Scarred Beauty

by Jennifer Silverwood

  “What are you doing? Get back inside!”

  “I’m coming with you.” Erythea pulled the cowl of her cloak over her pale tresses.

  “Are you mad? Your father would kill me if I let you come anywhere near harm’s way.”

  Erythea lifted her chin and in the dim light her eyes gleamed blue with something other than the wolf curse. “You don’t know our ways yet. I may be a child, but I know how to take care of myself. And he’s my father. How do I know you’re going to look for him and not Wanderer?”

  Vynasha sighed and grabbed the girl’s hand as she pulled her along the trail leading from their home. She followed the scent that was clearly Baalor’s, sharp as the evergreen around them, tangy with something she was learning to crave. “Stay close to me. We’ll follow your father’s trail. But I’m afraid Ced—Wanderer is the reason he left in the first place.”

  Erythea was silent after that.

  ERYTHEA’S PACK WAS their only source of supplies. Vynasha knew from years struggling to survive with little Wyll in Whistleande Valley that going into the forest at night was a death wish. Terrain was impossible to make out, not to mention the winter-bound beasts searching for an easy meal.

  Vynasha was cursed enough to fear no natural creature lurking in this forest, but she was also bound by majik in ways she didn’t understand. After the burns Grendall’s dream had inflicted on her last night, she didn’t know what to expect next. Would the effects of her muted transformation disappear over time as her majik grew? Or was she doomed to succumb more to the curse the less she relied upon majik? Baalor seemed to blame majik for all their woes, but she wasn’t convinced.

  Thea kept close to her, matching her steps until their footfall was soft as the snow drifting overhead. Fear for Thea’s impulsive nature was what had convinced Vynasha to let the girl tag along now. Better to keep the child at her side than let her try to follow, no matter what majik infused her senses.

  Rather than cut straight into the woods, Baalor’s trail took them by Ceddrych’s house on the opposite edge of the village. She cocked her head slightly as she crouched low against the side of the rounded cottage and pressed a hand to the wood. Thea followed suit behind her and crawled forward to peek over the corner with her.

  The twins weren’t standing guard like she’d expected.

  “Seems clear,” Erythea whispered.

  Vynasha held up a hand to wave her down and then lifted a finger to her lips. She stole a breath before standing on wobbly legs and blinked past the after-effects of Grandmother’s medicine. They slipped through the front door with ease, but no fresh scents filled the room other than their own. Not even the glow of coals offered light in the pitch black of the room.

  “Why did you think they would be here?” Thea asked, louder than necessary.

  Vynasha felt along the wall until she dug for her father’s old tow sack. Before bed she had stupidly taken off her jeweled dagger. She pulled it from the sack by the hilt and strapped it on her thigh in the dark, the blade pricking her skin. Ignoring the scent of blood, she turned to the open door and Thea’s silhouette and said, “Let’s go.”

  For a time, they traveled in silence, while Vynasha used what pitiful skill she knew from her life before she came to the Wylder Mountains. Baalor’s trail overlaid Ceddrych’s more familiar, slightly older scent on this trail. If it weren’t for that scant light of the moon, she wouldn’t see her hand in front of her face. Without her cursed gifts, they might suffer more.

  The piercing howl of a lone wolf cut through the frosty air and Vynasha glanced back at Thea, only to find the girl missing from her side.

  “Erythea?” she whispered, turning around to search for the girl’s distinct scent. The child possessed no wolfish traits that she was aware of, at least Grandmother had hinted as much. Which led Vynasha to fear the worst. “Seven hells…” she hissed to herself and glanced back in the direction of the wolf’s howl, only to feel a hard tug on her leg, gripping over her bandage. As she fell, a hand clamped over her mouth, muffling her silent scream, and she twisted her head around to meet a distinct pair of mismatched eyes. Siam, or was it Rian? He released her mouth but held a finger to his lips and pointed to a nearby fir tree. Hidden in the lower branches, she could barely make out two pairs of legs, and a pair of arms wrapped around her missing companion.

  I should have smelled them out.

