Bound Beauty

by Jennifer Silverwood

  “Queen,” another acknowledged with a deeper bow of its bronze, horned head.

  A silver beast with ruby eyes added, “We remain as we are.”

  From beside her came, “Ask us again, after we face the invaders.” The smallest and formerly most defiant beast sounded far too young.

  Vynasha ran a hand over its matted head. “Thank you.” To the others, she said, “I want those who were injured in the last attack to remain here. Guard our home, especially the caves. The Wolvs found a way through the falls before and might attempt to come through again.”

  Her beasts, for they were surely hers now, stood as high as their four legs could offer them with sharp smiles. It shamed her that she remembered the last as an afterthought.

  “Please, try not to hurt them too badly if you can help it. Enough blood has already been spilled between our peoples.”

  Our people.

  A different silence stole the room, a weight born of remembrance. “There are too few of us left to make war,” she added. “I don’t want to destroy everything like your last queen did. I want to restore it. Help me keep the peace?”

  They answered with barks and yips, with long, aching howls that lifted the hairs on the back of her neck. Vynasha felt their accord and smiled.

  In the end, she convinced only thirty beasts to accompany her outside the castle and through the city. The others had barked and howled their protests, but too many were injured and the others not sound enough of mind. She couldn’t afford for one of them to break the connection and attack.

  Ten had volunteered to patrol the city streets, reminding them Bitterhelm was not as abandoned as it appeared. Even now, Vynasha couldn’t help casting cursory glances along either side of the cobblestoned path. Empty buildings like whitewashed tombs housed nothing but ghosts now. She took note of where each of the ten walked and tested their bonds carefully.

  It still felt strange, wielding this much majik, even stranger to put theories she and Thea had read about to the test. With Grendall’s inherent knowledge swirling through her blood, however, it was as easy as breathing.

  A warm body brushed against her hand, and she turned to find the smallest beast at her side. The girl’s name had been Eirwen, named for the queen of legend. That she had remembered her name surprised Vynasha, but she was quickly learning Eirwen was not like the others.

  “It will be fine,” Eirwen spoke to her through their bond.

  Vynasha let her hand sink further into the small beast’s jet-black fur with a sigh. “You don’t know how determined they can be.”

  The beast chuffed and growled what might have been a laugh as she thought back, “I know more than you might think. I have been alive longer than you, remember?”

  Vynasha shook her head while keeping her gaze trained on the road ahead, the backs of the beasts moving around them. “Hundreds of years of living hasn’t made your prince any wiser.”

  Eirwen hissed. “Obviously not.”

  Vynasha laughed in spite of the task before her and the people she must face. On her father’s side, Vynasha was descended from the great North Lords of old. Her mother had been a Phurie of legend, and it was her mother’s blood that had given her strength to brave the wilderness to give her nephew a better life. Vynasha had been cursed twice, facing her worst fears in the process. She had fallen in love with two very different men and in the end made choices for what she believed was for their people, all of them. Now, she walked with her beasts and a smile on her face and felt the power of Bitterhelm thrumming in her blood with a steady beat.

  “We are with you, no matter the outcome,” Eirwen said, nudging her burly shoulder against Vynasha’s leg. This time, Vynasha didn’t hesitate threading her fingers through the shorter beast’s fur. It was a small comfort, and it was somehow enough.

  Mother, she sent a silent plea to the skies, don’t let me fail them again.

  The road widened as they left the city behind, descending the mountain pass to reach the gates. It was the third time Vynasha had made the journey. For many of the beasts at her side, other maidens drawn by the power of the curse, this was the nearest they’d come to freedom in hundreds of years. They had placed their faith in her.

  Vynasha’s grip tightened in Eirwen’s fur the moment the gate came into view. Her steps faltered. For a moment, she felt startlingly human.

  “No matter what happens,” Eirwen’s voice softly entered her thoughts.

  “Wait here,” she whispered to the others. Her hand kept a steady grip in Eirwen’s fur. The smaller beast did not comment, only prowled at her side with as near a smile as her cat-like face was capable of.

