Human Again

by E. L. Tenenbaum

  “I knew you could do it,” she told me fiercely, “I knew you would.”

  She was so happy, so proud, that I didn’t have the courage to tell her that wasn’t what it would take to break the spell. I was letting her go, but it would do little for me if she didn’t come back. And why would she after being reunited with her father, who was surely sick with grief and sorrow over having lost her to an animal like me?

  Kiara tried to hand back the mirror but I pushed it toward her, closing her hands firmly around it. “It’s a gift,” I told her. “Even as you journey home, you’ll already feel you are with him.”

  That was a load of nonsense. I had her take the mirror because I didn’t want to see it anymore, knowing what it would show me if I could ever bring myself to look upon it again. I didn’t need to torment myself with the happy image of her at home, away from me. I was tormented enough already. My memories would see to the rest.

  Two days later, I stood at the castle entrance and watched Kiara leave with her sisters, fully expecting to never see her again. It didn’t matter that it was a perfect spring day, the world colored with twittering birds and majestic butterflies, because everything darkened as she rode away. I felt like I was being trapped in a dark cave, a boulder blocking the entrance so no one could hear my desperate screams for help deep inside.

  I stood there long after the carriage rolled out of sight, long after the dust it kicked up settled and the wind blew the dirt back into the ruts from the wheels. I was afraid to turn away, afraid to return to a castle and the new void within. Without Kiara illuminating my refuge, I would only see the savagely grinning face of the beast, jaws salivating with the knowledge that I would not fight it anymore, that I had given up the only weapon that could defeat it. When Kiara left I felt a pull, a sure sign that she had been my tether, my lifeline to the world, so each step she took away from me would fray that line until it snapped altogether.

  Alvie ran after the carriage as long as he could, before trudging back, dejected. I felt the disappointment rolling out from the others in waves, the broken whisper of hope that Kiara would guide us all away from here now a mockery of our fate. I knew they didn’t blame her, they couldn’t; this was my fault entirely.

  Jaxel was the only one with courage enough to say something to me about it later that night while I sat in the parlor staring blankly at Kiara’s favorite spot. Even after I heard his footsteps enter the room, it took some time, and some effort, for me to acknowledge him.

  “Yes, Jaxel?” I asked wearily.

  “Why, Your Highness?” he dared asked directly. “Why was she sent away?”

  Even with the bravery he’d mustered to ask the question, he hesitated fearfully near the door. I wanted to smash the castle into the ground, tear it apart brick by brick then pulverize each one to dust, permanently erasing any pieces that could even hold a memory of Kiara’s time here. But just then, I didn’t have the will. Because I was tired, so very tired of all of this.

  I gestured for Jaxel to come into the room, and he did so only because he must have noticed the defeat in me as well.

  “She had to be,” I told him.

  “I don’t understand, Highness,” Jaxel replied.

  I sighed. “She wanted to be with her father and I let her go,” I explained. “I cannot force her to stay here anymore.”

  “Did Miss Kiara not want to stay with us?” Jaxel asked, his voice catching on her name.

  “She wanted to be with her family,” I replied.

  Jaxel thought about my response. “We are a family of sorts,” he finally ventured.

  “Of sorts,” I allowed. “And although she very much wanted to stay, she wanted to go home even more. She has to choose to be here to help break the curse, and she cannot choose if I force her to be here. Do you understand?”

  Jaxel nodded. “I think so, Highness.”

  “Very well then,” I dismissed him, knowing he would take my words back to the servants who were surely praying for his safe return from my presence.

  Jaxel paused at the doorway, searching for something more. “Only a man who cared very deeply would let her go,” he observed.

  I didn’t have the energy to do more than confirm the truth with a nod.

  Jaxel nodded to himself upon seeing it. “There is something left then, after all,” he concluded.

  “Something, for now,” was all I could reply.

  I didn’t sleep that night nor much of the week to follow. As I’d suspected, I didn’t need the mirror because Kiara was everywhere. Every tickle of wind, every flicker of light whispered her name. Every room held a glimmer of her time with us, reading, planning, playing music, living. There was no part of the castle she hadn’t illuminated, no person here she hadn’t reached with her kindness. There was nowhere I could go to escape her, even the dungeon was tainted with memories of her.

  What’s most notable about that time is that I didn’t destroy everything as would be expected. I did come close, dangerously close, to turning the harp she had so wonderfully played into kindling, but I stopped myself before I even touched it. Whatever had stopped my hand that day from striking her in the garden held me back now as well from lashing out against the melody she’d left behind.

  Still, holding back when it came to Kiara didn’t prove that I had any real control. I knew the beast was waiting for me, lurking in the shadows of my misery, tormenting me in the uncertainty of when it would pounce and consume me for good. After too many nights of wearing a hole in the floorboards with the daggers of my glare, I came to realize something very simple.

  I didn’t want to wait around for the beast to destroy me, and I certainly didn’t want to be in this castle where everything reminded me of Kiara. I could never harm her or anything she left behind, and without her I wasn’t strong enough to fight the beast alone. As much as I’d begun to feel around her, I now had to shut off all feeling so I could make it through the day without collapsing in agony over what would never be. First Adlard, my Father, then Kiara; it really was better to freeze over the pain.

