Chapter Three, Part Three.

Dressed in a strapless white dress that tied in the back and fell to the floor, Aubrey led me forward to a long stone table. Adellinde stood across it, holding a blade as long as my forearm lightly atop her fingertips. Its ornately decorated hilt had a large, blood-red stone set near the crossguard, and the blade was glossy, black, and so sharp it just might cut me if I stared at it for too long. It must have been twenty pounds, but she held it as if it were a feather. The silence hung heavy in the air as Adellinde gestured for me to lie on the table.
As soon as I did, a few hooded Council members stepped forward to bind my ankles and wrists with rope, and retreated as soon as the final knots were tied.
“Don’t watch what I’m doing,” Linde muttered under her breath. “Lock your eyes on the ceiling.”
And then she gripped the hilt with both hands, and made the cut. The black blade was so incredibly sharp that the only reason I knew she’d done it was the feeling of warm blood dripping down my neck. Because it didn’t hurt, I felt a sense of security that would soon prove false; I had forgotten Aubrey’s warning: it wasn’t the incision that hurt. It was the vapor.
She pulled a small vial from her sleeve. The swirling liquid in it was a sickly green color. Remembering her advice, I averted my eyes. It began as a weak warmth spreading from the incision in a neat halo around it, then spread, growing in intensity until my body was on fire. Every nerve blazed with fiery heat. Through a haze, I felt Linde pinch the wound closed, sealing the vapor in my blood. I screamed and curled inward, straining at the ropes that held me captive, skin searing from the inside. As the heat peaked, my bones and muscles began to shift, taking on a new form. They buckled and shifted, growing and shrinking. I groaned, stretched to my limits and then some. After what felt like hours, they stopped, and the pain began to fade, though it lingered a little around my joints. Panting, my eyes fluttered open. Somehow my vision was different, but I couldn’t quite tell why. And it was so, so noisy… The rustling of the leaves outside, the whisper of the wind, the chirping of a chorus of crickets, and the croak of a lone bullfrog thundered on my unusually-sensitive eardrums. Rolling onto my side, my tail brushed on the stone.
My… Tail…? That sensation was new… What the hell, a tail?! I twisted to look for it. Oh my god, I had a tail!
I turned my gaze to the Council. Aubrey’s small smile showed warm pride, though he was the only one showing warm anything. The rest, aside from stony-faced Tassilo, wore mixed expressions of shock, confusion, and horror.
“What?” I asked, but it came out as a bark. “Why are you all looking at me like that?”
Aubrey stepped forward and took the vial from Adellinde. He uncorked it and dipped the tip of the tapered glass cork in the vapor, then reached toward me. I shrank back, knowing full well how much it had hurt.
He stroked my now-fuzzy forehead. “This doesn’t hurt,” he whispered. “I promise.”
I relaxed and looked at him. His green eyes sparkled as he smiled warmly. He leaned forward again and traced a circle on my forehead with the cork. It pulsed with glowing heat, then faded away. That was strange.
He cut my bonds. “Rise, Athaliah, heiress to the Cavailier line. You are now a-”
“Aubrey.” A clear, deliberate voice interrupted.
His eyes flashed yellow as he turned to glare at the source: a tall, supermodel-thin woman who looked like Linde if she were about twenty-seven stepped forward, pulling her hood back. “Do you really believe it is a good idea to initiate this… This mutt,” she growled, icing me over with a cold stare, “into the Order?”
His expression turned hard, angry. I hadn’t thought it was possible for him to show so much fury. “Celestria, you would do well to step down. It is not your place to question my judgment, and I will not allow you to interrupt a trial,” he seethed.
“Look at her!” she snapped. I cringed. “Daughter of the Cavailier line or not, she is not a Shadow Child!”
“Get out,” he growled.
“What?!”
“Did you not hear me clearly? Get. Out.”
Face red, she glared at him defiantly for a few seconds, then turned on her heel and stormed out, still maintaining the posture of a model on a catwalk.
I whined. What was she talking about? Wasn’t I a russet wolf like the rest of them?
Aubrey looked down at me, eyes green once more. “Now, where was I?... Oh, right. Athaliah, heiress to the Cavailier line, rise. You are now a blooded member of the Order, and you will take your place as Zeta.” I got up hesitantly. The dress I had been wearing hung on my body, no longer knotted to my frame. He gently removed it. “Come with me.”
I jumped down and followed him.