Tears of a Snake

Bronislava “Slava” Ignatova

The air inside the grand council chamber smelled of warm beeswax, old parchment, and suffocating betrayal.

I was kneeling on the cold flagstones at the foot of the high council table, my shoulders pinned by two Alpha guards whose grip would leave bruises shaped like fingers by morning if I lived to see one. The stone beneath my bare, scraped knees sent a sharp ache straight up my spine, but I barely registered it. My chest had gone hollow, a raw, gaping absence where my bond with Kirill used to live, and somewhere underneath the pain my mind kept flatly insisting: “this isn’t real, this isn’t real, this isn’t real”.

A single sheet of thick parchment lay at the center of the dark oak table. At the top, in bold black ink, were the words that sealed my fate: DECREE OF IMPERIAL BANISHMENT

To my right, Kirill stood in silence, arms crossed. He wasn’t looking at me. His hazel eyes were fixed on the frosty windowpane, cold and unreadable. Beside him, Eva leaned against his side, pale fingers resting over his sleeve right over the silver, rune carved band that pulsed with a faint, sickening violet glow. Every time I looked at it, my wolf snarled against her cage, desperate to tear that thing off Eva’s wrist with her teeth.

“The council has deliberated,” Lord Volkova announced, his voice echoing off the stone arches. He dipped a brass pen into dark ink and set it beside the scroll. “The lineage of the North Ridge Pack must remain pure, strong, and unburdened by those who foster dangerous delusions. Alpha Kirill has spoken. The Omega, Bronislava Ignatova, is stripped of her rank, her protection, and her name.”

He signed his own name with an aggressive flourish and pushed the scroll down the table.

“And now,” he said, his voice softening into something grotesque and performative, “we require the seal of the Pack Priestess. The spiritual guardian who raised this girl.”

My head snapped around.

Sitting in the shadow of the altar was Matrena.

She looked small, frail, ancient beneath her woolen shawls. Her silver gray hair was tucked beneath her black scarf, her milky, blind eyes staring helplessly toward the center of the room. Her weathered hands trembled where they rested on her carved wooden staff.

“Matrena…” My voice broke, thin from tears. I strained against the guards’ grip, reaching a hand toward her. “Matrena, please. You know me. You raised me. You know I’m not crazy. You know I didn’t make this up.”

A shuddering gasp escaped her. She pulled a handkerchief from her sleeve and dabbed at her blind eyes as if wiping away tears.

“Oh, my sweet child.” Her voice cracked with such fragile sorrow that several elder matrons in the gallery reached for their own handkerchiefs. “My poor, sweet Slava. How my heart bleeds for you today.”

She leaned forward, fingers trembling as she felt for the edge of the table.

“I tried so hard,” Matrena wept. “When your parents passed from that terrible fever, I promised the heavens I would raise you with modesty and grace. I prayed the Moon Goddess would grant you a gentle life. But I failed. I watched a dark obsession grow in your heart, child. I watched you stare at our Alpha with such unhealthy, dangerous desire.”

A cold shock washed over me, freezing the air in my lungs.

“What?” I whispered, my whole body going numb in a way the blizzard hadn’t managed. “Matrena! what are you saying?”

“I begged you in secret to let this fantasy go,” she continued, a frail hand pressed to her heart, leaning on Lord Volkova’s arm for support. “I wept for you in the chapel, praying you wouldn’t humiliate yourself on your eighteenth birthday. But your pride was too great, Slava. You forced our Alpha’s hand. You brought this shame upon yourself.”

“You’re lying!” The scream tore out of me before I could stop it. The guard on my left slammed his forearm across my back, forcing my face toward the stone. “You’re lying! Matrena, look at me! Tell them about the charm! Tell them what you did!”

“Silence the girl!” Lord Volkova barked.

“No. Let her speak.” Kirill’s voice was low, flat, chillingly empty. He finally turned his head, looking down at me as I struggled beneath the guard’s weight. “Let her show the council the madness taking root in her mind.”

I lifted my chin, gasping, tears burning against my cold skin as I stared at the old woman weeping so pitifully into her handkerchief.

“She helped her!” I choked out. “Matrena, you know what Eva is wearing on her wrist! I saw the black magic! I saw the smoke rising off your fingers!”

Matrena gasped, shrinking back in her chair as if I’d struck her. “Black magic?” she whimpered, covering her face with trembling hands. “Goddess forgive her, she accuses her own foster mother of witchcraft. Her mind is completely broken.”

“Sign the decree, Priestess,” Lord Volkova said gently, pressing the pen into her withered fingers. “End this tragedy.”

Matrena sighed, long and tragic. She guided her own hand across the paper, feeling for the line at the bottom of the scroll.

For one heartbeat, just one, while everyone else was watching the pen, she lowered the handkerchief.

She turned her head toward me.

Her blind, milky eyes didn’t look blind at all. They locked onto mine with razor sharp precision. The trembling, helpless weakness in her face vanished, replaced by a cold, wicked smirk that sent a wave of pure terror down my spine.

Beneath the table, hidden from the council’s view, her fingernails dug into the wood. A thin curl of dark, acrid smoke rose from her sleeve, creeping toward the ink on the page.

She wasn’t crying for me. She was gloating. She had planned this from the very beginning.

Matrena pressed her family ring into the hot red wax, sealing my banishment for good.

“It is done,” Lord Volkova announced.

The guards hauled me to my feet, dragging me toward the iron doors. I didn’t scream this time. I couldn’t. The horror of it had paralyzed my tongue. The woman who had tucked me into bed, who had fed me soup when I was sick, the only family I had ever known, she was the architect of my destruction.

They shoved me through the side doors, past the fortress gates, and threw me headfirst into the blinding white fury of the Siberian blizzard.

I hit the snow, sliding down the icy embankment until the lights of the North Ridge Pack faded into the dark behind me. The sub zero wind slashed across my bare arms like knives, freezing the tear tracks on my face before they could even fall.

I was alone. No food. No coat. No pack.

I stumbled into the black, suffocating expanse of the Blood Forest, my bare feet sinking into the drifts. The freezing air tore at my lungs with every breath. My body was giving up on me. I could feel my heart rate slowing, sliding into the fatal, dragging rhythm of hypothermia.

I fell to my knees, vision blurring, dark spots swimming across the white sky.

So this is where it ends, I thought, letting my forehead rest against the frozen ground. Dying in the ice while they drink champagne.

Then, a low crunch through the trees.

Not the wind. Boots. Something heavy, crushing frozen pine needles underfoot.

Through the haze of my failing vision, the snowstorm seemed to part. A towering, shadowy figure stepped out of the blizzard, wrapped in a dark fur cloak that billowed like the wings of something not entirely human.

I tried to lift my head. My body wouldn’t obey.

As the world began to fold in on itself, the stranger knelt beside me. A large hand, gloved in thick leather, slid beneath my freezing neck and tilted my face toward his.

I forced my eyes open, just a fraction.

Burning down at me out of the dark, cutting straight through the sub zero night, were a pair of blazing golden eyes.