by James Tate
Her mouth tightened, and her nostrils flared. “You know, I’m getting pretty sick of taking this shit from you, Rybet,” she snapped. “Yeah, I took a payoff to lie and spy on you. So fucking what? You would have done the exact same thing in my shoes, so just get off your damn high horse.”
I narrowed my eyes at her, anger burning in my throat. “That, right there, proves how little you really know me, Jules. Just stay out of my way until I wind up dead. It won’t be too much longer, and you can go back to the Pond with your fat payoff.”
Her cheeks colored with anger of her own, and she parked her fists on her hips. “I’m not apologizing to you, Rybet. You landed yourself into this mess, and once again you’re reaping the rewards of Master Bloodeye’s protection. Fake identity created and the real Callaluna ‘taken care of’ so she wouldn’t mess up your scam? Typical Rybet, slipping out of trouble and into a cushy life as a lady. And now you have a chance at becoming queen?” She barked a harsh laugh. “You think you’re so much better than us just because you’ve never been forced to spread your legs? Well, maybe you got a taste of what it feels like to be a whore the other night, given how pale you were in the morning.” Her lip curled in an ugly sneer, and I just stood there, frozen in shock.
She spoke quietly, not stupid enough to blow our cover, but her words were loaded with venom and hate.
“So yeah, you’d better believe I sold you out. Pond-dwellers don’t have friends. We look out for ourselves because no one else is going to. You know this.” She stepped closer, her angry scowl twisting her features. “Or have you already forgotten who you really are?”
Before I could formulate a response, really, before I could even recover from the verbal slap she’d just delivered, a woman’s scream ripped through the sounds of the market.
Panic flooded through me, and I snapped my attention in the direction the sound had come from, fully prepared to find someone dropping dead from poison. In no way did I believe that Taipanus was done with his killing spree.
But instead, it was just one of the remaining ladies—Lady Liesel of Ashfall—screaming in horror over the price of honey balls.
“This is surely a joke!” she exclaimed to the stallkeeper, “You want five coppers for one honey ball? That’s absurd! They shouldn’t be any more than two coppers, and that’s if you’re in the middle of Ashfall, for goodness sake.”
Her theatrics had given Jules a reason to push our argument aside before giving me a chance to respond, and she moved closer to the ladies so that we couldn’t speak without being overheard.
“You saw us coming and increased your prices, didn’t you?” Lady Liesel accused, pointing at the poor woman working the booth like she was a highway robber. “I am trying very hard not to lose it right now, but I demand to know what makes your honey balls the most expensive in all of Teich.”
Liesel placed her hands on her hips and glared at the woman.
“Are they?” I interrupted, trying to spare the honey ball seller from this entitled hissy fit. “I frequently see honey balls at this price in Lakehaven, higher even.”
Lady Liesel turned her furious glare on me, and I caught Gracelin smirking nearby from the corner of my eye. “Oh, and you’re the expert, are you Callaluna?”
I sighed and rolled my eyes. Getting into a pointless argument with a spoiled, bratty aristocrat was exactly what I didn’t need in my day. “Just don’t buy them if you can’t afford them. It’s not hard; just walk away.”
This seemed to fan her anger higher, and her eyes narrowed. “I can afford it. That’s not the point here—”
Whatever else she was about to say no longer mattered. From the shadows of the alleyway behind the honey ball stand there was a clattering of sound, like claws on stone, then a huge, wild beast burst through the cart.
Shards of wood and hot honey splattered everywhere as everyone in the vicinity dove for cover, but it was too late for Lady Liesel. The creature landed directly on top of her, and as I watched, it tore out her throat with one powerful wrench of its jaws.
Blood sprayed out across the dusty street and splattered my boots as I stared in shock. The beast tearing Liesel apart was like nothing I’d ever seen before and, judging by the terrified screams of the villagers running for their lives, neither had anyone else.
