She took a hesitant step toward him, and the creature’s entire body tensed, the muscles in his shoulders bunching, his haunches readying to attack. Yeva froze, hand half outstretched, her mind going blank. She had no weapons anymore. Every bit of gear she’d packed, she’d left behind in a magic-induced haze.
Except . . . the age-worn feather the Beast had left for her was still in her pocket.
She started to reach for it, but the monster stalking her saw the movement and let out a snarl that rattled her very bones. Yeva had only an instant before he leaped at her, and she thrust her hand into her pocket and drew out the feather as she threw herself backward, shielding herself with both hands, instinctively, waiting to feel the Beast’s crushing weight, the rending of her body with his claws, the cruel snap of his jaws.
They never came.
When she managed to open her eyes, Yeva saw the Beast looming over her, still snarling, panting with bloodlust—but his focus had narrowed to the feather clutched in her fingers. Compared to the soft, gleaming thing she’d used to start her fire, this feather was dull and dirty and bedraggled, battered by the centuries until it was barely recognizable. But the Beast stared at it, snorting steam into the frigid air, muscles trembling as if he were being held back by invisible bonds.
Yeva scrambled back, lifting the feather like a talisman, heart pounding painfully and fear leaving her mouth bitter and dry. But as the Beast moved to take a step after her, she found her voice and blurted the first words that came to her lips.
“Let me tell you a story!” she cried out. The Beast froze, though his gaze never flickered. Yeva had to draw three breaths before she found her voice again. “I will tell you a fairy tale.”
BEAST
Story. Lie. Words. Meaningless. Empty.
She smells of something more than fear and blood. She smells like sky.
We snort and flex our claws until they grind on the stone but she holds us. We could devour her in one leap but she huddles there in her torn clothing and she holds us like no creature ever could.
She is magic. And we will wait for her spell to falter.
TWENTY-EIGHT
“ONCE,” YEVA BEGAN, HER voice shaking, her whole body shaking, “there was a man. A king. With three sons.” She couldn’t push aside the fear that made her want to run for the mouth of the cave, to lunge for freedom. So she closed her eyes instead, and tried with all her might to fool her body into believing she was back in the Beast’s valley, in a cell below his castle, speaking to someone on the other side of a locked door—her invisible ally, her friend, the man called Ivan.
“The elder sons begged him to name an heir, each of them wanting the power and wealth they knew would make them content. But the youngest son was different.” Yeva’s voice steadied a little. “He didn’t want his father’s throne, had never wanted the life spelled out for him by his birth. What he wanted, he couldn’t name. All he knew was that he wanted, and that he’d never truly be home, never truly content, until he found all that he longed for.
“His father, the king, had a beautiful garden with a beautiful orchard that was his pride and joy, but every night an invisible thief had been stealing the golden apples from his most prized tree. He gathered his three sons and told them that whichever prince could catch the thief would be named heir. The elder sons were so eager to catch the thief that they fought and grappled with each other all night and missed the thief entirely. It was the youngest prince who, despite having little interest in his father’s throne, caught a glimpse of the bandit.
“He came to his father in the morning and told him he’d seen the Firebird, the most elusive of all magic things, stealing the king’s golden apples. The king sent his sons out into the world to find the creature, and though the young prince couldn’t care less about the throne, the moment he’d seen the Firebird he knew it was all he’d ever wanted.”
Yeva’s voice, dry with fear and tight with cold, caught in her throat. She heard the Beast draw breath, and for a terrified heartbeat she thought he might leap—but instead he let out a long, low growl.
“Speak.” His snarl was barely a voice at all, but there was a word in it, and it made Yeva open her eyes.
The Beast was crouched low, and stared at her with a red gaze that pinned her to the spot, like a serpent staring down a mouse it intends to devour.
