The Legender: Myths Awoken Read online

  Chapter 5

  Ferocity Unloosed

   

  No one knew where aeriatheas came from. Some said they were the children of the great aeriatheas that carried the lanterns of the sun and the moon and that they came down to the world as shooting stars when they were cubs. Some said they came from across the oceans, from islands near the edge of the world. No matter the belief in how aeriatheas came, each nation had their sacred place where young cubs would appear after the old aeriathea of their land had died. In Havamir, the receiving place was a glen ringed with tall trees in the middle of a wood. Monks had built a monastery nearby so they could wait for the arrival of new aeriatheas and then raise them until they were old enough to fly.

  When the aeriathea Taelafin died after a life of one-hundred-and-forty-three years, Maris, a little girl then, came to the monastery to stay for the summer. Given that she was very young, she had an unusually keen interest in Havamir’s traditions and wanted to be with the monks when the new aeriathea arrived. The monks told her that she could not wait at the tree ringed glen to watch for the cub’s arrival because the cubs had never come when anyone was watching. The monks’ story proved to be true, because every night that she stole away to the glen, she came back tired and disappointed. It was only on the night she was caught and sent back to bed that the cub came. The monks had found him at the glen in the morning and took him to the monastery where they tied him up in the courtyard. When Maris saw him for the first time, he was alone, tugging at the heavy rope. She named the cub Haloreth, which meant “pulls at the rope” in the old Elemari language. She then freed him from where he was tied, and he was loyal to her ever since.