“I’ll tell Lady Seimiya everything we’ve done so far,” Elin murmured.
Esalu frowned, but after a brief pause, nodded. “Yes, I guess you should.”
Elin adjusted her grip on the harp and strummed notes that urged the Royal Beasts back to the stables. At the sound, they spread their wings and leaped into the sky.
* * *
They’re pretty late. Jesse stamped his feet in the snow and gazed at the sky. He’d been waiting a long time. He’d tried shaping the white puffs of his breath on the air and sculpting Royal Beasts from the snow that had collected on the branches, but it was just too cold. Yet he didn’t want to go home either.
It was partly because all his friends had gone back to their families for winter break, and he was bored and lonely. But it was also because this was his only chance to spend time with the Royal Beasts, and he’d been looking forward to it. There was no spare time during the school term, but since the holidays had started, he’d slipped through the woods every day to the training grounds, careful not to let his mother or the headmistress see him. There, he’d watched his mother studying and training the Beasts. By now he could guess the meaning of every sound Elin’s harp produced.
He cupped his hands around his hot water bottle to warm them, occasionally touching it to his nose as well. At last, he heard the faint sound of a harp far in the distance.
“Ah! Finally!” Through a lace of dark branches, he stared at the snow-laden sky. Soon he heard the soft whir of wings, then saw the shapes of the Royal Beasts against the gray clouds. At this, he shoved two fingers in his mouth and let out a short, sharp whistle. One of the Beasts turned its head and looked down as it crossed the heavens. Jesse’s face lit up.
“Alu,” he called, keeping his voice low. Alu saw him and, leaving the pack, dropped down, deftly evading the tree branches. The wind from the Beast’s enormous wings hit Jesse in the face as he skipped over the snow. Alu landed in a little hollow, and he ran over and buried his face in her chest.
The warm scent of Beast was mixed with a whiff of snow and wind. Of all the Royal Beasts, Jesse loved Alu best. They’d been together since he was little. He thought of Leelan as his mother’s, and Alu as his own.
Listening to the rumbling sound of Alu’s breathing, he clung to her while she looked down at him affectionately, as if he were a playful little brother. When he’d hugged her long enough, Jesse stepped back and pulled a large paper bag from his cloak. It contained eight baked sweets covered in red sugar. Catching the scent, Alu made a cooing sound as though she couldn’t wait. Shashasha. She loved sweets.
Jesse popped them in her mouth, and she gobbled them up before licking her nose contentedly.
Jesse brushed the crumbs from her chest. “See you, Alu,” he said. He wished he could stay longer, but if she arrived much later than the others, it might make people worry and cause a big fuss.
Perhaps she’d had enough sweets, because Alu flew off without protest when he gave her a shove, following her family to the stable.
* * *
The inside of the stable was dark and warmed by the heat of the Royal Beasts. The dinner bell rang. Elin raised her head from the book on her writing desk.
Is it already this late?
Time literally seemed to fly by these days. She’d better hurry home or Jesse would grumble that he was starving. She folded the sheaf of papers on which she’d been jotting down what she wanted to tell Seimiya and stuffed it into the front of her robe, then stood up and put out the fire. As she always did before leaving the stable, she took the lantern and went to each stall to check on Leelan, Eku, and their children.
Leelan and Eku were sound asleep. She passed their stalls and came to a halt in front of Alu. She stared at the face of the sleeping Beast, who should already have been a mature female, and spoke to her silently.
Alu, you’re old enough to be an adult. Why haven’t you grown up?
Memories passed through her mind one by one. Alu when she had dropped from her mother’s womb, a wet ball of fur. Alu nuzzling Elin insistently and cooing plaintively. In the wild, she would have mated, given birth, and raised cubs long ago, yet she was still like a cub herself. When she wasn’t training, she showed no interest in soaring through the air and instead spent her time napping in the pasture. Somehow she reminded Elin of the Beasts in the sanctuary that had dull gray wings and were raised on, and controlled by, tokujisui.
I’m missing some crucial key in their development.
