by Emma Hamm
Her leg had not suffered a similar fate. The bone of her thigh had been sticking out past her hip, while the other end had somehow stuck out in the other direction. They’d wrestled both back into place, but the scars would be nasty, and she might never walk normally again.
The Dread had given her herbs, although she didn’t know their name. It tasted like peppermint and wine. Too many flavors to count which had made her gag. “Dread medicine,” the creature had called it.
Amicia tried hard not to think about the consequences of this. She would heal; that was the first step. And if she didn’t walk the same way, then…
She shoved the thought away from the forefront of her mind once again. Dark thoughts would swallow her whole if she let them. Whispers claiming she would forever be useless. That her life would never be the same. That the Dread had ruined her even in her human form, whether they’d changed her or not.
And then, if she let her mind wander down that road too far, she would hate the creature who had saved her life. It wasn’t his fault that his master had thrown her from the roof. It wasn’t his fault she had come here. Nor was it his fault the Dread had attacked her home.
It wasn’t his fault.
Amicia hadn’t thought of the beast who had helped her as anything other than an “it” until this moment. But now, she realized he had a sex. And he might have a name.
She paused. “What’s your name?”
He had been walking right behind her, stepping on her heel as he hovered to catch her if she fell. At her question, he froze. No breath moved his bare chest, nor did he appear to blink for the long heartbeats as he thought about her question.
“I don’t know,” he replied. “I don’t think I have a name.”
“You must have a name.” Amicia gestured with her uninjured arm, pointing up and down his body. “This wasn’t always your form, if I understand your kind well enough. I saw one of my own change into one of you. So you must have been like me at some point.”
He swallowed hard, eyes widening until she could see their whites. He started breathing again, this time hyperventilating with each word. “I don’t know my name. I don’t have a name. I didn’t have a life before becoming one of the Dread.”
She’d said something wrong. Something had caused the poor thing to go into shock.
Amicia leaned over and placed her hand against his arm. They both stared down in shock at the contact where she had been trying to comfort him.
His skin was gritty. Like sandpaper. She’d felt nothing like it before. Even a lizard was smooth in some places. But touching him was like touching rough granite.
“I don’t enjoy being touched,” he murmured, still staring at their contact point like she had shoved a knife in between his ribs.
Oh, no. She hadn’t meant to make him even more uncomfortable. She’d just been trying to make him feel better about not remembering his name. Which, in her opinion, was a rather important part of being a person. Knowing your name was knowing who you were and where you came from.
She dropped her hand from his side. “I’m sorry.”
He still stared at the now vacant space where her fingertips had brushed his skin. “I didn’t know, either.”
He didn’t know he didn’t like to be touched? Amicia couldn’t imagine why he wouldn’t remember that, but then again it appeared he remembered little.
Every piece of knowledge she learned about him and his kind tugged at her heartstrings. Though she was still terrified of what he could do to her, he seemed more human than any of the others. He wanted to remember. She could feel that deep in her soul somehow.
“Bernard,” she murmured, watching him for any kind of reaction. She wanted to snap him out of the odd mood he’d lost himself in.
The Dread looked up at her, his eyes wide once more. “What did you say?”
“You look like a Bernard to me.”
“I look like nothing,” he replied. “I look like one of the Dread, and we all look the same. We are meant to look the same so none might discern a difference when we attack. We are an army of beasts and nothing more.”
“You are different, though.” Amicia gripped the crutches and made her way to the door again. “Besides, you’re the only one who talks to me. I’ll say that’s a Bernard if anyone could be.”
He repeated the name behind her as he followed, the quiet word said repeatedly until she heard him snort. “It’s a silly name.”
“Why would you say that? It means the bear, brave and hardy.”
“That’s why it’s a silly name.” The Dread now called Bernard strode ahead of her so he could lead her toward the baths. “I’m nothing like a bear. I’m just a weakling who couldn’t even fight with the other Dread.”
“Strength means not only physical prowess,” she replied. “Strength can be a person’s ability to withstand great hardship. It can be a person’s ability to seek flaws in their own soul and fix them.”
They made their way through the halls of the chateau. Now that she could see the building in the sunlight, Amicia realized this place was far more beautiful. Rays of sunshine danced on the gilded edgings, turning the entire hall into a beam of light. The statues glowed, the white marble pristine despite all the time that had passed since a servant dusted their faces.
Her eyes hurt staring at such perfection, so Amicia watched her feet instead of all the surrounding things. But even the floor was lovely. Fissures of dark marble split through the white like veins of a living being. With each step, she followed the dark flow toward something she couldn’t imagine.
“Breathe,” Bernard said. “You’ve stopped breathing, human.”
“My name is Amicia,” she replied. “And such splendor was not created for eyes such as mine.”
“But it was created for mine?” He snorted. “Mademoiselle, it is not for any of us here.”
He had a point, and one she couldn’t quite deny. Blowing out a breath, she focused on keeping herself upright and moving.