  She hadn’t known what she expected when Odym announced the attack. The Wolv pack she had thought to greet, however, was missing. Her gaze swept the five figures waiting at the gate, then past them for the tree line. She could almost feel the presence of someone or something else watching her, the mirror-folk most likely.

  Her family watched her glance over them and then settle back over their features one by one. Grandmother stood slightly back, her greatsword strapped to her back. Her black eyes sparkled as she glanced between Eirwen and Vynasha with a quirk of her lips. “You are even more cunning than I thought, little witch. Well done.”

  She knows I stole Grendall’s power.

  “Mother.” Baalor’s deep baritone warning raised invisible hackles at Vynasha’s neck. She closed her eyes briefly before facing the pack leader. His emerald eyes and silver hair struck her like a physical blow.

  Did you just assume you’d never see him again?

  His posture was loose, and had she not known him better, she might have thought his smile mocking. But Vynasha saw the tension in his shoulders and the pain hidden behind his false grin. The mask of indifference he wore hurt worse than had he raged at her.

  “Good to see you’re alive and well,” Baalor greeted her. “I nearly killed Wolfsbane for what he did to you, by the way.”

  “Yes,” her brother interrupted, taking a step nearer the gate, “we are all well aware of your murderous tendencies, you old bastard.” Ceddrych’s hair was long enough that he kept it tied behind his head, and his beard was fuller. There were lines about his eyes that hadn’t been present before he’d left. “Ashes,” he gently greeted.

  A strangled sound escaped her throat, and she released Eirwen to grip the bars between them. Her heart lodged in her throat and her eyes stung as she thought of all she had learned of her mother. “Ceddrych.” She managed little more than a rasping whisper.

  He knew all along, didn’t he? He knew we were only half siblings, yet he loved me more than the others somehow.

  Ceddrych’s calm expression shifted immediately as he followed, covering her clawed hands without hesitation. He pressed his forehead to hers and released a trembling sigh. “Forgive me. I should have come for you sooner.”

  “I’m fine, Ceddrych.” She laughed, smiling past her tears. How many times would she be separated from her brother?

  “As we can see,” came the melodious reply somewhere behind him. Vynasha frowned at the voice’s familiarity. She pulled away with a frown, but Ceddrych drew her attention back to him with a sad smile.

  “Luanor told us what happened, and then Resha tried to warn me about her father. I should have come to get you, Ashes. I shouldn’t have left you to think you were alone. Why didn’t you come to me like you told them you would?”

  Vynasha couldn’t breathe. It was true. She had lied to the others, too afraid and desperate to get the amulet away from Thea. She had run to Wolfsbane instead, and look where that brilliant decision had led her.

  “I’m sorry I didn’t trust you,” she confessed.

  “It doesn’t matter. You’re here now. I’m here, Ashes,” Ceddrych insisted.

  If he knew about Father, would he still care?

  Before she could push the traitorous thought aside, the melodious voice rose again. “You risked your life to save mine, and I have not forgotten the deb
t I owe you, curse breaker.”

  Vynasha pulled back to find Luanor had moved to the gate as well. Grendall’s former love, Baalor’s sister, and the beast she had freed. To see her ethereal features now took Vynasha back to the Silverblud forest, to the night before she had been betrayed.

  The woman wrapped long fingers about the bars, a cold fire in her pale-green gaze. “You command his slaves now. Let us inside, and we can end this.”

  Vynasha flinched. “What are you talking about?” She blinked and wondered at the strange fog she noticed hovering about her mind. She was forgetting something important and reached a hand back for one of her beasts.

  “Just listen to them, please, little sister.” Ceddrych’s arm darted through the bars, catching and pulling her back into his hold.

  Ilya Iceveins appeared from over her daughter’s shoulder. “You wield the power of Bitterhelm, child, as it was foretold.”

  “What are you saying?” Vynasha hesitated as if the answer waited at the back of her mind, within her bound blood, and the dozens of voices screaming the truth at her. Surrounded by the Iceveins, she could not hear any of them.

