“You didn’t tell me.”
“Would it have made a difference?”
I closed my eyes. “I can’t answer that.”
Ashe laughed. “You have an answer for everything, and now nothing?”
My head was swimming. “It is not about you!”
“You tried your way, Prince,” said Archibald. “Now we must try mine.”
I glared at the captain and then back to Ashe. “So, what now? You take me as my father, the king wanted you to?”
Ashe winced, but made no move to rebuke my words.
“King Paratheon always saw you as weak, Prince.” Archibald came forward, his sword swinging at his side. Amusement danced on his lips. “Why do you think he’s here? Hmm? It’s because he couldn’t trust you to do one simple task. And now he has to clean up the mess.”
“I am not weak,” said Ashe. The words were so soft and careful that nobody would believe them.
“Stop trying to convince him!” I burst out.
“Let him,” said Fray under his breath. “It’ll make it easier to kill him.”
“You’re not killing him.”
“Shut up!” Ashe cried out. He grabbed at his temples and groaned like something terrible was raging in his head. I knew the feeling well—realizing how horrible of a family you derived from. But Ashe was not like me. He cared what others thought of him. He made a show of being the glowing prince. But he asked me to trust him. Did I?
When Ashe finally opened his eyes, I registered his grim expression, and a sickening feeling washed over me. There was no mistaking the look in his eyes
—something cold and unfamiliar. I was losing him.
“Ashe…” I heard the pleading in my voice. He had asked me to trust him!
“I can’t go back to the Islands.” Before, Ashe had been hunched over, vulnerable, but now his body stood ramrod straight, his muscles tense, sharp, and ready.
“No, you can’t,” I said. “War is coming. We must choose our sides.”
“I wasn’t finished,” he hissed. “I can’t go back there and face my father without getting what he sent me here for.”
“You can’t have me,” was all I could muster. He could be like Henry and fight against this thing that was happening to him. He’d said it himself, to throw titles to the wind. I bit down on my lip. Fight against it, Ashe. You must fight against it.
Ashe rubbed his hands over his eyes. He looked exhausted, and his words were slow and weary. “Whatever my father has planned, I trust it is the best for my kingdom.”
The words hit me like a punch to my belly. Angry tears swelled behind my eyes.
The thing in front of me was no longer the prince I knew. A prince would never force a woman’s hand. A prince would never allow himself to be coerced. I wanted to shake the sense back into him, but I didn’t dare touch him.
“You are not weak, Ashe,” I whispered, but my words were lost.
I thought about the first time we had met. The way his smirk had annoyed me, but also how it had grown on me. I thought of the way he had helped Fray and what his father had done to him, and how maybe I could have loved him if the world had dealt us different hands.
Lulu had been wrong all along. Ashe was nothing like Henry.
Ashe looked at me, and then looked away. “Don’t make this difficult. Just do what is asked of you for once.”
Beside me, Fray stiffened.
Fear hit me square in the chest. I used it wisely. I charged at Ashe, ramming him shoulder to shoulder like a bull. We fell to the ground with me on top, his sword dropping beside us. “I won’t go with you!” I screamed. Ashe tried to reach for his sword, but I dug my nails into his cheek. “I will never love you!”
You are weak, Ashe! The words screamed in my head. But I am not!
“Isabelle!”
I ignored Fray and pinned my full weight on Ashe. It would have been easy to subdue him, had he weighed a hundred pounds less, but it took mere seconds for him to grab hold of my wrists and squeeze.
“Izzy, stop this now!” he said in a snarl.
I heard the crack before I felt the pain. I jolted back, freeing Ashe, and felt myself being dragged backwards by my own shoulders. Fray had grabbed hold of me and was pulling me to my feet. He let out a slew of curses I’d never heard before and cradled my wrist. Murmurs and laughing filled the air.
“Did she think she could kill you?” a soldier asked.
I caught Ashe’s eyes, who stared back hatefully. He knew I wouldn’t go willingly. I would fight with every ounce I had in me.
“You’re outnumbered,” said Archibald from somewhere close. “And outpowered.”
Time stopped, and through the fog of pain came a voice, smoky and confident. “Oh,” Fray said. “I don’t believe that’s true.”
Chapter 39
Fray removed his tunic and barely shivered in the morning chill. “I am the sun at your waking,” he said softly as he kicked off his boots. “I am the moon at your slumber.”
I heard the rip of clothing, his pants shredded at his feet and a sudden yelp of pain. Fray dropped to his knees, succumbing to the apparent agony ripping through him. Gods, I thought. I was seeing the magic of the Gwylis right before my very eyes.
And I took not one step away.