  The howls were closer now, echoing in different parts of the wylder forest. She pressed into the twin’s warmth as a hulking predator broke through to the trail she had just been following. It was one of the Wolvs, its eyes glowing an eerie green, its fur blending white with the snow and its head shifting about as it sniffed at the air. Something about the beast was familiar and the twin’s arms tightened around her torso as she attempted to rise.

  The wolf paused and tilted its head back for an almost deafening howl, sending the hairs rising at the back of her neck. She jumped, but kept still otherwise, watching from the scant cover of their hiding place. How had the wolf not sensed them?

  Two other Wolvs joined the larger great white and together loped off to the east.

  Siam or Rian, with the mismatching brown and blue eyes, kept hold of her for a long time after. Thea stirred first, breaking from the other twin’s hold nearby and grumbling, “Don’t need you to hold my hand, Rian. Vynasha, that was part of our pack, did you see them? I’ve never seen my father’s other skin before. Wasn’t he beautiful?”

  Vynasha winced as she rose to her feet, ignoring Siam’s offered hand as she met Erythea. “Now you’ve seen him.” Apart from the strong scent of the evergreen, she could clearly make out Baalor’s distinctive scent and eyed the trees.

  They masked our scent.

  Siam nudged Rian. “Could have handled that better, you scab.”

  Rian glared at his brother and jabbed him in the side with a hard fist. “Shut up, you charla.”

  Both cowered when Vynasha approached them. Her right leg burned with fresh fire where Siam had grabbed her. She fixed a hard look for him in particular.

  Siam grabbed the fur cap off his head and rubbed his uneven hair. “Sorry about that. Didn’t have time to warn you.”

  Thea came to stand behind her, clinging to her cloak. Vynasha reached back and squeezed the girl’s hand while addressing the twins. “What are you doing out here? I know you weren’t spying on me.”

  Siam glanced back at his twin and it was Rian, the less talkative of the two, who stepped forward and answered, honesty in his faintly gleaming eyes. “We were waiting for Wanderer’s return. But then one of our hunters came in the village screaming about a beast in the forest. Baalor and the rest of the pack went looking for it.”

  “Something’s happened at the lost city. Baalor was furious Wanderer wasn’t to be found,” Siam added. “We were following his trail when we caught wind of you two.” He paused to point firmly at Thea. “You knew better than to tag along, little witch. If her father finds out…”

  “He doesn’t need to know,” Erythea retorted.

  A beast outside the boundary… Vynasha shivered at the unbidden memory of Rrolthoz. Had someone else escaped? She hadn’t asked Grendall in his dreams what had happened to the castle after she’d freed the others.

  Vynasha’s voice was harder than she intended. “Take Erythea back to her home in the village and stand guard there until the others return.”

  “What?” Erythea practically hopped in front of her, pale face standing out amid her furs in the slowly graying light. “You’re coming with me, aren’t you?”

  Siam and Rian exchanged a glance before the former said, “Wanderer wanted you to stay in the village.”

  “Well, he’s not here, is he?” Vynasha snapped and took a calming breath before adding, “I need to find him. He needs to know what’s happened and none of you need to be in these woods. If one of the beasts has escaped, I don’t know if I can protect all of you. I won’t risk it.”

  Siam spoke again, his voice cracking.
“Wanderer wouldn’t want you to be alone.”

  Thea interjected, “He’s right. You aren’t in any condition to take on this forest, let alone one of the cursed ones.”

  Rian took a step forward. “We’re coming with you.”

  Vynasha lifted her face to the towering trees and the dimly lit sky above and cursed under her breath. “Fine. But you catch wind of any monsters, if I get attacked, don’t you dare try to be a hero. You don’t think, just run.”

  The children nodded their heads.

  As they fell in together, continuing north on the trail Ceddrych left behind, tracking by scent more than tracks, she wondered how old her companions were. The twins might have been half a decade her junior, though she couldn’t seem to remember her age anymore. Before the fire took place, she had been so young, fifteen perhaps. Too much had happened since. Little Wyll had grown bigger, but his scarring and frequent illness kept him small. Erythea couldn’t be older than ten. Here at the edge of the world were any of them allowed a childhood, or was all life this constant war of survival?