  What I could do was punish myself for my weakness, condemn myself for the folly of a misguided hope in a girl as precious as Kiara dirtying herself with the unwholesome task of breaking my curse. I had no place to ask such things of her. I had no place to expect that after all I’d done there was still a part of me worth saving.

  So I turned to the only solution I could think of, the simplicity of the answer having defiantly glared at me since the day I received that terrible letter from my sister, followed by Sir Garamond’s pointed hint at the party. I could not stay here, I could not fight the beast.

  But as Kiara, and all others, had assumed, I could go to war, and give it the honor of finishing me off for good.

  Avalanche

  Jaxel wanted to come with when I announced I would in fact be joining the war, but I didn’t let him. He reminded me again and again of his blood oath, but I wasn’t just leaving to fight for my kingdom and bring honor to my name. I was going to die, to unleash the full fury of the beast in the one place it would be welcome, even revered, and I couldn’t put Jaxel at risk. So I adamantly refused.

  “Stay and watch over Ms. Potsdam and Alvie, Kellan, and the others,” I commanded. “Keep them well until I get back.” Not that I ever expected to get back, so at least my death would free them to truly live as humans again.

  When I first arrived at the main army encampment, I searched out the standard of Delphe and went to greet Sir Garamond.

  “What brings His Highness to the front lines?” Sir Garamond asked after leading me through a brief inspection of our troops.

  “What brings any other man here,” I replied easily.

  Sir Garamond furrowed his brow. “If I may, Your Highness, what I meant—”

  I cut him off with a raised hand. “I appreciate your concern,” I told him with a patient smile, “but this is what I was trained to do. It’s been expected since birth.”

  He didn’t have much
to say to that.

  “Who commands the forces here?” I asked next.

  “Prince Alexander,” Sir Garamond replied.

  My smile grew. “Excellent.”

  I made straight for the royal tent and asked to see the prince.

  “Who’s asking?” one of the soldiers standing guard demanded.

  I drew myself up to my full height, exaggerating my presence so I appeared large enough for two if not three men. “Prince Ignatius Azahr II of Delphe.”

  The guard gulped and barely remembered to bow as he skittered inside. The other guard kept glancing over without really looking, a clear indication he wasn’t thrilled at being left alone with me.

  The ever admirable, ever dazzling, ever charming Prince Henri Christopher Charles Alexander of Laurendale greeted me himself a moment later, pausing to study me as if to confirm I was who I claimed to be.

  “Come on in,” he finally said, gesturing for me to follow after him.

  The main tent was actually a series of three large tents. The first served as the officers’ briefing room, evidenced by the wide table in the center draped with a tablecloth map dotted with little soldier figurines. The second, smaller one was the prince’s office, wherein there was only his chair, a desk stuffed with correspondence and battle reports, and a much smaller round table also covered with a map. Likely the third tent was his personal quarters.

  The noise from the busy camp filtered through the tent canvas. The omnipresent buzz of men leading me to naively think, if only for a moment, that the lack of quiet would be enough to drown out the beast.

  The prince had been fighting for over a year by then, the start of his brief, illustrious military career launched when the skirmishes escalated at the border and lasted for the next four years as he fought to protect his kingdom on multiple fronts. Then, he was still fresh enough in the ignorance of just how many years of war lay ahead, but experienced just enough to have gained trust and proven himself a capable leader.

  He led me into the second room, which was empty save for the tall man bent over the map at the small table. He started when we came in, probably because he hadn’t expected two pairs of footsteps, and immediately dropped into a bow once for his prince, then again for his guest. I immediately recognized the prince’s companion from the Academy, the man he’d dubbed “Captain,” a title he seemed to have well-earned now considering the scruffy state of his face and clothes.

  “No, stay,” Alex motioned as he turned to leave. Then to me, “You don’t mind, do you?”

  “Not at all,” I replied.

  What did it matter to me if an honorable man like the captain was there to chronicle some of the last movements of my life?

  The captain nodded and instead of turning back to the map, melted into the shadows, making himself scarce in a way I’m sure even Daimyon would admire. He’d certainly have made a fine Huntsman had he been born on the other side of the border.

  Alex settled himself into a chair and motioned for me to take the only other one. I sat and graciously accepted the glass of wine he poured for me, even though I could taste nothing but my own bitterness.

  “Cherries,” Alex said appreciatively, savoring his first sip. “Of course, such luxuries aren’t easy to obtain on the warfront, but a man must have his pleasures.”

  I nodded, noncommittal. What did I know about pleasures anymore?

  “What brings you here, Azahr?” Alex asked directly.

  “I came to offer my services,” I told him. “What good were all those years at the Academy if I cannot lead my own soldiers into battle? Or, with my elite training, to take on other missions as needed.”

  “Why?” Alex wanted to know.

  “This war affects us both,” I replied. “I too wish to protect our borders.”

  Alex eyed me suspiciously. “I believe we know each other well enough to drop pretenses and speak frankly?”