In the three weeks of her healing, her arm had gone from white hot agony to an ache that never disappeared. It wasn’t as bad as her leg, as though her body wanted to focus on one injury at a time. Her leg was no better. The ragged, red wounds on either side of her thigh were worrisome.
She didn’t want to lose the leg. Amicia didn’t know if she would survive the loss. She wasn’t some noblewoman who had servants who might help her. At least then she would only be looking at the life of a spinster. But as a peasant? She wouldn’t be able to work. Wouldn’t be able to make her way, and in the end, would be a beggarwoman on the streets where she would die in the matter of one winter. Disappearing into the forgotten areas of people’s minds.
“Where did the beggar woman go?” someone might ask in a few years after her passing. “She used to fix my watch whenever it broke.”
Amicia forced her thoughts away from morbid subjects. For now, she was here, and she would need to keep her mind here.
Bernard led her away from the areas of the chateau where she had already explored and toward a door she’d never seen before. Glass window panes had once been inserted in the frame. Now, the glass was little more than jagged edges.
Through the door, she could see out into the labyrinth of an old hedge maze. The backyard, she realized. This was the place where she had likely fallen.
“Here,” Bernard said, reaching out and wrapping an arm around her waist. He took in a deep inhale at the contact and a muscle jumped in his jaw. “Let me help you down the stairs.”
“I can manage on my own.”
“We both know that’s a lie.”
It was, but she wasn’t happy to admit it. She wanted to do things on her own and rush the healing process. Amicia knew it might result in some kind of injury that she’d regret. However, that didn’t mean she wouldn’t stubbornly push her body.
Together, they stepped down from the chateau and out into the fields beyond.
Amicia made the mistake of looking back at the chateau a
nd saw a small indent in the snow just next to the door. A hollow with snow faded to pale pink.
“Is that—”
“Yes,” Bernard interrupted her. He swept the snow out of her way with his wings, making her process through the snow almost easy. “There is no other way to get to the baths. I’m sorry you have to see the place again.”
“I don’t remember it,” she whispered. “I only dream about falling, but I don’t remember hitting the ground.”
“Hopefully it never comes back to you.” Bernard shuddered, his great wings flopping on his back before he returned to sweeping the snow out of the way. “It made a horrid sound.”
She didn’t need to know what it sounded like when his master thrust her off the rooftop to her death. And she had no question the King of the Dread had intended to kill her. His last words still played in her head.
You should never have come here.
What had he meant? To this chateau with long picks of ice dripping from the rooftop? To the home of the Dread who would hunt her down until she couldn’t run any farther? She didn’t know which one he’d meant, but it didn’t matter.
He’d tried to kill her. And for that, she could never forgive him.
Bernard led her around the edge of the chateau. She looked for a building where the bathing house would be. In her small town, it was little more than a shack with separate doors for males and females. The men were always sectioned away from the women, but there was a flimsy divider between the two areas. Some couples had been daring enough to remove the divider when no one was looking.
Sneaking a peek of each other’s bodies was just part of the flirting game. A game she had never indulged in when there was work to help her father with. Sometimes, she wished there had been a man willing to court her. A man who had wanted to see her in the bathing houses.
Now, the likelihood of that happening had disappeared. Her city was gone. Her body mangled and likely ruined for the rest of her life.
Amicia let out a small breath and forced her tense shoulders to relax. At least now she knew there wasn’t a reason other than her own unfortunate circumstances. Her mind wasn’t the threat or the discouragement to men. It was something out of her control.
“Here we are!” Bernard said, his voice a chirp of happiness. “Let me get the ice out of the way for you.”
“Ice?” Amicia looked around for a bathing house with warm water and steaming comfort. There was none.
Instead, Bernard leaned down to what looked like a watering trough and punched his fist through the ice at the top. Water underneath splashed up against his fist.
Chunks floated at the surface still. Cold enough that all the gooseflesh on her arms popped to life without even touching it. Amicia gulped. “This is the bathing house?”
“House? There’s no bathing house, per se. But we bathe here when we need to.”
“Oh,” she said with a quiet breath. “This is too cold for me to bathe in, Bernard. I’ll catch my death out here.”
He looked up at the bright sun and cloudless sky, then wordlessly handed her a cloth to clean with. “I think it’s warm enough for you. I’ll be just around the chateau. Yell if you fall down.” He started to move away, but then hesitated. “Please don’t fall. I’ve already seen you naked enough times. It’s even more uncomfortable now that you’re awake.”
She might have retorted with something sarcastic, but Amicia was too busy staring at the icy trough. She waved him off and then shuffled close enough to lean against its edge without falling down.
Icy waters for a bath. Broken body and an army of creatures who wanted her dead. What had happened to her quaint little life?
Every inch of her body rebelled at the thought of touching that water to her skin at all. She would catch a cold and her death. Bernard wasn’t a healer; he didn’t know what would happen if she got sick.
And yet she was the one who had claimed she was strong enough to do this. Her pride would never recover if she limped back to that room, covered in blood, dirt, and who knew what else.
