted teeth, “Where is my Freya?”
“That's enough,” an older man's voice said from behind him. “Put him down.”
Baring his teeth as he turned, Skelwulf began the move to throw the man at the other. Pain unlike anything he'd felt before rushed through his veins, like his blood was on fire. He howled and dropped the doctor, falling to the floor.
“Where… Freya…” he managed to growl out.
The old man in exquisite robes sat at the table. “My name is Zolis Fezim. Come and sit.”
Skelwulf moved as if to not obey, and the pain trickled in. Begrudgingly, he sat. “What did you do to me?”
“I saved your life,” the old man's hurt expression was clearly fake. “You owe me, and I intend to recoup my losses in work. You have been marked with a Geas Rune. You listen to me now.”
“Where's Freya?”
“Who?”
That one syllable rocked Skelwulf back in his chair, and he couldn’t focus on the rest of the man’s words other than his name.
Zolis Fezim.