“At what cost to you?” he snarled, closing the gap she had created. Here was the monster he claimed to be, skin brightened with majik. “You would have given everything you had until my mother’s majik bled you dry.”
“You should have explained it to me instead of stealing my choice away again. Do you have any idea what it did to me, being ripped away from you like that, without a word or reason, cast aside just like my father…” She hitched a breath, a sob she refused to let loose. She reached blindly for support and angrily dug her claws into his coat.
Grendall pressed against her claws, inviting them deeper. He pulled her waist closer, bowing until his forehead touched against hers, and begged, “Forgive me.”
Vynasha felt the prick on his skin as if she had scraped her own chest. The ripping sensation bade her open her eyes to find him too near to think clearly. He turned his head and inhaled deeply, eyes squeezed shut, as Grendall awaited her judgment. She knew he had been expecting this ever since he found her again.
Ever since you willingly came to his doorstep, her inner shadow taunted.
Vynasha’s hand trembled as she reached for his face. She wanted to smooth out the furrows on his brow and kiss his eyelids. But she saw her claws in the periphery of her vision and recoiled. She pulled away with a choked laugh. “Arguing like this is stupid. If we don’t stop fighting, we’ll never make it to the gardens before dinnertime.” She turned to find a hallway of heavy black stone and white marble floors. Narrow windows allowed fractured light to filter through, and Vynasha gaped at her first exposure to sunlight in more than a week.
She left Grendall behind to press her fingertips to the glass and traced the swirling patterns of frost.
“Come.” Grendall’s hand was warm at her shoulder. “I promise to be good.”
Vynasha laughed at his tone, so at odds with the man she remembered. She tore her gaze from the grounds and accepted his outstretched arm with a shake of her head. “I must be mad to trust you.”
His smile was subdued, but the bond swelled with a surge of unexpected happiness. “You are more than I deserve.”
BY UNSPOKEN AGREEMENT, they entered the garden silently. Vynasha led the way, while Grendall kept a sharp eye out for any threats that might have followed. The moment sunlight pressed against her bare skin, Vynasha tilted her chin to catch more of the distant rays. Soft spring winds caressed and teased tiny curls from her braid. Each breath of crisp air cleared the fog she had been living under since before the Changeling’s attack.
A gentle but firm hand cupped her elbow, and Vynasha opened her eyes to a world both sharper and painfully beautiful. The sun shone upon Grendall’s sharp profile, turning his bronzed skin a liquid gold. How had she never noticed he was beautiful? The smile tugging at her cheeks felt strange.
His full lips turned down, and his brow arched as he caught her smile. “Ashes? We should keep moving.” He gently tugged at her elbow.
Vynasha pressed cold fingertips to her mouth and shook her head as she followed the prince’s lead.
Snow held its grip over the gardens. What bushes and shrubs lingered were wiry, tangled black things. Grendall guided Vynasha from the narrow lane and around two more turns before she caught her first glimpse of scarlet. She didn’t know she had grabbed Grendall’s hand until she squeezed and heard his grunt.
Their eyes met, and a strange, bubbling laugh escaped her. “Sorry,” she rasped.
Grendall’s confusion faded as he took in her smile and returned it. “Come.”
No birds, no beasts, nothing else lived here anymore save the heartbeat of her roses, the blooms she had coaxed back to life with Grolthox’s permission. Brittle black thorns had torn at her hands that first day she had fallen back into tending the roses, the only beautiful thing that had been left to her after the fire. Years after her mother’s death, Vynasha had tended the rose garden in Whistleande Valley. Roses had been the one certainty in her life since she was a child.
She slipped her hand from Grendall’s and sank to her knees before the bushes. No petals had wilted, yet each bud was in full brilliant bloom. The scent was the musk of earth and desire, with the faintest hint of rust.
“You did well,” Grendall said as he knelt in the snow beside her.
Vynasha touched the petals of the nearest rose. “Remember the night you found me, after I tended these for the first time without gloves?”
