This isn’t how it was supposed to happen!
Ceddrych would find her and Wyll and they would find a quiet place somewhere in the mountains to live together. Hadn’t that been her dream, even when logic insisted the impossibility of it?
Tears blurred her vision as his lower feet dug into her legs, as his jaw clamped against the bony end of her shoulder, a breath away from her jugular.
Vynasha hissed a sigh of defeat. She couldn’t do it, couldn’t fight back without hurting him. She might have overcome the tender, healing burns covering her cursed flesh, might have endured Ceddrych’s bites and scratches even. But nothing could blot out this moment, when the person she loved most hated her enough to want to kill her. The pain was too great, and hadn’t she fought enough?
Don’t you deserve this? Remember what you did to your father?
“My fault,” she sobbed. It was her fault their family had died in the first place, wasn’t it? Maybe it was best if Ceddrych put her down before she could harm anyone else. She waited for him to adjust his hold, to lay claim to his kill.
“Asha!” Wyll screamed the moment Ceddrych’s teeth dug deeper.
“Wyll,” she whispered and the beast inside of her rose up with a sudden roar of anger and shame. She would not lie down and accept death, never when Wyll needed her.
Vynasha pushed with all her strength, crying out as Ceddrych’s teeth ripped away flesh from her shoulder. With another heave, she tossed the wolf aside and into the smoking fire. Ceddrych howled as he rolled in a cloud of dark fur and ash.
Vynasha rose to her feet, bleeding but sure-footed as she picked up her discarded dagger from the floor and grimly waited.
The wolf whined and stumbled as he found his feet again, limping to face her. He crouched low, assessing her for weaknesses. But the bright green of his eyes flickered to a soft brown, offering a glimpse of the man within.
Vynasha took a deep breath, blinked back hot tears and begged, “Don’t make me kill you.”
For an insufferable moment, the wolf seemed to consider her words. Only one outcome was possible should he strike again. The wolf curled into himself and the fur receded and then he was suddenly her brother again, with burns on his side and a singed fur cloak about his shoulders.
Ceddrych’s broken sobs replaced the wolf’s whines and Resha rushed between them like a shadow to his side. Her hands were gentle as they lightly grazed his wounded back, judging the extent of damage.
Vynasha couldn’t watch them anymore and turned thankfully to Wyll. Tears glistened on his face. Again, she was struck by how skewed everything had become, the wrongness of it. She crossed the room in quick, halting steps until she sank to her knees and dropped her dagger before him. She wanted her hands free enough to lift him into her arms, to bury her nose in his black hair, imprint his scent. He was still slight, slighter even than she remembered, while he shook and trembled and at last settled enough to push back from her embrace.
“Why did you fight?” he whispered. “We’re together again, Asha. We shouldn’t fight.”
“I know… I’m sorry. We’re done fighting now.” Vynasha ran her fingers over his face, cherishing his scars, and then moving to check his limbs for injury, for signs of strength.
Wyll stared long at her claws after he caught her hands with his. “What happened to you? You’ve changed too, but not like Uncle Ceddrych.” He frowned at her claws and her fingers curled. His smaller hands squeezed harder, keeping her. “You were glowing, Asha. Was it the Source?”
Vynasha stared at her skin and wondered if the curse held her majik at bay this time, or Grendall’s amulet. The latter was too painful to dwell on. “I don’t know much more than you. I thought so once, but now I’m not so sure my majik is the good kind.”
Wyll contemplated her words with that childlike wisdom he carried. No, that wasn’t right. He had been a child, once, before all of this, maybe before the fire. Too much had happened since. Like Erythea, these mountains had forced him to age on the inside, even if his body wasn’t quite caught up.
“You were gone for so long, Asha.”
Vynasha forced her hands to relax, forced herself to meet his eye. “I know. Wyll, I never meant…I was coming back for you.” Anger flared up inside her, for the Prince keeping her prisoner, Grendall and the others for making her care enough to stay, mostly for herself. She was burning up.
