“What is it?”
She shook her head. “How can you possibly be content with this?”
The lines furrowing his brow deepened. “Content with what?”
“With me,” she whispered.
Ceddrych followed her gaze and his thumb stilled over her claws. He enclosed her hand with both of his and leaned forward. “You are my sister, Vynasha.”
“I am a monster.”
His eyes flashed, revealing a hint of the wolf within the man. “You are my sister and this is my fault.”
A laugh bubbled through her at the absurdity of it all. “Forgive me, Ceddrych, but how is what I’ve become your fault?”
“I told our father to come this way. He was ready to turn west, try some of the villages in the Eirwen Mountains, but I wanted to press on. I thought if we went a little farther north, I could more easily convince him to return home.”
It was surreal to hear of things she had only ever speculated about during the long, hard winter months with Wyll. Painful as it was to hear him speak of their father, with all she had yet to confess, she still asked, “How did you come across the lost city?”
A troubled frown passed over his face. “Father came across a hunter who told him of a lost city while I was setting up camp. He also said to stay far away from the evil place.” He shook his head. “You can imagine how Old Ced took that. ‘Imagine the riches, boy! No one’s been there in ages and it’s ripe for the picking,’ he tried to tell me, the bloody fool.”
Old Ced’s broken form haunted her mind, the look in his eyes as he said, “Thought I could find something worth stealing…” She opened her mouth to tell Ceddrych what had happened after, the missing pages of their story. Fear stole the words from her throat before she could find courage to speak.
“I stayed behind with our camp while he went off, searching for stolen silver,” Ceddrych continued. “Spent maybe a week alone, waiting. I had half a mind to leave the old man and come home, but I couldn’t face the girls without him. Can you imagine what Tamyra would have said?”
At the mention of Tamyra, Vynasha couldn’t bear to leave him in ignorance any longer. “Ceddrych…” She waited for his honey-golden eyes to meet hers. The words stuck to her tongue, painful enough to say to strangers, but this was worse. “Tamyra, Adriaa and Iona are dead. They—they died in a fire.”
Ceddrych hung his head and some of his long hair fell into his face, but he squeezed her hand, silently bidding her continue.
“I wasn’t there when it happened.” She closed her eyes, unable to meet his eye.
My fault.
“I was in our cave, but I almost felt it happen, Ceddrych. I smelled smoke first and ran until I could see the flames. I heard them screaming inside and didn’t think when I ran after them. I couldn’t reach Adriaa or Iona’s rooms, but Tamyra and Wyll were staying in the attic. I ran inside and Tamyra was pinned by one of the rafters. Wyll was unconscious, but she told me to take him and leave. He was burning, so I grabbed him and ran out as fast as I could. The house collapsed after we came out. I smothered Wyll’s flames with my hands. I—I didn’t even notice my burns until after. Wyll’s wounds never fully healed.” She took a long shuddering breath and opened her eyes to find Ceddrych’s face coated with tell-tale wetness. He shook his head and wiped her tear-streaked cheeks.
“I am so bloody sorry, little sister.” His voice hitched and then he pulled her roughly into his arms, held her to his chest. Vynasha clung to him, relieved and hating herself all over again.
“No, Ceddrych. It… it was my fault I wasn’t there to stop the fire,” she said. “I would have gone to bed last. I would have made sure all the flames were put out. It was such a stupid bloody mistake and I killed them because I was pouting like a child in our cave.”
Ceddrych ran his fingers through her tangled hair. “Maybe you could have stopped the fire from happening, maybe not. You saved Wyll, Ashes, and you saved yourself, that’s all that matters now. If you had been in the house, there is no guarantee you wouldn’t have died too, and then I never would have known what happened.”
And our father would still be alive, in spite of the curse.
“No, I suppose not. And if you hadn’t pushed Old Ced to go north, neither of us would be here now.” She winced even as she spoke the truth, a lingering empty bitterness she kept shut and more often forgotten. She shook her head and released a shaky sigh, then thought of Wyll. Once she told Ceddrych, they could search for him together. The prospect gave her more hope than anything had so far.