“Your hands were a bloody mess. I cannot believe the fool allowed you to prune without proper equipment.” His hand found hers again. They often reached for one another of late.
Vynasha smiled. “You healed me with majik. I thought you hated me.”
Grendall huffed a laugh. “I hated the idea of you, never you.”
She hummed and turned to take in the perfectly pruned row, sorrow welling in her gut. “Hvalla protected them?”
Grendall sighed then stood. “I thought to find her nearby. But yes, she rarely comes inside anymore.”
Vynasha did not miss the guilt churning beneath his words through their bond. She accepted his help as she stood, lacing their fingers together. “We should look for her.”
Grendall nodded and took in the garden once more. “Quickly.”
Vynasha led this time. The inner gardens ended at a gate, leading to an outer garden with bare trees and brambles left untented. As the outer garden came into sight, Vynasha frowned. Hvalla had kept up as much of the grounds as she was able to before. She renewed her search with a growing sense of unease.
She had just reached the corner of the rose garden, where the castle wall and hedgerow merged, when a keening voice came upon a wind. “Mistress?”
Vynasha ran towards the voice, ignoring Grendall’s shout and heavy tread behind her.
A flash of pale light sat at the crux between stone and shrubbery. Hvalla sat huddled against the stone, her legs curled awkwardly beneath her. Frozen panic marred Hvalla’s heart-shaped face.
Vynasha braced a hand against the castle wall as she fell at her friend’s side. “Hvalla,” she gasped between desperate breaths, reaching for the smaller wyne.
“Do not touch her!” Grendall’s fingers latched onto Vynasha’s wrist, jerking her roughly back.
“Let go of me!” Vynasha struggled to escape Grendall’s hold. “She looks sick. We should bring her inside.”
“Too late,” was his grim reply.
Something in his tone and in Hvalla’s dulled gaze bade Vynasha pause. Forcing her muscles to relax and her heart to slow, Vynasha reined back her inner beast. “What’s wrong with her? Why can’t I touch her?”
“She has been fading into the house ever since you left.” Grendall winced then softly added, “We all faded a little more after you left.”
Hvalla attempted to smile. “You came back, mistress. I knew you would. I kept your roses safe, did you see?” The wyne’s focus shifted, as though she were seeing past them. “The white beast came. I told her to find you. She—we needed you home. To—finish something…”
Vynasha sucked in a shuddering breath and twisted to face Grendall. “You told me the roses were from her.”
Grendall flinched at the accusation in her voice. “Her spirit has kept them alive while you were gone. I brought in the cuttings for your room.” His fingers slipped from her wrist to tangle with hers as he confessed, “I did not wish to upset you.”
“I remembered the white beast,” Hvalla’s dreamy whisper interrupted.
Vynasha crouched carefully beside her. “Did you?” she coaxed while wondering what would happen if she did touch the wyne.
“Luanor the Wolv. She was the first guest who was unafraid of the curse.” Hvalla’s gaze fixed on Vynasha. “Tell me she found you, mistress.”
Grendall tensed behind them, but the surge of sharp pain through their bond startled Vynasha. She freed herself from the prince’s grasp and crept closer to Hvalla. The wyne had not broken eye contact yet. No matter what the male behind them felt, Vynasha would not lose this chance to
speak with her friend.
“I freed her from her prison,” Vynasha whispered.
Both prisons, in fact, though she hesitated to confess as much in front of the gatekeeper. There was much more to Luanor than Vynasha had first believed, between Odym’s whispers and what the Iceveins had alluded to. The daughter and sister believed long lost to the curse. Had Luanor found her way to the village by now?
“Thank you.” Hvalla sighed with Vynasha’s admission. Whatever the wyne had been searching for was enough. Her body cleared and brightened as she continued to fade. “She was… kind to me.”
Vynasha gasped and reached for her friend.
“Ashes,” Grendall hissed.
“Hvalla, wait.” Vynasha squeezed the translucent arm beneath her fingers, willed it solid enough the wyne opened her eyes again.
