Chapter 30 - Memories from the past

***Ambrogios pov***

For years, I was weak, hardly awake for long periods of time. My veins burning and every breath like needles in my lungs. Asleep I was haunted by dreams of the past..my childhood in the village, the death of my parents when I was still very young and how my life changed when the heavens interfered in my destiny and what I had to do to form a new one. The dreams were often twisted and I was always alone.

My children kept their distance, knowing my fury if they interrupted me in my agony, only bringing me blood to speed my healing. My children.. Every generation weaker and more pathetic than the other. Only one of my firstborn was still alive, but he had little time left. I walked down the long hall to his room. The smell of decay became clearer the closer I got. I've seen so many of them die. Either in battles with the wolves, by hunters hands or in beds to old to keep going. It never gets easy..I opened the door and stepped in.
He is in his bed, eyes closed. His chest slowly rising and sinking.
“Father..” his voice a dry whisper.
“Hush my child, save your strength, you’ll need it in the war to come,” I say as I grab a chair and sit beside him, taking his dry stiff hand in mine.
“Ah..the war! We fought our share of wars together, haven’t we? he chuckled before the coughing took over.
“Indeed, we have, and what glorious times it was,” I say and stroke the crispy skin.
His breathing is wheezing and his eyes watery when he opens them to look at me.
“I..wouldnt change a thing…you…saved me…I was almost dead..when you found..me..you gave me..a good…life” he closes his eyes again and I see a small smile tugging in the corner of his chapped lips.

Sure, I was the evil one. The one in the night craving the blood of my enemies, leaving death and destruction behind me. But I still got love for my children. My firstborn, the first generation I turned, so strong, loyal and beautiful, Ducan more than anyone. For the first years, revenge was in my heart. I wanted to rid the proof of Mateus and Mateivias bond, I wanted to create an army and turn them against my Father. And I did. My army of firstborns. When I returned to the village I once came from it was burned to the grown, but it didn't take me long to track them down. They lived in a cave, protecting them from hard weather and predators. But not from me.
It was raining hard that night, I watched them dancing and praise the Heaven as they swirled around outside the opening. My children wanted to attack, but I held them off. Trying to find anything resemblance to feelings for my old people. But there was none. My heart was cold and hard, my own actions a few years back saw to that.
As they went in for the night and the silence fell, we moved. We were fast, and the darkness of the night made us invisible. When the people in the cave realized they were under attack, it was too late. I didn’t turn any of them, I wanted an end to that part of my life right here, right now.
I felt her as she tried to hide from me. Her scent of red roses like a beacon in the darkness. She was on her knees whispering, probably praying to the heavens for help.
Even thou I couldn’t see her, she was very visible. I felt the warmth from her body, I heard the familiar sound of her breathing. Turning her crossed my mind but as I sunk my teeth in her flesh and her sweet blood flowed down my throat, I couldnt stop. I drank her dry. Ending the last memory of Mateivia and Mateus and their betrayal.
At least that’s what I thought. I forgot about the spawn, Aayla.

Aayla..I don't feel hate thinking about her. She was a worthy opponent.

When I realized I had forgotten her at the cave, I was furious at first. My children assured me there was no one left alive so I let it slip, thought someone else killed her.
When I finally learned about her, it was too late. Like her father, she was a wolf, but not one created by the heaven..no she was born out of true love and sacrifice, half human, half beast, making her the strongest wolf ever to walk this earth. Like me, she could create her own children. Made me wonder what she had to pay. Was her price as costly as mine?

The first time we met on the battlefield is the one that is hard wired in my memory. As Aayla was scrubbed from my sight, I could not see her, but I could sense her. I knew where she was. As I look in her direction, I see someone else. Silver hair, grey eyes, and lips that could make you forget all that is wrong in the world..Zandra.
The sight of her made my dead heart jump and forged a crack into the surrounding stone. I grabbed my chest, it wasn’t pain, it was warmth. It froze me to the spot as I see her raising a bow while locking her eyes with mine. I didn’t even move as she released the arrow. I knew it wouldn’t harm me. Sting a little yes, but nothing worse, and I owed her that after what I did to her. As the arrow left the string, the end of her mouth turned up to a devilish smile. And when the arrowhead penetrated my skin and flesh, right below my heart, I felt her relief. I knew she had linked herself with me, I felt it right away. I didn't know why until now. She wanted to help my enemies for the wrongs I did to her. My beautiful witch, hell bent on revenge.
I fell to the ground in confusion. Heat was pulsing through my veins and I screamed in agony. I couldnt move and I saw the first shower of falling arrows, hitting my children around me. I looked at Zandra, she is dipping her arrow into a bowl before tightening it on the string and aims at me for a second time.
I felt hands under my arms when someone is dragging me away, Zandras arrow missed me with barely an inch.
It took months for me to recover. Other weren’t so lucky. The ones hit by the poised arrows died on the spot. We killed many wolves that night, but we suffered a significant loss. What was the powerful poison that could hurt me and kill my children in the matter of minutes? A dark witch at my disposal ran my blood several times with different herbs, trying to find the the substance, lethal to our kind. But she came up short. Every time her answer was the same, she only found blood.
One day when I was shaking and bathing in my sweat, my father’s words rang in my head.
***The child’s blood, her life essence, will be your weakness.***
Smart girls…

Years later, our last meeting, before she sent me into two hundred years of suffering, she surprised me, she snuck up behind me and I smelled her a second before I felt her weight on my back and her cut wrist against my lips . She pressed hard and my jaws gave way and soon I could feel her blood running down my throat. At first, the taste reminded me of Mateivia but soon my legs buckled and the fire spread through my body. Aayla didn’t let go, she was strong, I knew that, she let most of her blood fill me as she whispered. “While you suffer in agony, I will rest and grow stronger. When you show up again, I’ll be there and send you back.” She managed to get away just before my children found me. Many years later I learned that Aayla died that day, after giving me her blood but the wolf in her lived on.. Luna..the daughter of the wolf who in a way shaped my destiny. And soon we will meet again..like so many times before.

I sigh and stand up
I look down at my son. Duncan. He was back in his sleep and dreams of the past.
His skin was pale, almost transparent, telling me his body had refused blood for quite a while. I've seen it before, to many times to count. I bend down and give him a light kiss on his cold forehead.
“Rest my son, you have earned it..one day we will reunite on the battlefields on the other side and it will again be glorious”