  Luanor smiled a sharp-toothed grin, eerily resembling her brother in that moment. “He stole our freedom, but you are no longer his slave. You set us free, and now it is our turn.”

  “I am not his prisoner, no matter what you may believe.” Vynasha shook her head and tried to dislodge her hand from Ceddrych’s grip, but her brother held fast. “Let me go.”

  “Ashes, I’m sorry, but this is for your own good.”

  “Now, Thea!” Baalor shouted.

  Vynasha turned her head frantically, searching for the girl. Why had they brought a child here? When they were attacking…

  The attack.

  Her memories stormed past whatever fog had been weighing overhead with the pounding of a hailstorm, and Vynasha cried out. Grendall’s majik roared through her blood in protest as something wrenched at her defenses, cutting her off from her power.

  Blood majik, she thought with a groan.

  The gate cracked with a boom, and the burning scent of strange majik filled her nose. Behind her, the beasts roared as Vynasha was pulled through the gate.

  Powerful arms tucked her against a solid chest, and for a moment, Vynasha blinked in wonder as Grolthox lifted her closer, his wolf-like snout close enough to touch.

  “How are you here?” She tried to speak past a mouthful of blood. The false prince’s cold nose pressed to her hair, and then, with a lurch, they were running.

  She thought she heard the distant sound of Grendall’s screams follow her into shadow.

  HER DREAMS WERE a howling wilderness, like feathers slipping between her fingers before she could catch them. Grendall’s screams echoed in the void, yet each time she caught up with him, his image burst into ashes.

  “I tried to warn you, didn’t I?” A familiar rumbling voice lifted her from the fog permeating her mind. One moment the voice wore a form with polished horns set upon a wolf-like head. The next, the voice wore silver hair and watched her with glittering green eyes above pointed white teeth.

  Sharp like mine, she thought as she rolled her tongue over the roof of her mouth.

  “I warned you that your choices would bring a cruel fate upon you, Beauty,” the voice continued, tugging at scattered memories.

  “A pity you could not love a beast,” Grolthox said.

  Yet the hand cradling hers wasn’t furred or clawed but calloused human skin. “Baalor?” Her voice cracked over his name, and she slowly opened her eyes. Vynasha frowned as his blurred image cleared. “What are you doing here?”

  “Waiting for you to wake up,” he replied, his words slightly more cultured than she remembered. There was no humor in his grim smile, and his eyes, clear and sharp as emeralds, belonged to the wolfish beast from her dreams.

  “I did everything in my power to please you,” the false prince had said, “turned my world over to appease your childish whims…You could have restored everything, even brought them back to life!”

  “Grolthox?” Vynasha gasped as she jerked free from his grasp.

  Baalor flinched, and he reached a tentative hand out before letting it fall to his side. “So now you know. I wondered if the majik bled through the gate enough for you to see…”

  Vynasha’s heart pounded with his words, with her need to escape, yet her movements grew even more sluggish. “Grolthox,” she repeated.

  “Beauty,” he replied with a noble tilt of his head. Candlelight played over the shadows of his face, and she could see it so clearly now, the sharp wolfish features. The false prince who had taken over Grendall’s place in the castle. How had she never guessed before?

  “I’m such a fool,” she muttered with a shake of her head. “Is Baalor even your name?”

  “Grolthox was the title my Queen gave me,” Baalor replied. His shoulders hunched as he bent to rest his elbows on his knees. “I was chosen to lead the other guardians, to protect the innocent. To enforce the queen’s will, no matter the danger.”

  Vynasha should have been paying better attention, especially with majik drugging her senses. Instead, she watched Baalor tense before he spoke and the dip between his brows deepen. She had forgotten how broad he was, the way his presence claimed any room he entered, in either form. No matter the skin he wore, Baalor had always called her Beauty.

  “How are you…” her words faltered at his sudden sharp glance. “I’ve seen you trade skins between man and beast before.”

  “The curse affected all of us.” Baalor’s frame seemed to curl ever inward. “Soraya punished some with a shape they didn’t wish. Others, like my kind, were split in two. We could no longer be our true selves, not unless the curse broke or faded along with that blighted city.”