  Not that yours was a bed of roses, Ashes.

  Erythea tried to tell her their ways were different, and by the easy way they flanked her, like a practiced unit, like they had needed to sneak and use caution before, Vynasha believed her.

  In the distance, the Wolvs’ howls drew in the direction of the castle.

  Stay away from us, Vynasha wanted to tell the beasts she’d risked everything to free. Strange to think in such a way when she was one of them, if not fully transformed. Still, she couldn’t shake this overwhelming instinct to protect these children, the village her brother called home. The people she had seen in the castle tapestries had been all but hunted down, all because of the Prince’s mad father. But the Wolvs had given them a place to call home, a special place for misfits like her. It was with quiet shock she realized she had something to lose again, people outside of her family she cared about.

  Bringing her mind back into focus on tracking, she slowed and turned a small circle through undisturbed snowdrift. The children fanned out, using whatever gifts they possessed to study the trail. Ceddrych’s scent was gone, along with any sign of life other than the rabbit and bird tracks she saw underfoot.

  Siam snatched hold of her hand, a slight graze of skin that made her pause and turn her head. His mismatched eyes were wide, finger pointed to the mountainside they had been approaching, the steady incline of terrain, trees growing higher towards an unseen precipice. As Vynasha followed the pup’s line of sight she could see it too, where the underbrush thickened in the face of the mountain.

  Too thickly.

  Vynasha met Siam’s patient gaze and slowly pulled out the Prince’s dagger from her thigh. The twin gaped at the blade, long as her elbow joint to wrist, then lingered on the jeweled hilt. She gave him a thin smile before stepping around to the edge of the rock outcropping. Siam joined her, while Rian and Erythea held back beyond sight.

  Closer to the artfully arranged brush was a low cave entrance. Soft sounds escaped into the midnight air and she bent to look down the black entrance. Whiffs of smoke and meat and people met her nose. Vynasha lifted her head and rested it against the rock at her back, turned to Siam with a quick nod. He moved as though to follow, but paused when she held up her free hand with a shake of her head.

  Only one of us is risking their necks, she wanted to tell him. No matter one of the castle’s beasts might be waiting in these woods, she had no way of knowing something worse didn’t wait for them inside this cave. Moonlight cast half-light over the shadowed planes of his face, enough for her to see his deep frown. The boy appeared much older suddenly, harder, but willing to obey her. Siam retreated to crouch back against the edge of the concealed cave.

  Vynasha released a bated breath as she turned her attention back to the smells and sounds emanating from the pit and, ducking low, tightened her grip on the Prince’s dagger. As she crawled past the mask of evergreen into the cave, the fresh burns on her legs and hands made her double over further, long to lay down on that frozen rock.

  You’re stronger than this. You have to be.

  Grendall’s amulet knocked against Soraya’s wooden key inside her borrowed, bloody shift. The talisman turned warm about her neck and Vynasha wished for the majik that had carried her safely through the castle’s underbelly. She squeezed her eyes shut, seeing stars as she took in a breath of air, and opened them to find her hands shining with faint violet light. The majik made her burns cool this time, soothed them, as she smiled and crawled further in. The ceiling rose quickly after, allowing her to stand, but she continued her slow crawl against the left wall.

  Firelight beckoned ahead, leading her around a slight bend to a small but spacious hollowed-out room. There was a well-maintained living area set up around a central fire, and paintings covering the illuminated walls. And smiling and laughing together at the center on pallets of fir needles and pelts, Ceddrych, a woman and a boy with burn scars mutilating half of his sweet face.

  “Wyll!” Vynasha choked on a sob as she scrambled to her feet, ignored the stabbing, needling pain in her legs.

  Her nephew pushed up from his pallet, sitting up at her exclamation, fear and wonder in his small voice. “Aunty Asha?”

  The other woman scrambled to her feet in a blur of dark furs and shadows, twin daggers in her hands as she took in Vynasha’s altered appearance, dark eyes wide and a pinched expression on her sharp features.

  “Wolfsbane’s daughter?” Vynasha acknowledged, then frowned when the woman sheathed one dagger to take hold of Ceddrych’s arm.

