The scent of dark majik twisting men and wolves into something unnatural, trading skins and eyes glowing with hatred as they had chased her to the castle gates. Her later encounter with the changeling who looked like Ceddrych became clearer now and sparked something akin to hope in her chest. She looked to her father for answers.
“Told your brother to stay behind,” he said, “thought I could find something worth s-stealing.” Blood spilled from his lips, garbled his words, yet he struggled to push past it. “Prince found me instead—made a deal with him to spare my life.”
She sank onto the rocks and didn’t notice the cold anymore. Ice in the air filled her veins and she dug her claws into her thighs just shy of piercing skin, just enough to make certain this wasn’t another nightmare. “Me,” she spat out between clenched teeth, “you gave him me.”
“I am—so sorry, Vynasha.” A strange smile tipped the corner of his mouth. “Wynyth loved you most, so like her in every way… couldn’t stand to look at you after she left me.”
Vynasha choked on a sob at the confession and tried to summon compassion for the man her mother had loved, who’d done his best to raise them once upon a time. All she could taste was the bitter truth that her father had tricked her into coming here and at last understood why his abused voice sounded so familiar.
“The beggar in the village… That was you, wasn’t it?”
“Yes.” Old Ced closed his eyes and his sighed as he clutched the belly she’d clawed to shreds earlier. “Grendall knew we shared the old blood somehow… let me come home if I promised to bring you back to him, promised me riches beyond imagining.”
“Grendall?” The gatekeeper’s name stung to even mention, bruised as she was by his compulsion. But this revelation was another level of betrayal.
“Nothing is as it seems…” Old Ced coughed up more blood.
Vynasha tensed, choosing to ignore mention of the gatekeeper now. There was little time left. “Father, how could we share the old blood? We were descended from the old North Lords,” she pressed.
Her father opened his eyes and some of his old strength rose up as he replied, “Yes, my grandfather’s father fled the witch’s curse an age before. Old stories I didn’t believe as a boy. And your mother, Wynyth, her people—came through the mirror, she said, called themselves Phure. Thought it superstitious nonsense…” His brief laugh ended in a violent cough that left him struggling for breath.
Vynasha helped tilt him on his side in spite of her earlier resolve and then cringed when he caught sight of her claws. She clung to that imaginary ice in her veins, incapable of giving him anything more.
He grimaced and he grabbed hold of her hand with surprising deftness. “Wynyth’s blood protected you,” he observed, his voice softer, teetering on the edge of his strength. “I tried to protect you in the castle too, but I couldn’t control my beast shape.”
It was the way he spoke of her mother which made her maintain his grip on her hand as his strength failed. Her voice cracked with emotion. “You did the best you could.”
“Not nearly enough,” he whispered. His admission, filled with all the unspoken things he didn’t have time to say, broke her. She squeezed his hand in reply and, for Wynyth’s sake, softly hummed the same melody sung to her as a child. Old Ced smiled as she sang and her mother’s name fell from his tongue as the light died in his eyes forever.
She hummed Wynyth’s song and held his hand until his body turned cold and stiff with the frozen winds beating against them. Wounds Rrolthoz had inflicted on her still burned and somewhere in the back of her mind, she knew she needed to find shelter and heal them. The beastliness of her new body had to be the only reason she wasn’t dead too.
Her father had broken their fall and saved her life in the end, she supposed. That had to count for something. Maybe it was enough to redeem him.
“My father,” she whispered, again trying to summon feeling for the man who had abandoned her. All she had left was emptiness and the wylderland around them. She pried his fingers from hers carefully and groaned as she climbed to her feet.
The Wylder Mountains surrounded them and when she turned to look back, the faintest roar of the waterfall met her ears. Now the peaks bearing the cave and castle above were shrouded in mist. The faintest pang of loss pulled at her as she remembered those she’d left behind, most of all Grendall, who had forced her to leave him.
I mustn’t think of him now.