Yeva shivered. “Th-the young prince set out to find the Firebird but before long a great gray wolf came out of the forest and demanded the prince’s horse. The prince begged him not to eat his horse, but the wolf could not restrain his hunger, and soon had devoured the horse whole. But when the prince explained he sought the Firebird, the wolf took pity on him and offered to carry him to the next kingdom, whose king had boasted of owning the Firebird as a curiosity.
“The prince explained to this king that he needed to bring the Firebird back to his father, and the king told him that he would give him the Firebird if Ivan would travel to the next kingdom and bring him the thing he most coveted, a horse with a golden mane. So the young prince went back to the wolf, who agreed to carry him to the next kingdom and the next king.
“The prince told his story again, and again the king took pity on him and said he’d give Ivan the horse with the golden mane if the prince would go into the next kingdom and bring back Yelena, the most beautiful maiden in the world, with whom the king had fallen madly in love. So the young prince and the wolf traveled on to the next kingdom, and there they found Yelena the Beautiful locked away in a high tower.”
Yeva had left the original story, the one her father had read to her from the book she’d turned to ash, behind her. She knew she couldn’t possibly guess the truth of Eoven’s life, or how he had come to be cursed, or even what had driven him to seek the Firebird. But she’d seen the longing in her own heart reflected in his, in the loneliness of his castle and in the hope on every page of the storybooks he’d kept safe in the tower room all these long centuries.
The truth of his life was that it was Yeva’s life, too. And there was a reason she’d always loved and hated the story of Ivan and the Wolf, and the Firebird that sent them out into the world. She’d just never known it until she met the Firebird herself.
The prince’s curse wasn’t arrogance or cruelty, as it was so often in fairy tales. His curse was wanting, always wanting. And so was Yeva’s.
“The young prince went to the king of that land and asked him to release Yelena, but this king was older than the others, and he’d seen more of the world, and he warned Ivan to stay away. He said that no matter how much the young prince wanted Yelena, the satisfaction of desires sated was short and pale compared to the dream of wanting.
“The prince ignored his warning and went back to the gray wolf, who turned himself into a rope stair so that the prince could climb the high tower and take Yelena for himself. They returned to the king who’d asked for her, but when they reached his castle the young prince looked at Yelena and decided that he wanted her for himself, because love would make him happy, and he begged the wolf for his help. The wolf took Yelena’s form and the young prince brought him to the king, who was overjoyed to have his heart’s desire at least. He gladly gave the prince the horse with the golden mane. Once the young prince was beyond the kingdom’s borders, the wolf escaped the castle and ran back to meet him and carry him to the king who’d asked Ivan for the horse.
“But when they reached the castle gates and Ivan looked at the horse with the golden mane, with Yelena on its back and a beautiful golden bridle draped with silk over its neck, he realized he didn’t want to part with it, because freedom would make him happy. He begged the wolf to help him again, and the wolf turned itself into the spitting image of the horse with the golden mane. The king was so filled with happiness to have the horse with the golden mane that he told Ivan to go into his menagerie and take the Firebird. He warned the prince, however, not to take the solid-gold cage that housed the Firebird. But when the prince went into the menagerie and saw the
Firebird, he saw the cage as well, and he thought that if he could take the cage too, he would have wealth, love, and freedom, and he would finally be happy.
“But as soon as the young prince touched the cage, its golden door opened and the Firebird sprang free. Ivan leaped to capture it, but he was able to catch only a single feather from its tail before it was gone, vanished forever into the north.
“When the wolf escaped and rejoined the young prince, he found him sitting at a crossroads with his head in his hands. The wolf asked him how he could be so unhappy, when he had the love of the most beautiful woman in the world, and the freedom of the swiftest horse in the world, and a golden cage worth enough to buy him any luxuries he could wish for.”
Yeva thought of her home, her sisters, her friends Galina and Solmir—she even thought of the Beast’s castle, and the books there she hadn’t had time to read, and how beautiful the river would have been to walk along in spring. If only I could break the Beast’s spell, she thought bitterly, then I could be happy.