  “Absolutely,” I readily agreed.

  Alex leaned forward. “Just between us, I heard some rather interesting things about you after you left the Academy.”

  I gave him my most even expression. “Oh?”

  “Yes,” he went on undaunted. “Things about the eighteenth birthday that never was and the stag you never hunted.”

  “It was regrettable that my celebration had to be postponed because of the border unrest,” I said. “Though I hunted the stag for my twentieth birthday, just a few short weeks ago.”

  “Interesting,” Alex murmured, and I had to give him credit for being more perceptive than I had thought him to be. “And what are these rumors about a terrible demon haunting one of your castles?” he pressed.

  I forced a lighthearted laugh, carefully shielding my eyes so he couldn’t see how much I needed him to believe me. “Are you forgetting the similar rumors about the creature tracking down ogres and gargoyles in the border outposts close to Monsephe?”

  The prince looked at me expectantly.

  “Surely you remember the instructors at the Academy,” I reminded him, “and the name they called me.”

  “Beast,” Alex recalled.

  “Beast,” I confirmed, as if that was the entire extent, the only reason for the word dodging me since I was old enough to recognize that my heart was darker than others, that my anger was that much colder.

  “The court,” Alex replied with a derisive roll of his eyes, “loves to exaggerate.”

  “There would be no other way to distract the busybodies while the rest of us get things done,” I said, and Alex smiled appreciatively.

  “All right then,” he agreed, standing and extending his hand to me. “Let’s give you a look around, then we can choose what best suits you. Do you wish to lead the Delphen soldiers or do you have something else in mind, like strategy or intelligence?”

  I shook his hand to seal our agreement. “Front-lines, Alex,” I told him confidently. “I want to be right up there with the action. The men must see we’re unafraid.”

  Alex shrugged, not thinking twice on it, which undermined my previous thoughts on the extent of his perception. “The front-lines always need brave men undaunted by the danger of holding it,” he agreed. He paused, then added, “But don’t get yourself killed. I don’t think your father would take well to that.”

  I nodded even though I wanted to contradict him. Unlike the King of Laurendale who had only Alex, the King of Delphe had heirs to spare.

  As it turned out, I sorely underestimated the beast, and I realized my mistake the moment I fought in my first battle. The beast would not let me die here, not when I had led it to war, the closest version of hell and its home on this earth.

  All through the spring, and eventually into the summer and fall as well, I fought the border war while the one inside me neared its final surrender. We were protecting a stretch of border shadowed by a mountain range, defending Laurendale’s eastern—our northwestern—border from marauding bands of gargoyles and ogres, the unexpected truce between those two hideous creatures proof of the maxim that the enemy of an enemy is a friend.

  Although Prince Alex would emerge victorious in the coming years, the war was not without cost, and many brave men lost their lives on our blood-soaked border. I’ve tried as best I could to forget most of what happened over those months, not only because there is no real glory in war—which sees the death of so much youth, the loss of so much innocence, tramples the future of a kingdom in the struggle and in what it takes from the survivors—but also because of my personal actions.

  I had requested the frontlines and Prince Alex didn’t offer my units any special consideration in respect of my title. I was in the heat of the action just as I had wanted to be, though it seemed the longer I stayed there, the more invincible the beast became. It was much easier than expected to fight a war against creatures that didn’t look human—ogres with grayed skin, ivory tusks, and towering builds, gargoyles with giant bat-like wings and grotesque distorted faces—but each time we rose against them, I saw less and less the d
ifferences between myself and them. Was the beast inside me not just as ugly, just as vicious and vengeful? Did it not also know little of mercy, of kindness, of human decency? It was only my outer form which allowed me to fight alongside humans instead of taking my rightful place alongside the monsters we battled.

  Most of my memories of that time are dark, the sole distinctive color the red, red, red of blood dripping from the beast’s hands. The thought of once needing an instructor to urge me to unleash the beast was now laughable. It eagerly sprang out on its own.

  One battle I distinctly remember occurred toward the beginning of summer, when our unit was sent out on one last night raid before it would be pulled from the front for some much needed rest before being sent back out yet again. Our scouts had stumbled across a small group of ogres tucked into the woods, perhaps attempting their own version of espionage. We were sent after them because their path would give them enough cover to stumble unseen up a distant hillside, whereupon they would gain a very good view of the troops camping beyond it. Some of our own men were guarding the spot, but not enough to protect against the ogres.

  There were about ten of them, so the prince sent twelve of us, a small, guerilla force, with surprise on its side.

  I picked the men, ones with the steadiest hands and the quietest treads, and led them into the forest. The beast was quiet, sensing, crouching, readying itself for the ogres. I wasn’t as anxious about the mission as I should have been for it seemed to be relatively straightforward. We would find the ogres, dispatch in groups to surround them from all sides, then attack together and finish them off leveraging chaos and the advantage of surprise. There was no reason to believe the beast would be any more vicious, any less humane than it had been till now in its efforts to keep me alive, against my specific wishes. And it definitely wasn’t thoughts of Kiara keeping me from death either. It was the crueler thought of living life without her that fed the monster inside me.