“Maybe we’ve been looking at this the wrong way. Maybe none of us is truly at fault. We made our choices and this is what came of them. You grew claws and sharp teeth and I, well, I gained a pack.”
Vynasha shook her head. “You would try to see the humor in this.” After a pause, she glanced up and smiled. “I’m glad of it. It means you haven’t changed too much.” His eyes roved her own recent changes and she shifted uncomfortably beneath his scrutiny.
“My pack was hunting when we picked up your scent by the falls. We never go that close to the castle usually. They never would have gone in if I hadn’t led them and not everyone followed.”
“Baalor?”
Ceddrych laughed. “He wasn’t even in the same territory, off on his human hunt.”
“I thought I saw you in the cave, before the beast took me back. I told myself I imagined it later. Wolves chased me to the castle gates, but I never imagined they were more than wolves.”
But that’s not entirely true, is it? She could admit to herself with the memory of glowing green eyes stalking her in the forest, always watching.
“I changed skins the moment I saw you, to keep the others from attacking you. You reeked of majik, from being too long in that castle, no doubt. And after the beast stole you from me, I vowed to find you, no matter if I had to storm the castle myself.”
There was a different, edgier kind of steel to his voice, which frightened her for reasons she could not name. “I know you would have, Ceddrych, but I made it. I’m here now.”
Once I find Wyll, we can leave this place, live somewhere better together.
The idea of such a simple, pleasant existence was euphoric and she relaxed back against the feather pillow and furs with a smile. She wanted to tell him then, about bringing Wyll and leaving him behind while she went on her foolish quest.
“I found this in the cave, after the beast took you.” Ceddrych pulled a bundle from beneath her bed and into his lap.
She stared, disbelieving, for a moment before Vynasha stole their father’s old tow sack from her brother’s grasp. The rough burlap pricked at her new skin and she stared, numbly remembering the dead look in Old Ced’s eyes as she’d asked him about the sack’s whereabouts years ago. Then again, as her father had at last looked on her with love in his eyes while his life ebbed and flowed, staining her hands crimson. Relaxing her grip, she let the sack sink to the edge of the bed and untied the triple knot she had made. She reached inside until her fingers found his letters and placed the weathered stack in her brother’s hands.
“Ash…” he gasped and his knuckles turned white as he gripped the brittle papers. After a long moment, he stood, wiped his face with his arm and then walked several steps to the fire.
“No, don’t burn them!” she cried. She sagged with relief when he passed the fire pit and dug through a pile of furs piled beside his short bookcase. He returned soon after with another, even thicker stack of letters and placed them in her hands.
Vynasha gaped as she ran her fingers over the paper she had scrimped and saved to purchase. When she held it closer to inspect her sharp handwriting, she could almost smell foreign ports and war. “I memorized your letters,” she whispered.
“As I did yours.”
“I thought I would never see you again,” she admitted aloud for the first time.
Ceddrych’s brow rose and he attempted a weak smile. “I always knew I would find a way back to you, little siste
r.”
A heavy knock sounded on the nearby door. Ceddrych jerked upright at the sound, then stood to answer it. Cracking the door open ever so slightly, he did not hesitate before stepping outside and she half listened to the low murmur of their voices.
“Shouldn’t bother me now, Mya,” Ceddrych said.
“I know, Wanderer,” the woman answered, “but you told me to let you know if Baalor started stirring up trouble with Council again.”
Ceddrych cursed and grumbled, “What is it this time?”
Mya’s voice lowered to a hush so dim not even Vynasha’s ears could pick up every word. Vynasha ignored their conversation in favor of the letters and tow sack in her lap and hugged the contents to her chest. After burying her father, Vynasha had had nothing on her person to remind her of all that had happened, no proof to remind her it had been real, save for Soraya’s wooden key hanging from her neck. Now Vynasha had her meager possessions, relics from her life in Whistleande, too.