The water flowing nearby spread wide from the embankment and deeper into the forested valley ahead. She wondered if this was the same Silver River she’d been plucked from before. Now she could smell the majik in its waters. Had it somehow triggered the changes in her?
She forced her attention to her father’s broken form, numbly assessing the best way to bury him. A small, almost animal instinct within said she should not waste any more time burying her dead. Shelter and food were paramount, especially in this forest. Nevertheless, Old Ced—or Rrolthoz, whoever he had truly been—had saved her life in the end and he was still her father. Rocks were in ample supply on the river’s edge and she started to pile them around his body, ignoring the tremble of her steps. It took every ounce of energy she possessed to completely cover him.
Vynasha sank to her knees as she placed the last rock at the top of the pile and lay for a moment on the rough surface. “I can’t keep burying family members.” She dug her claws against the rocks and all the emotions she kept at bay came rushing back. Sobs shook her as she whispered, “I can’t do this anymore, Mother. Please don’t make me do this again.”
She pressed a hand to her chest and her fingers brushed against an object hanging from her neck. She had completely forgotten about the key hanging from her neck, the same white wood she’d stolen from Soraya’s room in the castle, along with the journal Vynasha had lost. That she still had this last piece, this relic to remind her of all she’d gained and lost, made her grip the key tighter. She hadn’t lost everything, not yet.
The sudden loss of winter sun against her back was almost physical and she turned quickly to see what had cast a shadow.
It was her brother.
She blinked against the vision before her, quite positive it was a delusion. Part of her exhaustion stemmed from knowing the impossible task ahead of her. It was one thing to hope Wolfsbane might track her down, but she’d never dared hope to see her brother again. Even after he’d found her in the caves above the falls, she’d nearly convinced herself it had been a delusion. Old Ced’s story made her believe otherwise. Even if this was her mind playing tricks, if this be the face death chose to greet her with, she would welcome him with open arms.
The man who approached her with careful steps looked quite different from the brother she remembered. His face was riddled with lines and hardened eyes flashed between honey-brown back to green again and practically screamed his disbelief.
She recalled her vision in the dungeon, the fear and loathing in her brother’s eye as he took in her new beastly form.
“Ceddrych?” That wasn’t the gaze of death, and impossible as it was for her to believe, she knew in her heart her brother had come for her at last. He didn’t raise a weapon to her as he had in her vision.
Ceddrych looked from the pile of rocks to her naked form and his eyes softened as he pulled his outer furs from his shoulders without hesitation. “It’s all right, Ashes. Everything’s going to be all right,” he said as he draped his fur cloak over her shoulders and lifted her into his arms. She clung to him, but not too tightly for fear he might look at her claws with the same pain their father had. What would Ceddrych say when he learned what had happened to her, what she had done?
Our father… The words were on the tip of her tongue, but the furs and her brother’s warm body were too comforting. She shut her eyes and welcomed oblivion.
BEASTS HAUNTED HER dreams, snarling and clawing after her flesh and wearing her father’s broken face. She ran from him, begging forgiveness, begging that she migh
t finally forgive him. Sometimes Wynyth’s majik came to life in her limbs, making her skin glow in violet shades until she remembered she was a beast too. Her cries became her father’s haunting snarls and something flickered at the edge of her conscience, something important she needed to remember.
Remember… the voices had said.
Wyll floated in and out of her nightmares, giving her hope when her soul couldn’t bear the sorrow any longer.
“I dreamed I fought a wolf, Asha,” he had said.
“Who won?”
“Do you think you could teach me to make a coat out of its skin?”
Wolfsbane and his daughter Resha had kept Wyll behind while she’d gone searching for that damnable miracle cure, the Source of majik. The Source Odym had promised she would find if she let the curse change her, if she embraced the monster.
“If the Source makes me better, maybe I’ll walk there with you,” Wyll said with a smile. “Maybe I’ll even run.”
“Wyll…” she whispered.