It was vaguely dog-like in shape, with black splotches on its white rear like you’d see on any domestic animal, but that’s where the similarities ended. It’s grotesque snout housed a double set of jaws, one inside the other, so it was two sets of blood-smeared fangs that snapped at a guard who tried to slash at it with a sword.
“What is that thing?” Jules shrieked, damn near deafening me as she cowered in the doorway behind me. Smart girl, she knew she stood a better chance of survival sticking close to me than running.
The beast was crouched over Lady Liesel’s mangled corpse, not willing to give up its meal, even as it fought off the two guards attempting to kill it. It should have been an easy thing, two human men armed with swords fighting a single—albeit horrifying—animal.
But they were losing. Badly.
The dog thing was quick, dodging every strike of their blades, and when one stepped too close, the beast swiped at him with deadly claws. The strike connected with the guard’s midsection, slicing cleanly through his armor and tearing through his belly like paper. The second guard faltered, gasping at the sight of his companion clutching at his slippery intestines as they fell from his opened torso.
It was all the opening that the beast needed, and it reared up on its hind legs and tore the man’s throat out with one vicious bite of those double jaws.
“Rybet, we need to get out of here,” Jules urged me in a quivering voice while tugging on my arm. “Quickly, while it’s distracted.”
Everyone else seemed to have the same thought, as the corner of the market we were in was almost totally empty. Only Jules and the honey ball stallkeeper were left, and a quick glance told me the stallkeeper wasn’t going anywhere in a hurry.
When the beast had smashed through her cart, a long shard of wood had embedded itself in her leg, and she was clutching it in pain as blood pooled below her.
“I can’t leave this thing to kill more people,” I muttered, mostly to myself, as I dug out my new knives. I quickly tucked two into the thick leather belt around my hips and palmed the third. Throwing it wouldn’t work in such close confines, but that meant I would need to get a whole lot closer to use it as a dagger.
“You’re not serious!” Jules hissed, clearly seeing what I planned to do. “Don’t be insane; that thing just killed three people!”
She wasn’t telling me anything I couldn’t already see with my own eyes, but what was I supposed to do? Turn tail and run, leaving the poor stallkeeper to be eaten alive? How many others would die before the beast was done or killed?
“Jules, no one is forcing you to stay,” I snapped at her. “Just go.”
She made a strangled sound of indecision, but I ignored her. She would only distract me, so whether she stayed or left, I needed to just focus on the task at hand.
Killing the mutated dog thing.
Almost as if it could sense my intentions, it raised its bloody snout in my direction and growled. It had six eyes, and every one of them was blood-red and locked on me as I shifted my weight forward into a fighting stance.
I stared back at it, not blinking, not dropping my gaze, not showing any sign of submission. If it was any relation to a dog, my stare would be seen as an act of aggression, and that was exactly what I was aiming for.
Not taking its six eyes off me for even a second, the creature lowered its snout back to Liesel’s shredded corpse. For a moment, it seemed like it was sniffing her, but when it raised its head once more—this time with a black velvet pouch clenched between the inner row of fangs—it became clear.
“The stone!” I exclaimed with a gasp.
Not really pausing to think through my actions, I dove forward.
T
ackling the beast, I stabbed at it’s thick neck with my dagger while trying to wrestle the velvet bag from its jaws. But it was no use. The fabric tore, and I was close enough to get a prime view of the stone inside the creature’s bloody mouth before it disappeared down its throat.
A scream of frustration escaped me as I ducked and rolled out of the way of slashing claws and gnashing teeth. But I wasn’t done. Not by a long shot. Something else was driving my actions now, forcing me to engage with the creature, despite every fiber of my being screaming that I needed to run.
Scrambling backwards, I tried to regain my feet but slipped in something wet. Blood and entrails from the disemboweled guard squished underfoot, and I crashed back down hard, cracking my elbow on the ground and hissing with pain.
The beast saw its opportunity and lunged at me, three long claws slicing through the meat of my shoulder and pinning me to the ground as I howled in pain. It’s bloody maw dipped to my clothing, sniffing out where I had stashed my own velvet pouch containing Queen Ophelia’s crown stone.