“The prince confessed,” Yeva went on, “that the last king had been right, that the dream was what he’d longed for, and he’d never be happy until he found the Firebird and everything he’d ever wanted. None of the things he’d found along the way would ever make him happy.”
Her voice petered out, for there the story should have brought the prince home triumphant, to marry Yelena and inherit his father’s kingdom and use the golden cage to establish a stable full of mounts sired by the horse with the golden mane, which would be so prized that they’d bring his kingdom a century of prosperity. But there the fairy tale ended, and Yeva lifted her face to find the Beast still watching her. The force of his stare had eased, though, and now that she’d fallen silent, he was starting to stir where he lay against the stone and rumble with discontent deep in his throat.
“How does this story end?” the Beast growled.
Yeva swallowed hard, clutching the old feather in her hand. “I don’t know,” she whispered. “The wolf and the young prince were cursed to stay together for the rest of their endless lives so that neither could ever be truly content. And only if the Firebird, the one thing the young prince had always wanted more than anything in this world, came back to him on its own, would his curse be broken.”
The Beast’s claws flexed, and as Yeva watched his face, the gray brows drew in a fraction and he dropped his gaze in confusion. “How do you know this story?”
Yeva’s breath caught. “Because it’s my story too,” she whispered. “Because I thought I wouldn’t be happy until I left town to live in the wood, and then I thought I wouldn’t be happy until I could hunt every day, and then I thought I wouldn’t be happy until I avenged my father’s death. Because I spent a year in an old castle with the young prince and the gray wolf and I thought I couldn’t be happy until I killed them both, and when I did, I wept harder than I ever have in my life. Because I thought I couldn’t be happy until I went home, and then I thought I couldn’t be happy until I came back.”
The Beast’s features flickered, and Yeva’s heart began to pound, because there in the red, senseless, animal depths, she thought she saw the faintest glimmer of gold. Greatly daring, she crept forward, her every sense on alert for the slightest sign the Beast’s animal nature might take over and cause him to strike.
“Because I thought the reason I’d always felt so restless was because I was meant for magic,” Yeva said softly. “That if I could fix the story, that if I rescued the young prince and the gray wolf and I found the Firebird and I held in my hands everything I’d ever wanted, I would live happily ever after.”
“How does your story end?” asked the Beast, his voice easing back toward the velvet bass Yeva had come to know so well.
Yeva gazed back at him, all her answers gone. A thousand fairy tales flashed through her memory, full of quests and dreams and wishes and rewards. But the path ahead of her was blank, as empty as the leather binding of the book of stories she’d brought with her.
“I don’t know,” she whispered. “I think maybe it doesn’t end.” She inched forward again and lifted a hand, but the Beast didn’t pull away, and he didn’t snap at her. Her fingers crept into the soft fur at his chest, and his warmth banished the numbness of the cold. She felt the beating of his heart beneath her hand, and below that, the pulse of the magic binding man and wolf that sang as strongly as ever. Her eyes filled. “I’m so sorry.”
The Beast’s chest rose and fell under her hand in a sigh. “For what?”
“I was so close,” Yeva replied. “The Firebird was here. I almost had it, but I was . . . slow. I could have saved you, and I failed.” She lurched forward until she could lean against him, burying her face in his shoulder and feeling his warmth spread through her, chasing away the bone-deep chill the Firebird’s cave had left her with. He smelled as he always did, and the familiar scent of wind and spice swelled inside her and she knew she had the answer to the Beast’s question. She knew how her story ended.
In a rush, she blurted, “I would give up a thousand happy endings just to go back with you to your valley, and live as we did. I’d give up every fairy tale I’ve ever known just to hear you say my name again.”
The Beast’s warmth wrapped around her and the wild song of him swelled, and she could hear the ice curtain melting and dripping and saw in her mind’s eye the crystal droplets falling like autumn leaves.
