Chapter 11: The Eve of Betrayal

Chapter 11: The Eve of Betrayal

Noviembre, 1492 C.E.

The golden autumn of Andalusia had given way to a stark, encroaching winter. The chill in the air was a pale reflection of the ice that had taken root within the walls of the de Valois estate. The pretense of their lavish, noble life had been stripped away, revealing the raw, ugly machinery of obsession beneath. Katerina Petrova was no longer a guest, a ward, or an object of courtly affection. She was a prisoner.

Klaus's courtship had ended the moment he was certain of her doppelgänger nature. His charm had curdled into a cold, menacing possessiveness. She was now the key, the living ingredient for the ritual that consumed his every waking thought. The villa, once a place of opulent parties and artistic patronage, now hummed with a dark, magical energy. Klaus, with the aid of a captive local witch, had begun to gather the components for the sacrifice, his impatience a palpable, dangerous force that infected every stone of the house.

The family fractured under the strain. Elijah was a ghost, haunting the halls of the villa, his heart torn between his sworn loyalty to Klaus and his genuine love for the woman his brother intended to slaughter on a stone altar. He would plead with Klaus in reasoned, desperate tones, speaking of honor and mercy, only to be met with furious, contemptuous dismissal. Each rejection drove the wedge between the two brothers deeper, the chasm between the noble diplomat and the paranoid tyrant growing wider with every passing day.

Lykaon and Rebekah watched this slow-motion tragedy unfold from the quiet center of their storm. They were observers, their roles defined. Rebekah, fortified by the memory of her stolen month of humanity, was disgusted by Klaus's cruelty but knew from centuries of experience that his obsessions were like hurricanes—one did not stand in their path. Lykaon, the ancient scholar, saw the inevitable, historical necessity of the event. Katerina's survival and transformation were fixed points in time, essential for the future he was here to witness.

Rebekah came to him one night in the library, her face tight with a familiar frustration. The sounds of Klaus shouting at the captive witch echoed faintly from the dungeons below.

"I cannot bear it," she confessed, pacing before the cold fireplace. "He is a monster. He keeps her locked away, treats her like livestock destined for the abattoir. And Elijah simply stands by, wringing his hands, drowning in his own conflicted honor."

"And what would you have them do, my love?" Lykaon asked, his voice calm. He did not look up from the ancient star chart he was examining.

"I don't know!" she exclaimed, stopping to face him. "Something! Anything other than this monstrous cruelty. Can you not speak to him? Your words carry weight with him."

"I can," Lykaon said, finally raising his eyes to meet hers. "And he would listen, and then he would do precisely as he intends. Niklaus's hybrid curse is the defining wound of his existence. He believes this ritual is the only path to healing it. To stand in his way now would be like trying to reason with an avalanche. This is his story to live, Rebekah. Not ours."

"So we do nothing? We simply watch him murder the girl?"

"We endure," he corrected softly. "We endure the fallout, as we always have. Our role is to survive his storms, not to redirect them."

His words were cold comfort, but she knew they were the truth. Her frustration, however, remained, a simmering coal of resentment against the brother who had taken so much from her.

Lykaon, with his unique perception of souls, could see the terror radiating from Katerina like heat from a furnace. But beneath the terror, he saw something else: a core of pure, adamantine survivalism. She was not a passive victim awaiting her fate. She was a strategist, analyzing every weakness in her prison. He would watch her, through means beyond mortal sight, as she noted the changing of the guards, the moments of distraction when her brothers argued, the subtle patterns of the household. She was planning. He felt a clinical admiration for her resilience.

His admiration did not go unnoticed. Katerina, desperate, saw in Lord Lykos the one person in the household who operated on a different plane. He was not swayed by her beauty like Elijah, nor consumed by a need to use her like Klaus. He was something else, something older and more powerful. He was her last, most improbable hope.

She cornered him one afternoon in a long, sun-dappled colonnade, away from the prying eyes of Klaus's compelled servants. She approached him with a feigned meekness, her hands clasped before her, her eyes wide with a practiced plea.

"My lord Lykos," she began, her voice trembling slightly. "Forgive my impertinence. I know my place in this house is precarious."

"You have no place in this house, Katerina," Lykaon replied, his voice devoid of either pity or cruelty. It was a simple statement of fact. "You are an ingredient, waiting on a shelf."

His bluntness momentarily shattered her facade. A flicker of genuine fear crossed her face before she mastered it. "It is because you see the truth that I come to you. You are a man of wisdom, of a power that even Niklaus respects. I have seen the way he defers to you. I beg of you, speak to him. Plead for my life. Remind him of the mercy that even kings must show."

Lykaon turned to face her fully, his ancient eyes seeing not just the frightened girl, but the centuries of her bloodline, the echoes of Amara and Tatia, the long, tragic line of women destined to be loved and destroyed by his adopted family.

"Mercy," he mused, as if tasting a foreign word. "Mercy is the luxury of the victor, a gift bestowed to demonstrate superiority. Niklaus does not feel superior. He feels wounded, cursed, and incomplete. He does not see this as an act of cruelty, but as an act of healing for himself. Your plea for mercy is meaningless to him."

Desperation crept into her voice. "Then what am I to do? Am I simply to walk to my own slaughter?"

Lykaon looked at her, at this pivotal, essential piece of the great historical machine. He could not help her. He could not interfere. But he would not lie to her, either.