“Not today, you ugly bastard!” I snarled, slashing up with my dagger hand—thankfully not the arm that was pinned through the shoulder—and stabbing up through the beast’s lower jaw.
My knife sunk in deep, then stuck there.
“Fuck,” I panted, but it had given me a small window of opportunity. The dagger had stuck in the roof of the monstrous creature’s snout, preventing its mouth from opening to rip my head off.
I needed to end it, fast, before it got the use of its teeth back, because I had zero desire to end up in a bloody puddle of flesh like Liesel had.
Hitching my knees up under myself, I tucked my feet under the beast’s belly and kicked with all my strength. The thing weighed more than I’d expected, but the movement was just enough to lift its razor claws out of my shoulder and toss the animal to the side.
It rolled on impact, crashing into a stall selling beautiful, colored-glass lanterns. The sound of shattering glass filled the air as the creature scrambled for its feet and knocked more and more lanterns to the ground.
Worse yet, some of those lanterns were lit. As they smashed, the gasoline within them splashed across the ground and quickly caught fire, creating a wall of fire at the beast’s back.
It pawed at the knife in its neck, trying to tug it out with one of those deadly claws, but I wasn’t waiting around to see if it could manage to get free. This shit needed to end. Now.
Gritting my teeth, I pushed forward, barrelling into the creature and desperately praying the flames wouldn’t catch my clothing as we rolled back and forth, fighting for dominance.
It probably only took a few moments, but it felt like hours by the time—finally—I got the upper hand. My superior body weight held the beast down, and I clenched my jaw to ignore the tearing of its hind paws ripping up my legs. Instead, I snatched out another of my beautiful Isenmedin daggers and used it to hack at the beast’s throat, not stopping until it lay still and its head was partially severed from its body.
“Ry!” Jules’s scream snapped me out of the blood-soaked haze I had been operating in, and I blinked up at her. “Get out of there! You’re about to be burned!”
She was a couple of yards away, yelling at me but not coming any closer. All around me, orange flames licked at every surface.
Somehow in my fight with the creature, we’d crashed through a window and were in the front room of someone’s home. A home that was quickly becoming a burning inferno.
My body was a mass of pain, and when I tried to push to my feet, I collapsed. The beast had torn through one of the large muscles at the back of my thigh, and I couldn’t support my weight on that leg, no matter how badly I wanted to.
But I couldn’t leave yet, anyway. The creature had swallowed Lady Liesel’s jewel, and I knew beyond any doubt I couldn’t leave it behind.
Blocking Jules’s panicked screams from my mind, I propped myself up on my elbow and used one of my daggers to tear open the mutated animal’s body. Warm blood splashed out and onto the ground beneath me, and I found myself needing to swallow several times to prevent myself from vomiting.
“It’s just a deer,” I whispered to myself. “It’s no different than slaughtering a deer.”
But no matter how many times I’d gone hunting with Bloodeye in the woods surrounding Lakehaven, I’d never gotten used to the feeling of sinking my hand into hot, wet entrails.
Bile rose in my throat, and I dry-retched countless times as I butchered the feral creature, digging around inside its carcass until I found not one, but two small stones.
“Rybet!” Jules screamed again as I pocketed the two stones and retrieved my knives. No way in hell was I losing those babies so soon.
I glanced up in her direction, but she was gone. A burning beam had fallen across the window, completely obliterating my escape route.
“Shit,” I croaked. The room was almost totally full of smoke now, and I needed to lay my cheek against the floor in order to breathe. My eyes stung and my lungs were beginning to burn, but that pain was nothing compared to the deep gashes on my legs and the puncture wounds in my shoulder. They burned so much that I patted myself down to check if my clothing was, in fact, on fire.
Frantically, I tried to look for another way out, but the smoke and flame were so thick that my visibility range was shrinking by the second.
Was this it for me? Was this how I died?