Then a voice whispered, “Beauty,” and the warmth tightened, and she felt lips touch her temple, her cheek, the line of her jaw. She realized there were arms around her, and she broke away, gasping. Tears blurred her vision so that when she looked at the Beast she saw only a shimmer, the same shimmer he had when he saw her smile, or unlocked his room full of books, or lit her a lantern to keep the dark at bay. She blinked and blinked and finally her eyes cleared, and before her was a face, a human face. She’d seen it only once before, and a thousand times in her dreams.
“But,” Yeva said, “how? I failed. I didn’t bring you the Firebird.”
The Beast knelt before her, seemingly unaware of the icemelt soaking into his clothes, which were of a fashion Yeva had never seen, from a time so long ago it predated even the oldest paintings and tapestries.
“Yeva,” said the Beast, and though there wasn’t a hint of a snarl in his voice, it still rumbled, still echoed in her heart and her bones, still warmed her from within. “We were both wrong.”
He reached out and took her hands, folding them between both of his and drawing them up so he could press them against his chest, where the same heartbeat sounded, the same magic that called to her, only it wasn’t magic, for the man before her was real, more real than the ice or the cave or the ancient feather, which she’d dropped somewhere in the slush, and forgotten.
“Don’t you see?” the Beast went on, pulling her close so that she could breathe his scent, feel his hair brush her skin as he pressed his forehead to hers. “You are what I want most in all this world, and you came back to me. Yeva . . . you are the Firebird.”
Yeva felt dizzy, confused not by the strangeness of this man she couldn’t know, but by the fact that he wasn’t strange at all. His touch was as familiar to her, and as certain, as the curve of a bow fitting in her palm. “This is a dream,” she whispered. “Magic. A fairy tale.”
The Beast smiled, and for the first time Yeva saw that he had a dimple, a little crease in his perfect face that made him imperfect, and that his nose was a little crooked, and the gold eyes were more hazel than gold. “Yes,” he agreed. “And it’s real.”
A wolf and a man. A woman and a dragon. Hunter and hunted. Nothing in this world has only one nature.
The Beast’s eyes fell to her lips and he bent his head, but there his movements faltered a little. The sudden uncertainty in the tilt of his mouth toward hers was so completely, so utterly human that Yeva felt she might laugh, or cry, or both. So instead, she leaned forward and kissed him, and he let go of her hands so he could wrap his arms around
her and pull her body in against his. He was warm and solid and real, and Yeva felt as insubstantial as smoke that might drift away like the ashes of her bow and her stories.
She gave up trying to understand and just kissed him, there in the Firebird’s cave. And though Yeva knew she would always long for tomorrow, and for what lay in the next valley, and for what colors she would see in the sky in the years to come, the kiss was, for that single instant, everything she wanted.
EOVEN
It is strange, to be whole. To know every thought and want is from my own heart. That every memory and instinct is mine.
Because I do remember another life. And not the life of the wolf, not the hunt nor the kill, nor the endless hunger. I remember a life before that was good, but not the one I wanted. I remember feeling as though nothing and no one in this world could ever understand the way I wanted, that pang that rings deeper than flesh and bone.
My longing for something else, beyond, into magic and dreams and the things everyone else seemed to leave behind as children. For something I knew I could never truly find.
It’s the wanting that brought me here, to her. To another soul as empty as mine, and yet not empty at all, because it’s so full of everything I thought only I ever felt. Her soul against mine feels like music, like a heartbeat, like magic.
Like beauty.
EPILOGUE
EVENTUALLY YEVA WOULD BRING Eoven to the town where she grew up. She would tell her family as best she could what had happened, and they would not understand, but they would welcome Eoven anyway because of the way he looked at Yeva. They’d stay there for a long time together, and Eoven would tell Lena’s daughter stories, and teach Asenka’s twins to hunt when they were old enough. They’d stay sometimes at the baron’s household, and sometimes in Yeva’s old room in Radak and Lena’s house, and sometimes in a little cottage at the edge of town with a garden and a peony tree and shelves full of books.
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