Wyll lifted a cool hand to cup her unblemished cheek and the knowing look in his face was almost too much. “It will be all right, Asha.” He pulled her closer, until he was the one comforting her, like his mother would have. She hadn’t thought of her sister Tamyra in some time, but could almost feel her with them now.
Vynasha cried then, not with broken sobs, but inside, in the same place that tore when Grendall had decimated to ashes in their dream and scarred her again. This kind of pain was different, filled with regret and desperate hope. “I tried to find the Source for you, Wyll,” she said against his ear. “I’ll still heal you, make you whole again,” she vowed.
He grew still against her and pushed her good shoulder faintly. “Aunty Asha, who are they?”
Vynasha’s nose caught up with her, fresh scents from the world outside this cave. She twisted around to find Siam, Rian and Erythea standing at the mouth of the cave. Erythea held a hand to her mouth. Rian shifted, uncomfortable in his skin almost.
Siam stared at the paintings on the walls, then lingered over Resha, Wolfsbane’s daughter. A dark look filled his face as he stepped forward, directing his attention to Vynasha. “Are you all right?”
She nodded to the twins, but held Erythea’s gaze longest. The girl lowered her hand and approached them with wide eyes. “Who is this?”
With Wyll in her arms, Vynasha was almost certain they were the same age, or close enough to it that her nephew pulled away, straightened and spoke for himself.
“I’m Wyll. Asha’s my aunt.”
Erythea smiled and lowered slowly to her knees until her hand brushed Wyll’s covered legs. “I’m Thea. Your aunt’s my friend.”
The unblemished half of Wyll’s face darkened a shade as he ducked his head to hide his smile. Vynasha nudged him and smiled when he nudged her back. Small moments of joy like this were rare, but they were worth everything. Because in the next moment, the twins growled low, bristling in their skins before Ceddrych and Resha.
Rian spoke first. “What are you doing here with her?”
“Don’t you know who she is?” Siam spat on the ground and pulled a dagger free from his belt.
Resha was on her feet in a flash of black wolfskin furs, lips pulled back over her white teeth as though to invite them closer. Ceddrych struggled to stand and held up a tremulous hand.
How badly did I hurt him?
“Wait, she’s not your enemy,” Ceddrych pleaded.
Rian had seemed the calmer of the two, but now he was livid. “She may not be your enemy, Wanderer, but that human bitch killed my mother!”
Vynasha squeezed Wyll’s hand once more before slowly standing, sparing a glance to find Erythea white-lipped and holding one of Wyll’s legs with white knuckles.
“Wolfsbane’s daughter,” she whispered.
Siam grabbed his brother’s arm, holding him back. “Her father has murdered more of our kind than anything else in these mountains. He knifed Baalor’s wife and she wasn’t even one of the pack!”
Erythea whimpered and this spurred Vynasha to come between the twins and the traitors. Looking at Ceddrych and her violet blood staining his mouth made her sick to her stomach. She turned to the twins instead. “Look, I’m sure Wanderer has a good explanation for all for all of this…”
Say something…
Silence pressed on them and when Ceddrych did answer, it wasn’t what she hoped to hear.
“I’m not a traitor. You have all let Baalor lead you blindly, but this vendetta he carries against the humans goes both ways. Resha can’t speak for herself because Siam and Rian’s mother ripped out her
throat. Our peoples have been fighting over a hate that means nothing now. That beast and all the evil in that lost city is your true enemy, you’ve just been too blind to see it.”
Vynasha clenched her fists and let her hair cover her face, hide her wince, hate the coldness in her brother’s voice.
Siam answered in a tone equally cold, voice firm. “We see enough. We see we were fools to follow an outsider. Come on, Rian.”
Vynasha looked up when Rian held an open palm out to her. “You coming with us? Baalor will ask about you both.” He looked past her to Erythea, then back to her with sympathy.
“Go ahead. Take Erythea with you.”
“No,” the girl choked and they turned to find her still gripping Wyll’s side, face too pale in the firelight. “If I leave now, you’ll stay here with them.”
“Erythea…”
“You will! You won’t ever come back! I can’t let you stay with them, with the traitor.”