“Sleep, Ashes. You’re safe now.” A warm, familiar voice spoke through her delusions. It sounded like Ceddrych and therefore it must be yet another illusion she was happy to give in to.
Her favorite place to rest was the in-between, where she seemed to float in a peace like death.
She couldn’t tell how long she waited there while her body mended. Strange voices spoke over her in low murmurs in the dark, occasionally accompanied by blurred, luminous figures.
Whispers in the dark had haunted her ever since she came to the castle, so the voices didn’t frighten her. Rather a thick, suffocating silence that followed was what woke her.
After sleeping so long, she came back into her new body slowly. Her fingers sought purchase of the hilt of the dagger the Prince had given her to trim black-stemmed roses, but found fur blankets instead. She jerked at the sensation, so her claws tore at the covers, and opened her eyes.
A fire placed at the center of the strange, one-room house exposed little of her smoky surroundings. The cot she lay in sat against a log wall on one end and various objects lined either side, including a short bookshelf, while meat and herbs hung from the rafters. Smoke rose up through a small hole above, but the air was still permeated with the foul stench. Her new senses made the smell unbearable, her eyes water and the bitter taste of ash coat her tongue.
Vynasha shuddered as she recalled an old memory of scalding ash and licking flames, the scent of burning flesh. Her lungs burned from inhaling the foul-tasting smoke. Determined to build space between herself and the fire, she threw back her covers and stood on unsteady legs. Where was the animal strength that had given her means to escape the castle? She grasped the cabin wall and followed the rough texture until she found a groove, a crack that framed the closed doorway. Desperation for clean air pushed her to force the door open.
She threw up her hands against blinding sunlight as she stumbled out into the unknown. Her snugly wrapped feet sank into ankle-deep snow and her arms flailed as she sought her bearings. Voices called out in the near distance and she hesitated only a moment, weighed whether or not to fear them. She blinked and hoped her sight would adjust to the sunlight soon, so she could judge what sort of people they were. A twisted part of her missed the whispers of the castle walls, though now she knew they belonged to the beasts she had released. The voices of the strangers were as terrifying as they were comforting.
The outline of trees took shape, like gray silhouettes in her blurred vision. Figures darted to and from cottages separated by a path between. At her approach they froze.
Vynasha gasped as their faces cleared to reveal almost human features. Yet an old man with ebony skin scratched one of two horns sprouting from his forehead.
Horns like the Prince’s trophy…
Others had hooves instead of booted feet and fawn-like spots along their sides, while others looked mostly human but for feathers growing from their hair. A small boy with green skin screamed and his mother scooped him up in her arms, the vines twisting her raven hair and glinting gold in the sunlight. They were beautiful and strange, but the ones who looked human appeared out of place beside these people of fable. It was as though the whispering tapestries in the castle had come to life.
Vynasha stumbled and braced her fall with trembling hands as hot tears burned in her eyes.
Witch, they had whispered behind her back in her home village of Whistleande. While all had loved her roses, they’d kept their children a safe distance from her, the cursed witch who grew everlasting roses.
She covered her face with her hands, as much to hide from the lovely but strange faces. Rather than the familiar textured scarring she remembered, the new skin was smooth as silk. She gasped as she ran a hand along her neck and up her arms. This was when she noticed her fingers were still tipped with black beastly claws and her tongue grazed along the sharpened ends of her teeth.
Now I truly am a monster.
She sank to her knees and grabbed fists full of snow.
“Look at her hands, Mummy!” another child shouted.
“Keep away, Rowan,” hissed a woman. “She is one of the cursed.”
Vynasha blotted out the horrid sound of the children screaming in the distance and in her distant memory.
“Ashes?” Ceddrych spoke softly over her as he cupped her face with calloused hands and brushed her tears away.
Vynasha stared at her brother in wonder and grief as she recalled the events following her transformation. “Ceddrych, our father…” she rasped.
“Never mind him.” Ceddrych shook his head and his brow wrinkled with concern. “Ashes, what are you doing out of bed? You’re going to freeze if we don’t get you beside a fire.” He lifted her in his arms as though she weighed nothing.