The Royal Ancestor Jeh would have known what kept Beasts raised in the sanctuary from mating even though they weren’t given tokujisui. And what was needed for them to mature and mate. After all, she’d bred two thousand of them.
Elin pursed her lips and stared at the Royal Beasts. What had these creatures been to Jeh? She could understand Jeh’s longing to avert another catastrophe, and why she had chosen this difficult path to lead her people to prosperity. But her eyes had been fixed solely on her people, not on what was best for the Royal Beasts.
The way Jeh and her descendants had dealt with both the Royal Beasts and the Toda had been cruel. To cement royal power, and later to gain crushing military strength, they’d used these creatures as convenient tools, warping their bodies for their own ends without a thought for their health or well-being. They’d perverted the lives of these creatures to preserve the lives of their people.
Elin took a deep breath. And now here she was, training Royal Beasts to fly into battle.
But her goal wasn’t the same as Jeh’s. “I cannot set you free,” she whispered to Alu. “I may be leading you to your death. Yet, even so…” Swallowing the rest of her sentence, she closed her eyes.
Perhaps disturbed by the murmur of Elin’s voice, Alu stirred and ran her tongue over the tip of her nose. A sweet scent wafted on the air. Elin’s eyes flicked open, and her brow furrowed. Alu hadn’t been fed anything that would give off such a sweet scent. Bringing her face up against the cage bars, she raised the lantern. Something glittered on Alu’s chest. Squinting, Elin made out grains of red sugar clinging to her fur.
A chill spread through her. Jesse …
When he was little, Jesse had always split his sweets with Alu. Elin had made him put the sweets in the feed box, warning him sharply that he must never feed her by hand; it was too dangerous. Maybe he’d fed her by hand when she wasn’t looking. She grimaced and left the stables.
2
BEAST FANGS
When Elin approached the house, the younger guard’s head was poking out the window, watching for her. He opened the door and let her inside. “It’s a cold day, isn’t it?” he said. Exposed to the frigid air, the skin on his face was white except for his nose. The middle-aged guard was in the back making dinner, but he looked up and bowed as Elin came through.
“Yes, indeed! It’s very cold. I’m so sorry to have kept you waiting,” Elin said. “Please go ahead and eat your dinner.”
The young guard grinned. “I’m all right,” he said, “but young Jesse has been banging his plate with his spoon for some time now.”
Elin nodded and strode through the passageway to the door of her house. The living room with the hearth in its center lay beyond the dirt-floored kitchen, which was equipped with a clay oven and sink. Jesse was sitting by the hearth, clanging his spoon against a plate. Catching sight of Elin, he scowled and started banging the plate harder.
“You’re so late!” he exclaimed. Noticing the expression on her face, he paused, spoon in midair. He had grown so much he was beginning to look like a youth, but at the moment, his uneasy expression showed he was still a boy.
“Come on. We’re going to the stable,” Elin said as she turned and left the room.
The guards, who had just sat down and were balancing a bowl of stew on their knees, looked up with curious eyes.
“Where are you going?” one of them asked.
“I’m so sorry, but I must take Jesse to the stable. I’ll ring the little bell outside the building
when we leave to let you know we’re coming back. Please carry on with your meal.”
Resting his bowl of stew on the edge of the hearth, the young guard stood up and took down a lantern from the wall. He lit it and handed it to Elin while the older guard rose and opened the door. A cold gust of air swirled into the room with a flurry of snowflakes. The guard glanced at the sky, so black not a star could be seen. “It’s snowing pretty bad now,” he murmured.
Elin nodded and stepped into the night. She felt Jesse staring at her nervously, but she didn’t spare him even a glance. Outside, the brutal cold gripped her body. Although the stable was close, her cheeks and nose burned with the cold of the howling wind. Even when she reached the building, her hands were so icy she had trouble unlocking the door. Stepping inside, she felt her body relax into the air warmed by the Beasts.
Leelan and the others stirred at the sound of the door, but closed their eyes when they saw it was Elin and Jesse who had entered. Elin hung the lantern on the wall and looked down at her son.
“You know why I brought you here, don’t you?”
Jesse looked up at her. “Yeah. I know.” He bowed his head as if resigned to his fate. “I’m sorry,” he said.