Vynasha followed as she turned her glare to Ceddrych. Her brother blanched and then seemed to harden before them. He didn’t spare Vynasha a glance.
“Vynasha doesn’t belong with you, Erythea,” he said, but with that uncertainty seeping through his feigned confidence. His lip curled just slightly, enough to remind Vynasha he couldn’t bear her presence.
“You don’t tell me what to do,” Erythea said. “You attacked your own sister. You betrayed the pack, Wanderer.”
“He’s right, Thea,” Vynasha said with more than a little desperation. She was injured still, she needed to tend to Wyll, and if Baalor discovered both of them missing…
Siam interrupted them with a scoff. “Sort this out before daylight, would you?”
Vynasha held up a hand to the silent brother, a plea that seemed to placate him. He bowed his head slightly in deference and she shook off the oddness of his obedience. Her inner beast, however, was pleased at his show of respect and she grasped Erythea by the shoulders, lifting her to her feet as gently as she could. “Come on, you have to go now.”
The girl shook her head. “No, you can’t send me back with them. I won’t let you!”
“Thea. Please, you have to trust me. I can’t protect you if you stay here.”
Thea tugged on her cloak, then practically gasped, “Then come with us! We can bring Wyll. Grandmother could look after him, heal him if he’s sick. Father won’t mind. We have plenty of rooms, remember?”
“I remember. I just… I can’t right now.” Vynasha bit her lip, and knew even if Ceddrych didn’t want to acknowledge her, they were different—didn’t belong anywhere, it seemed. She shook her head and lifted the pack the girl had discarded. She whispered while forcing the girl’s arms through it, settling her hood over her ashen hair. “Go with the twins. I’ll follow.”
Erythea grabbed her hand in hers in a grip as unyielding and cold as death and her eyes glowed faintly blue. “Swear it!”
“I swear, now go,” Vynasha urged. The girl rushed to the twin’s side. Rian took Erythea by the arm and pulled her out, ignoring her faint protests.
Siam backed away, facing them long enough to spit one last curse—“Beast take you and your human whore!”—then darted after his brother into the darkness.
Vynasha stared down at the hand Erythea had last held, at the faint symbol now gleaming blue in her palm, and closed her fingers into a fist. She trembled as a sudden need to follow them took her.
“Seven hells.” Ceddrych cursed in turn and took Resha’s face in his hands. He looked at her as if to memorize her, as if parting with her was the worst kind of agony. “Take them to the winter camp. You’ll need to leave as soon as you can pack.”
Resha nodded and her harsh features smoothed. She lifted the tip of her pointed chin and the corner of her mouth lifted as she pulled his head down to meet her. Their lips tangled between gasps and sighs and friction that permeated the cave.
Ceddrych held her closer. “I’m so sorry, my love. I never wanted it to happen this way.”
Resha slipped out of his grasp and sheathed her knives somewhere in the deep folds of her cloak and turned to sort through their things.
Ceddrych made for the cave’s entrance but froze halfway, hung his head and spoke without looking at her. “I can’t let them reach the village first. They’ll tell Baalor.”
Vynasha opened her mouth to speak, screamed inside her head to say something! but no words would come. But she understood what he wouldn’t say, that telling Baalor would end whatever he had with Resha. Part of her wanted to tell him she understood, to throw her arms around him as she once would have, to share in his happiness and his fears.
Wanderer nodded once, his jaw setting his mouth in a grim line as he shifted into his wolf form and melded with the shadows.
Resha worked with mad fury in the moments after Ceddrych left, bundling together a pack that she couldn’t possibly carry. They would need to carry Wyll somehow, and so far, there was no sign of a sleigh. The niggling worry at the back of Vynasha’s mind was present, but harder to focus when all she felt was a clawing need to follow the others, as Erythea had made her swear.
What majik do you have, little girl?
Erythea’s majik clung to her hand, the same cloyingly sweet scent as her cottage, same as her witch of a mother. Vynasha didn’t want to try using her tainted majik to battle it just yet, not after Ceddrych’s reaction last time. She chewed on her lower lip and turned her focus to the paintings on the cave walls. Whoever painted these had detailed a world she was unfamiliar with, faces she had never seen, all surrounded by mountains. But some were of a wide expanse of blue, the sea she had only heard of from traders in the village. Ceddrych had fought in the war in the south. He’d never told her about the sea, not even in his letters.