Angrily, she reached up and stripped off the makeshift top the Dread and herself had constructed. It wrapped around her well enough to cover all the bits that needed to be covered, but unraveling it took time. Eventually, she bared herself to the waist.
Dipping the washcloth into the water numbed her fingers. She bounced on her foot, shifting her balance to prepare for the cold.
“Damn it,” she muttered and then rubbed the cloth over her torso and arms.
Amicia made it a point to never swear. She didn’t like such dirty words slipping off her tongue, but the cold made her say things she’d only heard outside of taverns. Over and over she cleaned the dirt from her body, soiling the water and making her entire body shiver and quake.
But the longer she did it, the more it felt good. She was once again the woman she knew. Though broken and tired, she was no longer the runaway covered in grime, but the woman who had lived in a tinker’s home and knew how to save herself.
Hands shaking but mind clear, she felt gooseflesh raise on her back. Not from the cold, but from eyes staring down at her.
She stiffened, pressed the icy cloth against her breasts, and glanced over her shoulder up at the windows of the chateau. There, in the farthest windows where the sun reflected off the still intact glass, was a shadow.
She couldn’t see who dared to watch her bathe. Her gut, however, knew who it was. The King of the Dread. The only person who made her skin crawl and heat at the same time. It had to be him. She would know the feeling of his stare even from all the way down here.
Every ounce of her hard-won strength drained out of her body. White faced, dizzy, she stared up at the chateau and waited for him to burst out of the windows. She waited for him to order her to her death once again.
When he did nothing, she turned away from the fearsome creature. Staring up at him did nothing. She couldn’t change the path he sent her down anymore than she could change her own broken and battered body.
Amicia woodenly dipped the cloth back into the water and continued with her washing. She finished her top half, then found she couldn’t take off her pants. Not with him watching.
Instead, she dipped the cloth into the water and shoved it down the borrowed pants, wiping what she could before leaving the washcloth behind. She wrapped herself up in the makeshift shirt. It didn’t cover her all the way this time, but it covered what it had to cover.
She turned to stare defiantly back up at the chateau, only to see the shadow had disappeared.
Chapter 14
The King of the Dread set aside the tome in his hand, staring at the door upon which someone dared to knock against its surface and interrupt him. Had he not requested silence? For at least the rest of the evening?
He ground his teeth. Anger bubbled in his chest, impossible to control, and yet he wrestled it back into the recesses of his mind. His people knew how to take orders. He’d drilled it into their heads from the moment they became one of his. If they dared knocking on the door, that meant there was something wrong or something that needed his attention.
There was a time when he wouldn’t have cared. When he hadn’t tried to control the rage burning in his chest like a living being. Now, he knew to take a few breaths and give his own people the benefit of the doubt.
When had he learned how to do that?
“Enter,” he barked.
The door creaked open, so slowly he wondered if it was a stiff breeze blowing against it rather than the hand of one of his army. And yet, a gray foot entered the room followed by a body he recognized.
The King pinched his nose, inhaling to calm the instinct to kill before he listened. “What is it?”
The Dread was the one who looked after the human woman. The one who had completely and utterly shifted the way things were done in this chateau. A human was alive, walking the halls and the Dread had to control themselves. They never controlled their urges. She did not understand the impact she had,
and he couldn’t think straight.
He’d even gone to the library, again, to clear his mind. To lose himself in the pages of a book where he could think of only fiction and not reality.
Even in his sanctuary, she was there. Just outside the window and undressing as if she didn’t have a care in the world. As if the Dread were just animals who didn’t look at human bodies in the same way.
He wasn’t a damned horse or dog. And her body was exquisite in the way of a working woman. She wasn’t some noble lady who had spent her life indoors. Her back was a map of adventures, scars, and sunburns that had left strange, lacing patterns. He could see it all, even from three stories up.
Suddenly, his sanctuary was invaded with thoughts of soft skin and memories that he shouldn’t have. The King of the Dread was a monster. He’d never touched a human woman other than to turn her into one of his army.
But, he remembered the velvet softness of a woman’s thigh. The graceful dip of her waist rising to her hip as she rested in a bed beside him. The way her ribs expanded with each breath, revealing the delicate bones that caged her heart.
These memories couldn’t possibly be his. He didn’t know whose they were, but the King had always been a king. Nothing more and nothing less.
The Dread shifted forward, clearing its throat.
Had he been stuck in his mind again? “What is it?” he repeated.
“As I was saying, the girl is healing well.”
“Woman,” the King snarled. “Don’t try to paint her as a child to garner my sympathy.” The idea of her as a child made him uncomfortable.
Besides, he’d seen the way her body looked, or at least half of it. The woman was no child, although she might want the others to think of her that way. If her game was to get them to pity her, then she would have a much more difficult time doing so than she realized. His army was unkind to a fault. They were selfish beasts.
He’d designed them that way.
The King closed his eyes and tilted his head to the side, trying to chase the thought like a popped bubble in his mind. He’d made them that way? He hadn’t created the Dread any more than they had created him. They were a product of his species. Weren’t they?