“So tired, mistress…”
“I know you are my friend. But please do not leave yet.”
“Let me rest?” Hvalla’s smile did not touch her ancient eyes.
Vynasha shook her head. “I can’t.”
“Ashes,” Grendall whispered. His hand was warm against her shoulder.
“Hvalla, you must wait, please. I came back to mend things. I promised. I am going to make it right again.”
For a moment, the wyne’s smile reached her eyes. Then her form turned luminescent with the sunlight. For one moment, Vynasha believed her words and will were enough—until her hand passed through air, as Hvalla’s body disappeared, faded to nothing.
Vynasha fell into the space where her friend had been. Emptiness. Not even a trace of warmth where the wyne had faded.
Your fault. Had you been strong enough, the shadow in her mind whispered.
“Ashes,” Grendall began.
“Don’t,” she growled back. She couldn’t listen, could not feel his mirrored grief through their bond and speak without screaming.
How many more?
“The others will sense her loss. The curse… ” Grendall insisted, hesitated. “They will come soon.”
Vynasha clutched fistfuls of earth in her hands as she pushed off the ground. She twisted to face him with a snarl. “This is all your fault! If you hadn’t sent me away, we could have ended this before any more lives were lost!”
“Vynasha, please listen. We cannot linger. I am sorry, and I should have told you Hvalla’s state sooner. But I—”
“You what?” she growled. “Afraid I’d be upset? That I’d somehow spoil your plans? How was not telling me sooner better than this? I could have tried to make her better. I could have at least had time with her before she…” Vynasha choked on a sob and clutched the earth in her hands tighter.
Grendall flinched at whatever he must have been feeling through their bond, yet he took a step closer, slowly lifting his hands. “When they come, they will not hesitate to kill us. Most of the ones left behind are not—sound of mind.”
“Again, your fault!” Vynasha shoved him, accidentally smearing Hvalla’s earth onto his coat and staining the shirt beneath. The scream she had been holding back was escaping past her control at the sight.
The hairs at the back of her neck and arms lifted, quelling her madness.
Vynasha felt them coming before they appeared. She dragged Grendall by the wrist, keeping him behind her just as three beasts entered the rose garden.
They moved on silent, massive paws, coated in shades of brown fur. Tusks and horns, mismatched parts of creatures she had been familiar with, were all lumped together in grotesque form. The beasts were both terrible and beautiful to her eyes. And each of them was as Grendall had said, its empty mind bent on bloodshed and rage, full of anger to match Vynasha’s towards their dungeon master. It was not Vynasha they had come to kill.
“We must go, now,” Grendall hissed.
Vynasha pushed him back despite his protests, with slow, creeping steps, as the three beasts stalked them. “Shut up,” Vynasha whispered back, never taking her eyes off the cursed.
They snarled at her words. Grendall, at least, obeyed. And in the calm, she heard the whisper of a thought graze her mind, “Another lost because of the master.”
Vynasha straightened. “Don’t move,” she whispered to Grendall. She ignored the prince’s muted groan as she released him and took her first step toward the cursed monsters.
You were human once.
“Vynasha, no.” His fear was a tangible thing, poisoning the air, raising her own hackles. She needed to distance herself from him if there was any chance of this working.
I promised Hvalla.
Vynasha sucked in a breath and pushed strength into her words she did not feel. “Your pride and fears are unworthy of you, prince.”
The beasts paused at her slow advance, cocking their heads as she reached for the part of her she hadn’t touched since she’d returned Luanor’s shape.
“I am sorry for what happened to you all,” Vynasha said, keeping her eyes on the central beast, the one with tusks who had offered a single, almost human thought. “Please, let me free you.” She reached for their minds and froze against a wall of mad terror and pain, an age of suffering. The harder she pushed, seeking a way toward the human buried inside, the more she trembled. Tears bled violet from her eyes.
The beasts bared their fangs at the blood spilling over her cheeks and crouched as though to attack. She felt their instincts at war against what she represented “Curse breaker.” They knew her. Yet it was not enough.
