Aurox

Aurox paced in agitation, covering the small, hollowed-out space beneath the shattered oak in three strides. Then he turned, and took three short strides back. Back and forth, back and forth, he went. Thinking ... thinking ... thinking ... and wishing desperately that he had a plan.

His head pained him. He had not broken his skull when he'd fallen into the pit, but the lump on his head had bled and swollen. He hungered. He thirsted. He found it difficult to rest within the earth, though his body was exhausted and he needed to sleep so that he might heal.

Why had he believed it a good idea to return to this school-to hide on the very grounds where the professor he had killed, as well as the boy he had attempted to kill-lived?

Aurox put his head in his hands. Not me! He wanted to shout the words. I did not kill Dragon Lankford. I did not attack Rephaim. I chose differently! But his choice hadn't mattered. He had transformed into a beast. That beast had left death and destruction in his wake.

It had been foolish of him to come here. Foolish to believe he could find himself here or do any good. Good? If anyone knew he was hiding at the school he would be attacked, imprisoned, possibly killed. Even though he was not here to do harm, it would not matter. He would absorb the rage of those who discovered him, and the beast would emerge. He would not be able to control it. The Sons of Erebus Warriors would surround him and end his miserable existence.

I controlled it once before. I did not attack Zoey. But would he even get an opportunity to try to explain that he meant no harm? Even have an instant to test his self-control and to prove he was more than the beast within him? Aurox resumed his pacing. No, his intent would not matter to anyone at the House of Night. All they would see would be the beast.

Even Zoey? Would even Zoey be against him?

"Zoey shielded you from the Warriors. It was because of her protection that you were able to flee." Grandma Redbird's voice soothed his turbulent thoughts. Zoey had shielded him. She'd believed that he could control the beast enough not to harm her. Her grandmother had offered him sanctuary. Zoey could not want him dead.

The others would, though.

Aurox didn't blame them. He deserved death. Regardless of the fact that he had, recently, begun to feel, to long for a different life, a different choice, it did not change the past. He had committed violent, vile acts. He had done anything Priestess had commanded.

Neferet ...

Even silent, an unspoken word in his mind, the name sent a shudder through his agitated body.

The beast within him wanted to go to Priestess. The beast within him needed to serve her.

"I am more than a beast." The earth around him absorbed the words, muffling Aurox's humanity. In despair, he grabbed a twisted root and began to pull himself up and out of the dirt pit.

"That needs to be fixed."

The words drifted down to Aurox. His body froze. He recognized the voice-Rephaim. Grandma had told him the truth. The boy lived.

Aurox's invisible load lifted slightly.

That was one death that did not need to be on his conscience.

Aurox crouched, silently straining to hear to whom Rephaim spoke. He didn't feel anger or violence. Surely if Rephaim had any idea whatsoever that Aurox was hidden so close, the boy would be filled with feelings of vengeance, would he not?

Time seemed to pass slowly. The wind increased. Aurox could hear it whipping through the dry leaves of the broken tree above him. He caught words that floated with the cool air: work ... tree ... Red One healed ... All in Rephaim's voice, absent of malice, as if he just mused aloud. And then the breeze brought him the boy's prayer: "Goddess, I know you have forgiven me for my past, and for that I will always be grateful. But, could you, perhaps, teach me how to truly forgive myself?" Aurox hardly breathed.

Rephaim was asking for his goddess's help to forgive himself? Why?

Aurox rubbed his throbbing head and thought hard. Priestess had rarely spoken to him, except to command him to execute an act of violence. But she had spoken around him, as if Aurox had not had the ability to hear her or to formulate thoughts of his own. What did he know about Rephaim? He was the immortal Kalona's son. He was cursed to be a boy by night, a raven by day.

Cursed?

He had just heard Rephaim praying, and in that prayer he had acknowledged Nyx's forgiveness. Surely a goddess would not curse and forgive with the same breath.

Then with a little start of surprise, Aurox remembered the raven that had mocked him and made such a noise that it had caused Aurox to fall into this pit.

Could that have been Rephaim? Aurox's body tensed as he readied himself for the seemingly inevitable confrontation to come.