Chapter 34: The Secret

Adeline and Fenris went inside the circle and they were both getting ready for a hand to hand combat session.

Nigel was still lost in his thoughts. He had so many unanswered questions. "The Devil said that I had the werewolf curse in my blood. But I have never seen or heard any of the other Prince and Princesses turning into a wolf. Does that mean I inherited the curse from my mother?"

Prince Nigel tried to remember if his mother acted in strange way or mentioned to him about feeling throbbing pain in her heart. He tried to remember if she ever disappeared when it was a full moon. But he could not recall his mother displaying any of those odd behaviors.

Then he tried to recall if any of his other half-siblings had displayed any peculiar behavior. Till he was 18 years old, he had attended the training classes, like all of his other half-siblings. He had been paired with most of them during the sword-fighting and combat lessons. But he did not remember anyone displaying extra strength like Adeline.

He had always thought that Adeline was the most gifted among the 24 children of the King. And yesterday, he got to know the real reason why she had always been as strong as she was. The Devil himself was looking out for her.

If none of the other Princes and Princesses were born with the werewolf curse then, he was quite sure that he inherited the curse from his mother. But he knew how his mother was always so calm and poised. And he recalled how he would be so easily angered after his curse manifested.

He wanted to ask his mother if she knew anything about the werewolf curse. But he could not deny that at the back of his head, a whole different possibility was constantly bothering him. "What if King Dragomir is not my real father?" This particular thought had stopped him from approaching his mother with his newly discovered problem.

Prince Nigel was brought back from his thoughts with a loud outcry.

"Arghhh!!!" Prince Fenris was lying down on his back, his hand clenching the cloth that was on his chest, and his veins on his forehead bulging because of pain.

"What happened?" Nigel ran towards Fenris and gave him a hand.

Princess Adeline was brushing her uniform with a smile on her face. "What else, I grabbed him and knocked him down on the ground."

Fenris was in a lot of pain and his eyes were filled with tears. "Oh, I feel like some of my bones of the ribcage are broken." Fenris coughed and then slowly sat on the ground. He started to breathe very slowly as if even breathing was hurting him.

Nigel however thought that Fenris was exaggerating and then slapped him on his shoulder, "Come on, and stop acting as if you are that badly hurt."

Fenris grunted in pain when Nigel hit him on his shoulder. And he spoke from between his grunting and heavy breathing, "Stop that, what are you trying to do by hitting me like that? Kill me?"

"What? You are hurt by that slight tap on your shoulder? Are you trying to humor me or are you that bad at acting?" Nigel was seriously confused by Fenris's words.

Fenris did not move for quite a while. And even Adeline was worried that she might have broken the bones of the guest. Though she did not like him that much, she did not want to hurt him either.

Prince Fenris closed his eyes and started to think everything that was happening. "I thought that they were good fighters when I watched them earlier. But what was that power… the power of the Princess?"

He pressed his temple with his fingers and tried to wrap his head around what he just went through. "It felt almost as if I was going against Wulfric. I did not even see the attack thrown by the Princess. And she even easily lifted me in the air before throwing me down."

Without even realizing, Fenris was hitting his head and thinking hard, "Okay, let me assume that Princess is abnormally strong somehow but what about Nigel? How was he able to keep up with all the attacks from the Princess? Unless…"

"… unless he is a werewolf…" Fenris shouted loud enough for both Nigel and Adeline to hear.

Adeline and Nigel were both shocked to hear Fenris mentioning about a werewolf. Both looked at each other with questioning eyes as if they were asking to each other "How did he know?"

Nigel immediately crouched down in front of Fenris and asked, "What do you know about werewolves?"

Fenris opened his eyes abruptly and asked in a monotone, "I said that out loud, didn't I?"

"Uh-huh" Nigel looked Fenris in the eyes and said in a bit eerie voice, "And now you are going to explain everything that you know about them."

Fenris opened his mouth to say something and then closed again. He glanced at Adeline and glanced back at Nigel. Then he leaned towards Nigel's ear and whispered, "First tell me one thing, why are you so interested to know about a werewolf?"