"Your situation is not a matter of mercy," he said, his voice dropping to a low, philosophical tone. "It is a matter of destiny. Your bloodline carries a great and terrible weight, Katerina. It makes you a key. That is the truth of your existence. You were born to unlock something. The only question a key must answer is whether it will allow the lock to turn, or whether it will find a way to break before it can be used."

He had offered her nothing. No hope, no help, no comfort. He had simply defined her reality in the coldest, most cosmic terms. He was a force of nature, as implacable as the tide, and she could expect no sanctuary from him. He watched the last vestiges of hope die in her eyes, replaced by the hard, glittering resolve of a cornered animal. He had refused to intervene, but he had, in his own way, shown her that the only person who could save Katerina Petrova was herself.

Seeing the utter finality in Lykaon's refusal, Katerina turned her desperate gamble to the last remaining piece on the board: Rebekah. She knew she could not appeal to Rebekah's love—there was none between them. But she could appeal to something far more powerful: Rebekah's hatred of her own powerlessness, and her deep, abiding resentment of Klaus.

She found Rebekah in the stables, grooming her favorite white mare. Katerina, her face pale and tracked with real tears, dropped all pretense of nobility.

"He is going to kill me," she whispered, her hands twisting in the fabric of her dress. "The ritual is in two nights. I heard him telling the witch."

Rebekah continued to brush the horse's mane, her movements stiff. "Many have died at my brother's hand. Why should you be any different?" The words were cold, but Katerina heard the faint tremor of conflict beneath them.

"Because my death will not sate him," Katerina pressed, her voice gaining urgency. "It will unleash him. He will break his curse. He will have the power to create an army of slaves, hybrids like himself, bound to his every whim. The brother who delights in controlling you, in daggering you, in taking away everything you love—imagine him as a god. Imagine that monster, with absolute power, for the rest of your unending life. Is that a world you wish to live in?"

Rebekah stopped brushing. Katerina's words had struck their intended target. This was no longer about saving a doppelgänger. This was about self-preservation. This was about preventing Klaus from gaining an ultimate power that he would inevitably use against his own family, against her.

Later that evening, Rebekah came to Lykaon in the library. She was agitated, her mind clearly made up.

"I am going to help her," she stated, her chin held high in defiance.

Lykaon looked at her, his expression unreadable. "You know what Niklaus will do to you if he finds out."

"I cannot let him win, Lykos! Not this time. I cannot stand by and watch him forge the final link in the chains he wishes to bind us all with. This isn't for her. This is for me. For my own sanity, for my own future, I cannot let him succeed."

And there it was. The loophole. The justification. Her actions were motivated by a clear and present threat to her own well-being. His vow allowed him—commanded him—to protect her.

"His rage will be incandescent," Lykaon warned softly. "He will hunt her to the ends of the earth."

"Let him," Rebekah retorted. "It will keep him busy. And far away from me."

"Your choice will have consequences that will echo for centuries," he said, a final, gentle caution.

"Our entire existence is a consequence that echoes for centuries," she shot back, her spirit blazing. "I choose to be the author of this one."

Lykaon gave a slow, deliberate nod. "Then I will ensure your authorship remains anonymous."

He did not help Katerina. He helped Rebekah.

That night, Rebekah sought out Katerina and gave her a small pouch of coins and a simple instruction. "There is a cottage two leagues north of here. An old friend of my mother's lives there. Her name is Rose. The guard patrol changes at the third bell after midnight. The western gate is the least watched. Be swift." It was a lie, of course, but it gave Katerina a direction and a destination.

As the bell tolled, Lykaon acted. As Rebekah engaged the guards on the eastern wall in a loud, frivolous conversation about needing an escort to find a rare night-blooming flower, Lykaon reached out with his power. Miles away, he caused a phantom forest fire to erupt on a nearby ridge, a massive blaze of illusory flame and smoke that drew the attention of every other guard and villager. In the ensuing chaos and panic, Katerina Petrova, a small, dark shadow, slipped out of the western gate unnoticed.

He then went one step further. He cloaked her fleeing form in a subtle but powerful ward of confusion, a glamour that would muddy her trail and shield her from Klaus's immediate vampiric senses. He was not saving Katerina from Klaus. He was saving Rebekah from Klaus's wrath. He was protecting his partner's choice.

The discovery was made an hour later. Klaus's roar of pure, thwarted fury was a physical force, shaking the villa to its foundations. He shattered furniture, tore priceless tapestries from the walls, his rage absolute and terrifying. The key was gone. The ritual was ruined.

He stormed through the house, interrogating everyone, his eyes burning with suspicion. But no one knew anything. The guards had been distracted by the fire. Elijah was too lost in his own heartbreak to be a suspect. And Rebekah, standing beside Lykaon, met her brother's furious gaze with a look of perfect, feigned innocence.

Lykaon placed a calming hand on her back. He had done it. He had walked the razor's edge of his vow. He had allowed Rebekah to act on her own will, to protect her own future, and he had shielded her from the consequences, all without preventing the historical certainty of Katerina's escape and eventual transformation. The timeline was intact. History was proceeding as it must.

But as he looked at Klaus's face, contorted in a mask of murderous rage, he knew this was a new, more dangerous phase of the game. He had directly acted against his wife's brother. He had protected a rebellion within the family. The quiet center of the storm had held, but the storm itself had just intensified tenfold.