For the first time she allowed her mind to entertain thoughts of the fabled Eirwen Mountains and the life they might build there. The vision of a homely cottage with Ceddrych and Wyll and new roses crawling to cover the walls filled her heart. Her smile faded as she felt a hard lump beneath her palm.
She lifted the flap and dug until she pulled out the forgotten pouch Grendall had given her. Running through the cave, below the bowels of the castle, she hadn’t had time to inspect it. Majik pulsed through the velveteen pouch and into her hand like foreign liquid in her veins. Her skin glowed brilliant purple on contact and she held back a cry. The silver chain she pulled free was long and the amethyst hanging from its end stole her breath away.
“Speak to it, and it will tell you things you wish to remember.”
What else had the gatekeeper said? She pulled the chain over her neck and let the amulet nestle beneath her tunic, beside Soraya’s key, against her bare skin. As she settled into the comforting furs, her eyes shut of their own volition and her heart ached for a love she longed to hate.
THE CASTLE HAD always been dark and drafty, but now the walls rippled and shivered with moonlight. Tiny blue lights drifted ahead of her path, dancing past tapestries that watched her trek through the forbidden halls. Vynasha met their silent gaze and wondered why she heard no sound from the beasts she had set free.
A dimly glowing figure stepped out of the shadows and she froze, looked down to see if she could pull out her dagger quickly enough.
“You are not truly here!” a rough voice growled, the same that had compelled her to leave and not look back. “Leave me!” He thrust a palm in her direction, as though warning her away.
“Grendall?” Vynasha moved with every intention of inflicting pain. But she could not lift her feet, could not move at all, she discovered with growing panic.
When she did not move, he turned desperate and shouted at the walls. “She cannot be here! Do you hear me, witch? I forbid it!” The gatekeeper came to stand arm’s-length away from her, still too far away, yet close enough she could see regret in his silver eyes and the fresh scrapes along his jaw. He clenched his fists and looked everywhere but her. “I sent her away, as was my right by your bloody curse.” He sucked in a sharp breath and squeezed his lids tightly shut. “Please do not let her in… do not let her in.”
“How troublesome this must be for you after you sent me away,” Vynasha hissed, wishing again for full possession of her limbs. “Why can’t I move? Are you doing this, compelling me again?”
He rubbed a hand over his face and let it hang lifeless at his side. His hair fell into his eyes and still he would not look at her. “Not intentionally. This is my dream,” he confessed, “though it feels more like a nightmare.”
“At least we aren’t alone in that.” Vynasha narrowed her eyes as all he had and hadn’t said ran through her mind, all the tiny ways he’d made her believe she needed to escape while keeping her close. He’d dragged her back to the dungeon in his beast form, after all. No matter how loudly he protested, she knew he’d used her father to bring her there. He had wanted her there and abandoned her as surely as everyone did.
As you abandoned Wyll?
Vynasha cringed and some of her anger slipped away as she asked, “Shouldn’t this be my dream? We haven’t shared dreams before.” She looked upon her former prison with perverted longing. Why crave such a cold, awful place when she had at last found Ceddrych? Why dwell on this prison when she dreamed of home?
Grendall observed her a moment, face a mask of stone. “Tell me exactly what you did before you went to bed.”
Vynasha snorted. “You sent me away, why should I tell you anything?”
“Humor a fading spirit,” he said with a slight lift of his chin.
“Not that you care, but Ceddrych found me after I battled Rrolthoz and…” Her words were quickly drowned by Grendall’s exclamation.
“Rrolthoz! He followed you? Damnable creature, I ordered him to remain behind! He should not have been able to make it past the wards…”
“Well, thanks to our little blood bond, you aren’t the only majik wielder around, remember?” she spat as her anger flared back to life. The tiny blue lights were spinning about them in a fine flurry.