  He brushed his hand over Resha’s, a soft expression on his wary face as he met Vynasha’s stare.

  Her brother, touching his pack’s enemy like they were old friends…

  Resha, the mute human daughter of Wolfsbane, last of the mountain people, broke into a smile.

  “You know her,” Vynasha accused. Vynasha was reeling behind the cloud of fury keeping her from gathering Wyll in her arms.

  Ceddrych’s expression smoothed, blank, and then his gaze widened as he took in her appearance. “Seven hells! What happened to you? Why are you…”—his concern tapered to disgust—“glowing?”

  Vynasha stood straighter, letting her arms fall to her sides, grip tight on her dagger. She lifted her chin, indignant. “How long have you known Wolfsbane’s daughter? You’re supposed to be enemies.”

  “I knew that damned Beast cursed you, but you never said anything about majik!” He threw up his hands and shoved off Resha’s insistent grip on his shoulder.

  The short woman looked back and forth between them, circling round to stand in front of little Wyll.

  This move only infuriated Vynasha more and she pointed at Resha with her dagger as she said, “She’s the reason Baalor hates you, isn’t she? He must know about your little secret or he would trust you.”

  “And you’ve become such good friends with him, too, haven’t you, Ashes?” Ceddrych growled, eyes gleaming with a green sheen as the wolf in him rose to the surface. “You seem so ready to trust a complete stranger over your flesh and blood!”

  “Baalor and his family have been helping me. You don’t even know what’s happened since you left. You could have told me days ago instead of leaving me in the dark!”

  “Stop it!” little Wyll weakly protested.

  Ceddrych ignored him. “How was I supposed to know you wouldn’t run off and tell your new friends? But I guess I shouldn’t be surprised you were drawn in by them and their cursed blood-letting witch house. Everyone in the village already thinks you’re a witch, but I didn’t believe it until now.”

  “Stop!” Wyll cried. “Why are you fighting?”

  Vynasha feared to pull her gaze from Ceddrych’s even to comfort Wyll, sensing the danger any submission on her part would bring. Her brother had been hesitant with her at times since he’d pulled her from the riverbed, but he had never been cold or cruel. And his harsh tone made her want to cry, made her fur
ious with him, the only family she had besides little Wyll, the only one who knew what their lives had been like when they were happy, when Wynyth was still alive.

  Vynasha shook her head, some of the fight fleeing her. They had fought as children, but she didn’t know this Ceddrych. “Majik is in our blood, Father said so. Even Wynyth came through the mirror. Maybe she was a witch too.”

  Ceddrych’s nose flared, blood rushed to his face as he surged forward at her. “Don’t you ever call our mother that! She would never defile herself with dark majik. You’re the one who’s been tainted!”

  His snarl shifted into a hoarse roar as his bones cracked. Shadows shrouded his form as he fell into his wolf form.

  Vynasha could smell the fear in the room, permeating her senses, lifting her invisible hackles, and the beast inside her rose up with a roar as the wolf lunged for her.

  WYLL SCREAMED AND the horror behind his cry offered Vynasha a link to her dwindling humanity. Enough clarity remained for her not to give in to blood lust, enough to drop her dagger on the ground and remember this was her brother. So when Ceddrych came for her with teeth and claws bared, Vynasha grabbed him by the neck and stomach. She lifted him with less ease and greater pain, but still managed to throw him back before his claws could tear her open. Still, they ripped through her borrowed clothes and grazed her already burned flesh.

  Her cry joined Wyll’s as she wrapped an arm about her chest and glanced over to see Resha crouched low over her nephew. Wolfsbane’s daughter watched on with wild black eyes and something akin to horror. Ceddrych yelped when he slammed into the opposite wall. He scrambled back to four feet, lips curled back in a menacing snarl as he stalked Vynasha.

  “Stop it! Stop it!” Wyll screamed with fearful force.

  Vynasha met his eyes briefly, long enough to see and share in little Wyll’s horror. It was just enough to keep the beast inside her from roaring back to life as Ceddrych lunged at her again. They fell together onto the hard floor. She arched away from the teeth snapping at her neck.