The beasts leapt as one, claws and teeth reaching, snapping for her. Vynasha closed her eyes and pushed one last time, attempting to break their will. Instead, something shoved back, breaking, cracking within her soul. And she opened her eyes as a blinding light and gust of howling wind and rage rushed past her.
The beasts were flung back with a thrust of Grendall’s hands. Their bodies impacted the castle and garden walls with sickening cracks.
Vynasha pressed a muddied hand to her bloody face. Her hands came away, trembling, streaked with luminous violet blood.
Grendall’s golden hands covered hers as he invaded her space, wings of light unfurling behind him and wrapping around her as they had before. She could hear the howls of other beasts coming from the castle.
“Forgive me.” Grendall’s voice echoed with power as he clutched her with his wings and ran back the way they had come.
THE RAGING HOWLS of beasts followed their escape into another passage through the castle. She had not stopped shivering, and the warmth of wings cradling her did not ease the ache in her soul. She clung to his neck when she should have been running. Wasn’t death a better alternative to this beautiful, terrible prince who she barely understood? The Changeling’s shadow in her mind writhed at her thoughts, at the majik and the curse battling for dominance over her will. If she gave in to the darkness, would she lose control of herself to him?
I’m so sorry Hvalla, Ceddrych, Wyll… I tried to be strong as long as I could.
Only after Grendall had carried her into the safety of the servants’ halls did the barrier snap into place behind them. At some point in their retreat, as the prince carried her through passages and stairs she had never seen before, his wings and light retreated until he was her Grendall once more, the gatekeeper. She had placed so much trust in him once.
“Almost there,” he said between labored breaths. The lack of weight, of echo behind his voice warmed her far better than wings of light.
She buried her face in his neck and drifted along with his urgent steps. The whisper of fabric and the thud of his heartbeat served to steady her, grounding her back from her broken consciousness.
His steps slowed, and then he shifted her weight in his arms to open a door. The door closed on its own behind them with a surge of the prince’s will. She shivered as she felt this, his majik pulling at her blood. Had he felt her attempt to reach the beasts?
Grendall did not set her down as she half expected. He settled onto a large, high-backed chair before an empty hearth. Another tug and surg
e of his willpower, and blue fire sprang from the stone.
Vynasha stared at the flames as he shifted her in his lap, muddy, bloody, and trembling. Only then did she realize he was shaking as well.
“Where are we?” Her voice was weak, torn from shouting and a scream she hadn’t been able to release.
His chest rose and fell in a rush. “My room.”
“Where?” she rasped.
Grendall sighed. “Across the hall from yours.”
“All this time… you—” she shook her head then hissed, “you bastard.”
He said nothing in his defense. Good.
Vynasha twisted in his lap, both hating and craving their close proximity. “Did you kill them?”
His silence was both damning and telling. Worse was that she could feel his remorse, the bone-deep hatred he reserved for himself.
“How many did you cull after I left?” she demanded.
“Ashes…” he began.
“You want to hear about Luanor?” she interrupted, savoring the pain and fear he attempted to mask. “You want to know how I freed her and saved the others? I only murdered one before I understood they are people, Grendall. Just as you were still you all the nights you were forced to shift into my beast.”
His gaze shuttered at her words, and she realized her slip too late.
My beast.
“Ashes…” His arms tightened, and then his forehead was pressing urgently to hers. “It is because of you I am freed from the compulsion to shift, my love.”
“No. Do not call me that. You don’t get to call me that.” She was crying. Her bloody tears had already stained his coat, like Hvalla’s earth, and the signs of her grief and failure were too much. Yet no matter how she pulled, Grendall wouldn’t release her.
“I must tell you the truth before you push me away as I deserve,” he said, catching her chin before she could turn away. “I tried to tell you from the beginning, did I not? I begged you to escape before it was too late. Yet I knew from the moment I saw you in my monstrous form that it was you. It had always been you, my love.”
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