“I’ve done so many horrible things,” she said against his chest and stared at her new hand resting over his heart.
“We’ve all done horrible things, Ashes.” He turned his head to the other villagers with a harsh glare.
“Don’t take me back there.” She buried her head into his fur cloak and breathed in the scent of him. “I can’t stand the smoke.”
Fire, smoke and ash.
She ran her fingers along her face again, already missing the constant reminder of what had happened, of her mistake.
Ceddrych held her close enough she could smell the wolf resting beneath his human skin, could scrutinize the fine detail of a face once called boyishly handsome and now lined by a harsh life. A scar on his left cheek also dented the bridge of his nose. His skin was darker than she remembered and his lower face hidden by a thick ruddy beard. His brown hair had grown long enough for him to tie part of it behind his neck, though some still fell into his gold-and-green-flecked brown eyes, familiar as much as they were strange.
She watched, terrified, mesmerized as he looked from her clawed hand back to her altered eyes and said, “I’m so sorry, Ashes.”
“Ceddrych?” She lifted a hand to cup his cheek and knew for certain he was real. This was real. “The curse changed you, too?”
His mouth turned up at the corners in what she knew to be a sardonic smirk. “It’s a long, sad tale, little sister.”
“Wanderer!”
Ceddrych tensed, holding her even tighter as he hissed through his teeth, “Hide your hands and don’t look at him, no matter what he says.”
One of the changelings came to stand before them, smelling strongly of both wolf and human, and Vynasha pressed her nose to her brother’s torso. Although she could not see the wolf man, his anger was palpable, along with a subtle undercurrent of fear he kept hidden.
“You were allowed to bring this foul-smelling stranger into our midst,” the man snarled, “but you were also told to keep her away from the others. We cannot risk her unleashing her dark majik on the village.”
Ceddrych was calm in the face of his menace. “I never needed your permission to bring my sister home, Baalor. Our business does not concern you. Now if we’re done, I’m ta
king her back inside where it’s warm.”
And safe, Vynasha thought.
Baalor leaned closer and sniffed. “Tread carefully, Wanderer. The elders may favor you, but I control the pack.”
“Perhaps you should go deal with the pack, then, and leave us to our own affair.” Ceddrych turned his back to the wolf man, Baalor, and marched back toward his house.
Baalor called after them, “She will never be welcomed here, Wanderer. She’s not one of us!”
Ceddrych trembled as though fighting an internal struggle, but kept his grip tight on her. Vynasha turned her head past the village homes with their smoking chimney holes and the main street to the jagged horizon. A winter storm brewed tumultuous gray amid the tallest mountain peaks and for a moment, she could see the outline of the castle.
Leave this place and do not look back.
“Rest, Ashes.” Ceddrych spoke against her ear and held her closer as he ignored the villagers. “We’re almost home.”
She fought to keep the silhouette of the castle, her home, in sight, but exhaustion stole her desires away.
Again, her dreams were a tangled web of faces both past and present, beckoning her to remember their words. The dreams were wiped clean from her mind the moment she opened her eyes and found her brother watching over her.
“Ceddrych.” She spoke his name with a smile. His eyes crinkled at the corners, but his gaze lingered over her sharp teeth. Vynasha pulled her hand from his and fought the sudden urge to flee.
His brow lowered for a moment, but then he lifted his chin with determination. “Ashes, I am sorry about Baalor. I stepped out only a moment to speak with the twins and then I heard the screams.”
Looking him directly was impossible then. “You don’t have to apologize for that.” She looked up through her lashes.
“No, I do need to apologize.” He paused, his jaw tightening. “I need to apologize for being foolish enough to let Father talk me into leaving you six years ago.”
“Ceddrych.” Forgetting her new teeth, she bit her lip, full with all she needed but dreaded to say. “I don’t even know how to begin.” She stuttered when he took her hand in his and rubbed his thumb over her claws.
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