Elin watched him without responding. He began to fidget, rubbing his hands against his thighs and stubbing his toe against the ground. “Jesse,” Elin finally said, her voice quiet. “Sometimes it’s meaningless to say you’re sorry. What I want from you is not an apology.”
Jesse’s face tensed. She could see the confusion in his eyes. What was he supposed to do if she wouldn’t forgive him when he apologized?
“When you believe a promise you’ve made is important, Jesse, you never break it. The fact that you broke your promise shows you don’t understand why it’s necessary. Am I right?”
Jesse frowned.
“You can’t understand why you shouldn’t be allowed to go near the Royal Beasts. Isn’t that it?”
“Well, yeah,” Jesse mumbled. Then he lifted his jaw defiantly. “It’s just so unfair. Why am I the only one who’s not allowed to go near them? You get to be with them all the time. I want to be with them, too!”
His shrill voice pierced the air. The Beasts stirred, opening their eyes, and Jesse clapped his hands over his mouth. But Elin watched him silently without glancing at the Beasts.
Keeping her eyes fixed on his, she said, “You know that’s not true. You’re not the only one. In fact, no one but Professor Esalu and I can go to the training grounds. None of the other students can go either. Not even Professor Tomura’s allowed in. And, Jesse, I never go near the Beasts without the Silent Whistle. And I would never, ever feed them sweets. In fact, if there’s anyone who thinks he deserves special treatment, it’s you.”
Jesse frowned. “What do you mean?”
Elin’s voice was hard. “Are you telling me you really don’t know? I can read your mind, Jesse. You’re thinking that Alu would never hurt you. Right?”
Jesse’s eyes wavered. A muscle bulged in his jaw as though he was steeling himself against being told something he didn’t want to hear, something he didn’t want to know. Elin watched him steadily. His eyes said, ‘I know what you’re going to say. The same thing you always say. I’m sick and tired of hearing it.’ He was just thirteen. When she was his age, she had felt the same way. No matter how hard people had tried to convince her, she hadn’t understood. Not when she turned fourteen or eighteen either.
But she had to make him see. Because if she waited until he was ripped to pieces, it would be too late.
Turning on her heel, she walked to the back of the stables, grabbed a long-handled broom that was leaning against the wall, and came back to his side. She looked down at him. “I’ve lived with Leelan since long before you were born, Jesse,” she said. “I love her a lot, just as you love Alu. And I think Leelan loves me, too. You can feel that, can’t you?”
Jesse nodded warily, uncertain where this was leading.
“But, Jesse, listen. If I were to smack Leelan with this broom while she’s sleeping, she’d bare her fangs and snap at me. If she bit me, she’d cut my fingers off just like that.” She held her left hand in front of his face, revealing the stumps of three missing fingers. “When Leelan chomped these off, she was mad with rage. She bit off the nose, lips, and hand of the man in front of her and ate them. If I hadn’t blown the Silent Whistle, she would have torn off my head without a second thought.”
Shaking, Elin took a deep breath. “That’s the kind of creatures Royal Beasts are. No matter how well they know you, no matter how fond of you they are, they could still gobble you up in a reflex action.”
Jesse stared up at her, his face white and rigid. Elin gripped the broom tightly. “Grownups warned me so many times, Jesse. But I never believed them. In the bottom of my heart, I was sure Leelan would never harm me. I believed that she would turn her fangs aside so as not to hurt me. I never dreamed she would bite off my fingers and eat them—until she did.”
Quietly, Elin turned and walked to Leelan’s cage. With the broom still gripped in one hand, she opened the upper half of the door.
Realizing from his mother’s face and actions what she was about to do, Jesse opened his mouth to scream, but nothing came out. Before his terrified gaze, she raised the broom and jabbed Leelan in the stomach. Leelan’s eyes flew open, and her enormous jaws snapped up the broom, handle and all.
Jesse saw his mother let go of the broom as though she’d been burned and topple over backward. Leelan chewed the broom to pieces, spewing fragments across the floor. Raising her wings, she broke into a menacing growl, waking the other Beasts, who flapped their wings in agitation.