A strange sort of calm washed over me, and my panic of seconds ago faded away.
I’d known my days were numbered from the second I’d taken Lady Callaluna’s identity, so this was really no great shock. Hell, I shouldn’t have even survived the poisoning, so I was already on bonus time.
As my air supply grew smalle, and my lungs tightened further, I was filled with only regret. Regret that I’d met my princes so late in my short life, and regret that I had let societal expectations keep us all at arm’s length for the most part.
“Oh dear,” a man’s voice murmured above me. Somehow, I heard him clearly despite the roaring of the fire. “No, no, no, this won’t do at all.” A heavy hand stroked down my hair, then settled on the back of my neck as his lips brushed my ear. “Not at all. I still have plans for you, Rybet Waise.” He chuckled my name, and the sound pushed a deep, bone-shaking shudder of terror through me.
Who was he? And why was I so incredibly, soul-deep positive that he was bad news?
I’d lost the ability to move, my cheek still pressed to the ground and my vision darkening from lack of oxygen, so I could see nothing of my savior. If, indeed, that’s what he was.
Moments before I lost the battle for consciousness, strong hands lifted me and tossed me over a broad shoulder like I was little more than a rag doll.
So it wasn’t time to die after all.
10
Sharp stones bit into my bare feet as I made my way down the gravel road. One foot after another. Left, right, left, right. Just keep walking.
My head was fogged and pounding like I’d had a hard night on scarlettberry wine, but my body buzzed with energy. It was similar to how I’d felt after being caught in the wild magic storm, but more.
Where was I?
Why wasn’t I wearing any shoes?
What had happened...?
Yet despite these questions, I kept walking.
One foot after another.
Left, right, left, right.
Just keep walking... until you reach the town.
Whose voice was that echoing inside my head and driving me forward to follow his instructions?
Each step I took carried me closer and closer to the town ahead of me. A town that looked strangely familiar. But why? Had I been here before?
Confusion rattled around in my clouded brain, and I rubbed my forehead with my fingertips. Not pausing my feet for even a second, I brought my fingers in front of my face and peered at the nails.
They were painted a bright shade of red that reminded me of fire... or blood.
&
nbsp; A tremble ran through me, and anxiety churned my stomach. Fire and blood. Why did that give me such chills?
“Barmzig’s tears!” a woman exclaimed, jerking my attention away from my painted nails—a beauty routine I had never undertaken in my life—and to the red-faced farmer woman on the road ahead of me. “You’re her! You’re the missing girl!”
I blinked at her, baffled by what she might mean, but my feet gave me no choice to stop and chat. I hadn’t yet reached the town, so I couldn’t stop. Instead I just gave her a polite smile and continued along the road.
She dropped her handcart and hurried to keep up with me, peering at me with wide eyes and looking me up and down.
“Lady, where have you been? The princes have been worried sick; they practically tore the whole village apart looking for you!” The woman was practically gasping she was so excited, but I was nothing but confused.
“Princes?” I asked her, baffled. “Why would...” I trailed off as fragments of memories skated through my mind. Of botany classes and sword fights, of gauntlets, poison, and stolen kisses. Lastly, of fire... and blood.
I sucked in a sharp breath, pressing a hand to my thundering heart.
The animal in the marketplace! The fight and then the fire... it was all flooding back to me, and panic flooded my system.
Not bothering to question the woman any further, I gathered my billowing skirts up in my hands and started running. Faster and faster, one foot after another, until I reached the town.
Shards of broken memories crashed around in my head like waves on rocks, and my bare feet pounded the earth as I headed straight to the inn we had been set to stay in. As hard as I tried not to look, I couldn’t help noticing how many burned-out buildings I passed or how quiet the streets were.
Would they even still be here? How long had it been since the fire? And where had I been?
I crashed through the inn door with all my weight, stumbling and just barely saving myself from face planting before regaining my feet.
“Are they here?” I gasped out, demanding answers of the startled innkeeper, who stared at me in shock, her face as white as a sheet.