“Resha painted most of those.” Wyll shifted on his pallet and pulled his legs free to reveal bony legs protruding through leather-clad skin. All she could do then was stare and struggle not to give into her despair.
“Wyll…”
His lips pressed together, chin quivering, and she knew it was a mistake to say anything.
“I’m better. I’ve been practicing with Resha. She’s teaching me things about the forest and how to hunt. Wait until you see our camp.” Wyll’s confidence abated and he stared at legs that were far too thin. Without the covers, it was obvious how much he had lost.
Vynasha crouched next to him, her features carefully set into something other than the terror bursting at the seams of her sanity. She clasped his hand and turned it over, noting the length, the new callouses on the fingertips and palms. “You’re growing up so fast.”
“I’m getting better.”
“Of course. That’s why I came back. I knew you were waiting for me.” She waited for his gaze to lift, hope on his sweetly grotesque face. “Now that you’re better you can come see the castle with me. Would you like that?”
Resha froze just before she threw the pack over her shoulders and cast a sudden, harsh eye to them. Vynasha ignored her, because Wyll was smiling again. She would do anything for that smile, even lie to the person she loved most.
“Yes, I think I would.”
“It’s settled then,” Vynasha stuttered, tripped over words that surged to her lips and fell flat. The back of her throat ached and pressure collected behind her eyes. Wyll didn’t notice, too busy pushing forward over his bent knees, feet planted on stone as a fresh sheen of sweat broke over his skin. “Wyll, wait!”
Resha was suddenly there, a black and white shadow supporting Wyll from behind, hands at his elbows. He shuddered at first, until he spread his arms out and found balance and pride. He looked up at her with defiance. “See, I told you I’m stronger.”
Vynasha’s mouth turned up in a crude semblance of a smile and she pulled the loose ends of her hair. “Yes, you did.” She hesitated as Erythea’s majik gripped her once more, pulling her away…home… and she glanced over her shoulder to the waiting blackness.
“You aren’t coming with us, ar
e you?” Wyll’s eyes were much older than they should have been. Vynasha stared at her nephew. His head came to her chin now. He was no longer the boy she’d tried to shelter from the rest of the world. Was she wrong to try to protect him? She couldn’t lie to him again.
“I can’t go with you.”
“But why?” His voice was smaller, brittle.
Vynasha swallowed back that lump forming at the back of her throat as she took him from Wolfsbane’s daughter and buried her face in his neck. His thin arms squeezed her waist painfully tight, so much stronger indeed. She whispered against his ear. “You know I can’t let Ceddrych face them alone.”
“You made a promise to that girl,” he said. “Why can’t you keep your promise to me?”
“I did. I keep my promises.” She angled her head and their scars pressed together. “I’ll come find you.”
“You’ll take me to the castle?”
She could almost hear Odym whispering in her ear, then, telling her, Do not forget.
She squeezed tighter before she released him. “I promise.”
Wyll rubbed an arm across his face and sniffed, wobbling and unsteady on his feet. But Resha was waiting, hand at his shoulder, grounding him, encouraging him. This wild woman cared for her nephew in more than one sense. She seemed to care for Ceddrych in a different way and Vynasha pitied them, cursed to a love bedded with a legacy of revenge. Wolfsbane’s mute daughter had been born to this world, unlike Ceddrych. It might have been easy for him to see the folly of the war between the last humans and protectors of the Wylder Mountains. Could Resha move past it?
Vynasha couldn’t say anything else, only watch Resha help Wyll take measured steps to the cave entrance, keeping an arm free to guide him up and breaking through the surface into pale daylight.
Vynasha held back a moment longer and braced a hand against the cave wall, blinking past tears she couldn’t hide any longer. Resha had banked the fire, but in the light of dying embers, Vynasha looked up and met a painted reflection of her haunted face. The paint smelled like blood.
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