Grendall ignored this as he stepped closer, keeping his fists clenched tightly at his sides. “Where is Rrolthoz now?”
“Dead.” She stuttered in her attempt at revealing nothing. When she couldn’t even move to turn her face aside, her temper boiled to a fever pitch. “I killed him!”
Grendall blanched and averted his gaze, though his posture remained erect. It was obvious he was aware of Rrolthoz’s true identity when he at last ran an agitated hand through his dark hair and the light of his countenance lessened. In that moment, the Dungeon Master looked nearly as faded as the other wyne.
“What, no pompous remark or barb for me? You could at least acknowledge you knew he was my father.”
His inner light pulsed and then brightened again, illuminating his gray skin as he met her gaze and confessed. “I knew he was your father, and I could not stop him from hunting you.”
Her limbs shook and something snapped in the back of her mind, releasing her limbs. She crossed the remaining distance between them, pulled her hand back and slapped Grendall in the face. Dream state or no, she felt the full impact in her aching hand and watched as tiny beads of blue blood rose to the surface of his cheek, where her claws had scratched him.
“I killed him,” she repeated and bit back a sob. She wrapped her arms around her chest and hung her head until her long hair draped over her face.
“My father was not a good man, either.”
She peeked at him through her veil of curls and pursed her lips. “You don’t have any right to mourn with me. He told me what you did to him, Grendall. I can’t begin to understand how or why you did it, when all you ever did while we were together was belittle me and push me around.”
He was silent after that and the burden weighed on her, threatened to crush her again. Maybe it was being in the reflection of this place that made her add, “I haven’t told Ceddrych.”
“You said he found you?” Grendall took an eager step forward. The lights floating nearby seemed to brighten with intensity, reflecting off his silver irises.
Vynasha took a step back and the lights around them faded, swallowed by shadow. “I—found your amulet and fell asleep. That’s the last thing I remember.”
Grendall turned to pace along the width of the hallway. “I did not believe you would find the amulet again. Better if it had been lost for all the trouble it has caused.”
“So naturally you passed it on to me,” she mumbled with a frustrated sigh.
Grendall continued as though he hadn’t heard her barb. “You cannot come here again, not if you don’t want her to find you. Never think of me before you sleep again.”
“That won’t be a problem, gatekeeper,” she scoffed. “You made it clear how you felt when you compelled me to leave.”
Inky shadows seemed to encompass them, blotting out the moonlight and floating blue lights, and a dull roar accompanied it. “What’s happening?” she shouted above the growing din.
Grendall seemed unfazed by the howling winds and voices spreading malice among them. “It would seem you are waking up.” Menace and agony burned behind his eyes, cold and compelling at once. “Do not think of me again, Vynasha.”
The last thing she saw clearly was the emptiness in the gatekeeper’s masked features. His loss and loneliness resonated with her long after her dream faded to nothing. A voice was waiting for her in the darkness, however, entreating and pulling her back.
“Ashes?” Ceddrych sounded so far away that she did not truly stir until he shook her by the shoulders. She woke in a cold sweat and knew with absolute certainty it had been more than an ordinary dream. She pressed a hand to her chest, where the amulet burned against the skin.
Her brother brushed her hair off her forehead and she grabbed hold of his hand between her fingers. “Ceddrych?”
“You were shouting in your sleep, Ashes,” he began with a frown.
“I was… dreaming,” she said, but her mind was still there, in that dark but beautiful place with him. Grendall had done so much for her—more than any other prisoner in the castle, he claimed—and he’d kept much from her as well. Vynasha didn’t know if wanting to be near him again made her mad, this man who was not even a man. After all the stories Odym had told her of the old days and the legend of his people, she knew little about the Dungeon Master.
“Ceddrych,” she continued after a pause, “do you believe I’m mad?”
His laughter was unexpected and sounded like warm winter nights beside the fire and adventures in the forests of Whistleande.
“What?” she asked with reproach.
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