Urania’s eyes firmly locked onto Maggie’s gaze. “Forgiveness can only be the right of the victim. He harmed Grace, severely injured the Grand Elder, disrupted the stable order of the werewolves. Many things he did are beyond moral acceptance. Do you understand this matter?”
Maggie lowered her head, feeling somewhat ashamed. Occasionally, she would still make this kind of mistake. “I understand. I won’t do it again.”
“The compassion of the gods is faultless, but it must be given to the right people and for the right reasons. You cannot disturb the predetermined order of this world. Wolves hunt mountain hares, wild boars, and deer. Have you ever thought that without prey, how would wolves survive the winter? Humans are the same. Your role is to guide, not interfere.”
Maggie assured that she had learned her lesson and would not repeat her mistakes. “What about Alexander? What kind of person is he? Peirene said he took away her cub. I think she must have hated him before she died, imprisoned and took away her child.”
If Peirene was like a rose that could resist harsh conditions and freezing erosion in the crevices of rocks, Alexander was more like a bindweed relying on Peirene. He grew by absorbing nutrients from the host, and in the end, he might even kill the host to seize precious survival resources.
“Peirene must have initially helped Alex out of love. After all, at that time, Alex had neither a presence nor much power. He was thin and small. You could say that he looked like an ordinary human. Unfortunately, among many choices, Peirene happened to pick him, lifting an illegitimate child to the alpha position of a major family. You must admit that without Peirene, there would be no Alex and his child today.”
She had met Alex for the sake of good relations between the two clans. At that time, he didn’t live in the palace but with the servants, the lowest-ranking group. His usual tasks involved cleaning and maintaining the palace. She and Elwin were arranged in the guest rooms. She wasn’t interested in politics and found the pretentious rhetoric boring. One day, while strolling in the garden, she saw this skinny boy laboriously trimming flowers. The giant scissors he used were almost as big as half a person. He looked really weak. Could it be that he was a child someone from the werewolf world had picked up from the human world and raised?
“What’s your name?” she asked.
The boy, who had never been spoken to by such a noble figure, looked flustered. “I’m called Alexander. I’m the son of the gardener.”
The gardener was a lady who still showed signs of past beauty, but the years of hard work had worn down her radiance. Urania handed him a piece of pastry she had brought from the palace, a bit too sweet for her liking. The boy gratefully accepted it. “Thank you!”
He smiled so happily, infecting Urania, who hadn’t earnestly felt the world for a long time.
Now thinking about it, no matter how bloodthirsty and cruel they grew up to be, in the early years of most of these individuals, they were probably innocent, naive, and sweet. Their vulnerability stemmed from the fact that their flowering period lasted only for that brief moment. The only time in their lives when they could feel the beauty bestowed by the world typically lingered in this period.
“I once thought he could be the child to bring a turning point to the world because of his eyes-bright, carrying the radiance of the moon and sun. He was clearly so small, a gust of wind could almost blow him away, yet his eyes forever sparkled with a stubborn spirit. If he hadn’t climbed to power through Peirene, perhaps he would have become the new leader of the Frost Moon Pack after their defeat. However, he didn’t get polished and ended up in that position. He knew he wasn’t worthy, so he couldn’t resist Peirene’s ambition, leading to their tragic end.”
“Do you think Alexander can bring a turning point to the world?” Maggie found it hard to accept. “He clearly didn’t earn that position himself and even killed his partner, separated a child from its mother, and tacitly allowed his son to gain power through harming others with despicable means. How can such a person bring a turning point to the world?”
She had a point.
Urania seriously considered why she had once believed Alex could bring a turning point to the world.
“The opportunities in a person’s life are constantly changing and developing. We must admit one thing: there are no eternal heroes. Such individuals only exist in legends to inspire people. I have foretold many heroes, some persisted until they became heroes, while others, before becoming heroes, succumbed to death or had their minds stolen by power. Initially, I just felt he had the potential to become a hero, but I didn’t anticipate him meeting Peirene.”
Maggie didn’t entirely agree with her conclusion. In her view, being a hero was inherently tragic. They often carried a heavy burden, whether it was the death of loved ones or the lives of millions. The birth of a hero inevitably came with a sacrifice of self. People who couldn’t resist temptation and sorrow could only prove one thing-they didn’t possess the qualities to become heroes.
“Do you think Alexander and Ethan’s tragedy was caused by Peirene’s arrival? But that’s unfair to Peirene. She’s the one who brought power and wealth to the current Frost Moon Pack. She devoted herself to the tribe, sacrificed everything, only to end up a mad beggar wandering in a forest with a never-ending shadow of death. That’s unfair to her.”
Urania thought Maggie was great in many ways but tended to be a bit too nitpicky.
“Looking at it from different perspectives will help you understand why I say Alex could have been a hero, but unfortunately, he encountered Peirene. Peirene turned him from the gardener’s child into an alpha in a leap, but no one taught him how to be a good alpha. The previous alpha of Frost Moon Pack was a womanizer addicted to pleasures, indulging in women and alcohol. His mother was just an ordinary gardener. Can you expect a gardener to teach the ways of governing? He was Peirene’s first student, but unfortunately, Peirene wasn’t a good teacher. She only taught him how to seize power but didn’t tell him how to govern his subjects. So when their child was born, Alex taught the child using the same methods.”
The wrong ideas were passed down through generations.
“I know you’ve met Peirene, so you’re predisposed to see her as the absolute victim in this relationship. She’s the woman wronged by a bedside companion, forced to separate from her own flesh and blood. I suppose you empathize with her on that point. However, her ambitions led to the deaths of soldiers in her own tribe, causing the unnecessary deaths of many innocent people-that’s a harsh reality. Alex’s mistake was not knowing how to make Peirene abandon her ambitions, resorting to the most extreme measures, and wrongly imposing his guilt towards her onto Ethan in a different way. A person’s tragic life doesn’t absolve them of the mistakes they’ve made.”