Sprawled on the floor and gripping her right hand tightly with her left, Elin said over and over, “I’m so sorry, Leelan. I’m so sorry.” Maybe it was the tone of her voice or maybe it was because she had only hit her with a broom, but Leelan didn’t threaten her for long. She grumbled sulkily for a while, then fell quiet. Even so, the fur on her chest bristled, and she shifted restlessly.
Elin rose, gritting her teeth. Cautiously she approached the cage and closed it gently before returning to Jesse’s side. Blood seeped from the fingers of her right hand where she gripped it with her left.
Jesse paled and began trembling. “M-mom…,” he gasped.
She smiled reassuringly. “I’m all right. She just grazed my finger, that’s all. Get me the first aid kit, will you?”
After dashing over to the shelf, Jesse lifted down the kit with both hands and brought it to his mother. She was sitting by the stove stirring the embers in the fire. The flames flared up, and their light fell on her blood-soaked right hand. Sniffing back his sobs, Jesse plunked himself down beside his mother and stared at the crimson stain spreading along her skin.
“Open the lid and get out the bottle of atsune infusion,” Elin said. “Yes, that’s the one. See that cotton? Soak it with the infusion and give it to me, please.”
Jesse did as he was told and poured the liquid over the cloth. His hands were shaking so badly that he spilled quite a lot on the floor. The pungent odor stung his nostrils. He passed the cotton to his mother, and she dabbed the wound with it. No matter how much she wiped, however, blood kept welling up.
“Give me some more of that cotton, Jesse. Just the dry cotton is fine.” She pressed it tightly against the wound for some time, then carefully removed it, revealing the cut. There was a deep gash in the flesh between her index finger and thumb. Jesse drew in a sharp breath. Shaking violently, he screwed up his face and resisted the urge to turn away, keeping his eyes fixed on the wound.
Elin reached into the first aid kit with her left hand and removed a needle that had already been threaded. “Take some cotton soaked in atsune and wipe the needle with it, will you?”
Biting his lower lip, Jesse sterilized the needle.
The wind picked up, and the roof rattled. The flames wavered in puffs of air that had forced their way through a crack in the wall. Mother and
son huddled around the dim light cast by the fire, tending the wound and saying only what was necessary. The silent Beasts stood like statues shrouded in darkness.
3
VOICE IN A DREAM
The distance from the stable to their home was short, but as they walked, Elin could feel chills coming on. She guessed it wasn’t so much from being bitten as from pushing herself for too long. Fatigue assailed her, and occasionally, her body was racked with shudders. Her joints ached. Not wanting to make Jesse feel any worse, Elin hid her discomfort. They ate dinner and went to bed as usual. But lying beside him, the chills that shook her grew steadily worse.
She wrapped the quilt around her tightly and shook uncontrollably until her body flushed with heat and she burst into a sweat. Perhaps her fever had reached its peak. In her fevered dreams, Elin heard Leelan’s voice. As a child, she’d dreamed before of Leelan speaking like a human.
“Children must be kicked from the nest,” Leelan said. She spread her wings and raised her head to the sky, letting out a roar. Even that sounded like a voice. “When they’re kicked from the nest, they become parents.”
This scene ran through Elin’s brain repeatedly.
* * *
She woke. The strange slumber clung to her like the bottom of a muddy bog, and she had to fight to peel herself away. It was still dark, and the house was wrapped snuggly in the stillness of snow. She pulled her right arm from the sweat-drenched covers, and the dull ache in her hand became a vivid throbbing.
Her throat was parched. Reaching for the cup she’d placed by her pillow, Elin took a long pull on the spout. As she gulped the icy water, she felt her body relax. The wind had died down, and the only sound in the darkness was the steady breathing of her son beside her.
Why had she had that dream? Because she was worried about Alu? Because she felt guilty about hitting Leelan with the broom and scolding Jesse so harshly? Placing a hand on her sweat-beaded forehead, she felt her fever. “Children must be kicked from the nest.” She ran these words over in her mind. She’d heard them before. But from whom?
The Beast Warrior Page 30