  “You knew if I accepted your proposal in the castle… then again in the village,” she began, at a loss. Had he always intended to keep her from fulfilling the curse?

  Was any of it real?

  Baalor settled back in his seat with a bitter twist of his mouth. “Did I want to do everything in my power to pull that damned curse apart, you mean? After it stole and mutilated my sister, there was nothing I wasn’t willing to do. The little princeling did me a favor giving up his rights. For the first time, our kind ruled ourselves.”

  Hatred clung thickly to his voice, and Vynasha had never seen the almost manic gleam in his eye. The struggle to reconcile both images she carried of him ached. “I think,” she carefully began, “you were kinder to me as Grolthox.”

  The false prince would have deflected her words, pretended to have been flattered by her. The Wolv she had almost married would have laughed at her severity. Baalor had always been trying to make her laugh, until it wasn’t enough anymore. Vynasha sucked in a sharp breath as the cruelty in his face melted with her words to reveal the shadows beneath his eyes, the lack of care in his appearance. He looked at her like a man who had nothing left to lose, as though with her pronouncement, he was finally broken.

  “I thought you loved me. I thought you felt as sure of our bond as I did.” His fist flexed over the blade, cutting him afresh. “I thought the sealed mating bond would be enough to break his.”

  Mate, he had called her, this man who wanted to give her a home and family. Even now, the thought pulled at the broken pieces of her heart she had buried with the memory. This was what the curse and her absence had left behind.

  “You think I didn’t try to tell you?” he blurted, startling her with his vehemence. “I wanted to tell you, a hundred different ways! Every time, the curse wrapped around my throat like her collar was still chained about my neck.” Baalor tugged the collar of his tunic down and bared the silvery network of scars across his skin.

  Vynasha reached to trace the familiar lines with new eyes. “I didn’t realize. You had so many…” her words faltered as he caught her hand and held it fast.

  “I played their games and did my damnedest to keep wanderers away from the cit
y when I could. But I couldn’t abandon my mother and daughter any more than I could my sister, not as long as men like Wolfsbane roamed freely, aiding our queen beyond the grave,” he snarled.

  Vynasha flinched. “He’s the reason I went back,” she confessed. Baalor stilled, yet his grip on her hand tightened, urging her to continue. She released a breath, the betrayal fresh and painful as the moment she had awakened freezing and alone behind Bitterhelm’s gates. “I knew I would need to go back to the castle eventually. Your sister found us, and I freed her from the curse, but I was weakened after. Wolfsbane took advantage of that, but I didn’t realize what he intended until it was too late.”

  “I should have killed that monster when I had the chance,” Baalor growled, pulling her back to the present and his emerald gaze burning with a cold fire. “I will make him regret it, Beauty, I swear to you.”

  Vynasha shook her head. “Please don’t. He’s mad, and he already betrayed me. There’s nothing more he can do, not to me.” She froze as her words played back over in her mind and ignored her muddled senses in a vain attempt to rise. “Where is Wyll? Oh gods, how could I forget? I left him… Where’s my nephew!”

  Baalor pressed her shoulders back into the mattress. His voice rumbled in soothing tones somewhere overhead. Her vision was blurring again. Why?

  Blood majik. They used blood majik to subdue me at the gate.

  Anger hot as the sun ignited into a fury not quite her own. She could almost hear Grendall crying out to her from somewhere far away.

  Why didn’t I fight it more, Grendall? What have they done?

  Their voices overlapped in her untethered consciousness after that.

  Sometimes it was Grandmother’s rich cackle. “How little they understand your true nature, but I remember well. I watched your kind bid empires rise and fall. Any wonder they both were drawn to you so, little Phurie?”

  Other times Erythea’s lilting voice crooned, “We’ll break your bond with him soon. I almost have it, I think. It worked on the hares, remember? Grandmother has been helping me maintain the spell. I wish you weren’t so sad, though, Vynasha. I’ll keep trying, so we can be a family again.”