"Apparently I am one. So I would like to know whatever there is to know about them." Nigel said in his normal voice.

Fenris immediately covered Nigel's mouth and then whispered, "Shhh… keep your voice down." He pointed his brows at Adeline and reminded Nigel that they were not alone. Fenris was a bit reluctant to spill the secrets that he knew in front of Adeline. "Can we talk in private?" he whispered again to Nigel.

But Nigel said in a loud voice, "She knows that I am a werewolf. You can tell whatever you know to the both of us."

Fenris covered his mouth in horror as if Nigel had done a grave mistake. Then he whispered aggressively to Nigel, "How could you let others know about your transformation? Do you even know how tight-kept that secret is?"

A frown appeared on Nigel's face. "First thing, Adeline and I got to know about this werewolf thing that I turned into at the same time. And second thing, you knew about this werewolf curse all along? And what do you mean by a tight-kept secret? Whose secret are you talking about?"

Adeline was also interested to know about the secret that they were going to talk about so she had come closer to the boys and was now listening very actively. She was looking at Fenris with curiosity and whispered at Fenris, "Yeah, what do you mean by a secret?"

Fenris gave up trying to hide the 'secret' from Adeline and then started to tell the story. "I am talking about the secret of the Siccaldi clan. I don't know how or why, but what I know is that our Siccaldi clan was cursed to shape-shift into a wolf on every full moon."

Nigel let out a small sigh of relief when he heard that the curse that he inherited was actually from his mother's side.

Fenris kept on explaining the other things that he knew to his keen listeners, "With time, our clan started to accept it as a boon rather than a curse because those who inherited the so called curse were far stronger than a normal human being. Yes, they have to go through the painful process of breaking all their bone in their body and turning into a wolf. But their strength, hearing, eyesight and sense of smell were far superior."

"And thus, only those who had inherited the werewolf gene would have the right to the throne. Because it is believed that they will be able to protect the Kingdom better than a normal human could."

Fenris tried to smile after he had said that but Nigel noticed that he was unhappy, which would only mean one thing, "So, you are not a werewolf but Wulfric is? Is that why he was declared the Crown Prince even when you are the elder son?"

Fenris puckered his lips and nodded. "Normally the werewolf curse will start to manifest before we are 16 years old. They waited for me till I was 17 but then I guess they gave up on me. I never turned, while Wulfric had already shape-shifted when he was only 14. And finally Wulfric was chosen as the Crown Prince."

"That means your father is also a werewolf?" Adeline asked in an excited voice. She was finding it all quite amusing. She was a bit relieved when she found out that she was not the only peculiar human being around. There were others as well.

Prince Fenris smiled and said, "Yes, my father is also a werewolf. There are only a handful of werewolves in our clan. Not everyone inherits the curse."

Prince Nigel asked a bit reluctantly, "That means my mother is not a werewolf, is she?"

"What? No… she is too… nice. You can always tell who is a werewolf in the clan by carefully studying the temper and over-confidence they display." Fenris gave Nigel the insider-information, a trick which he uses before deciding whether or not to get into a fight with a certain person. He would definitely not want to go against a werewolf.

And now Fenris had a question of his own to Nigel, "Oh! By the way, when did you shape-shift for the first time? And why did you keep that a secret till now? I thought we were closer than that brother."

"I told you as soon as I found out Fenris. I just turned yesterday." Nigel said a bit awkwardly because even though he had shape-shifted he had no memory of it.

"You turned yesterday? What the…? And I'm just 19. That means even I still have a chance? Did those old wolves just crush my confidence because they were too impatient to wait?" Fenris had sprung up from the ground and was shouting and pacing back and forth while holding his head with his hands.

"It means so much to him huh? And here I was thinking that I was cursed." Nigel uttered under his breath.

Suddenly, Fenris turned around on his heels and then shot a question at Adeline, "How come you are as strong as a werewolf Adeline?"

And in her nervousness Adeline blabbered, "Umm… I-I eat f-f-four Deviled eggs d-daily."