A pause, and everything quieted as the air stilled. Fray jerked as fingers shifted into paws and muscles tensed against the burgeoning fur. His body stretched. Back arching, shoulders widening. He screamed as bones elongated and skin tore.
Then a growl shaped four words that took the air from my lungs. “I am the beast.”
A flurry, a flash, and a blinding light. I shielded my eyes with my good hand and looked around wildly. I reached out and walked as if through the sun and touched something coarse, yet soft. “Fray,” I whispered as the light faded and I came face to face with a wolf.
There was Fray, with eyes blue as the sky and ears tall and pointed like sails on a ship, remade with raw, unbidden magic.
I sucked in a breath. His fur was thick and glossy, rusty brown as the earth beneath our feet with patches of white on his chest and throughout his muzzle. Bone white teeth flashed between his jaws, saliva dripping in large droplets. His eyes glowed with a hunger born from years of suffering and pain, born from a hatred of my people, long suppressed since my father had taken away his voice. Untamed and gloriously fierce. He was exquisite.
“Ah,” said Archibald. His face showed no emotion, but he inched toward the line of trees away from Fray, nonetheless. “A wolf in wolf’s clothing.”
“Isabelle,” said Ashe, also backing away. His heel caught a rock, and he stumbled backward. “He’s a monster. Come before he hurts you!”
Fray bristled at the insult, dipped his head, and snarled as Ashe scrambled back. I knew predators well enough to know that Fray was enacting dominance over Ashe. The fur along his spine bristled. His teeth pulled over his lips.
“Call off your men,” I said. “Nobody has to die today.”
“Somebody will.” Fray’s voice was a tremendous rumble. He took a step and then two. I watched how his large paws pressed into the ground, how his muscles moved under his thick fur.
I don’t know why it happened, but I remembered a time when I was younger, and Henry was alive. He had taken me into the forest to teach me how to shoot his bow. And my hands trembled with the memory of seeing a pack of wolves against the breaking dawn, watching them moving like shadows. My brother had stayed still. He’d held me close to his body, watching the mysterious and frightening creatures. “See,” he had said. “Look how fearless they are.”
My breath caught in my throat.
I can be fearless, too.
“Ashe Paratheon,” I said. “You will never touch me, and if the devils grant your wish, I promise I will kill you in your sleep with my bare hands.”
Ashe scowled, annoyed, and pushed himself to his feet. Though he took a fighting stance, his hands trembled as they gripped the pummel of his sword. Fray res
ponded, bending his head low and letting out a fierce roar of warning. The ferocity of it blew Ashe’s clothes back like a forceful wind.
Behind him, the Peek soldiers pressed closer.
“Hold,” said Ashe, waving his hand to Archibald, who barked the same orders. “No matter what, don’t kill it.” He got to his feet and walked forward. His sword swayed in front of him like a wagging tail. “I want to kill it myself.”
I came beside Fray, grasping the fur at his ruff. I settled my head into him, breathing him in, remembering the first time we met. The way I fell, quite literally, from the very start. I remembered the way he’d kissed me and the way he’d never had to say a word for me to know what he felt.
I remembered how he had saved my life, more than once. He had done all of this for me.
And then I remembered that I was not my father.
“Don’t kill him, Fray,” I whispered.
“He hurt you,” he growled, inching his head toward me. I placed a hand in the place between his eyes. “Fine. I will make no promises.”
With that, he braced for Ashe’s attack, which came with lightning speed. The way he brandished the sword marked him an expert swordsman. His one strike would have been a killing blow had he not been facing off against something as powerful as a Gwylis.
The prince was either very brave or very stupid.
Fray dodged the blow and caught the long sword in his teeth. Ashe kept a tight hold on the grip, gritting his teeth and pulling back as hard as he could. When Fray felt the prince’s strength reach its limit, he let the sword go. Ashe fell back in an unceremonious heap.
Ashe took only a moment to regain his breath. He bore his sword down, but Fray caught his arm this time and clamped his jaw shut. Ashe cried out as Fray took the arm in his teeth and shook the body attached to it. The prince’s feet were off the ground, dangling like a puppet.
Kill him, I thought. Kill the traitorous bastard. For a moment, I wanted to see Fray eat him alive. Then I blinked, and it was gone.
“Fray, stop!”
Ashe was released immediately and fell, crumpled, to the ground. His arm was torn from the elbow down.
Archibald caught hold of his shoulders and dragged him away, blood smearing the frozen ground.
Fray turned his massive head to me, his teeth still bared and dripping with red. “Why don’t we kill him now and save ourselves the trouble later?” he grumbled.
“Still hold!” cried Archibald, attending to the wounded prince.
“Cut it off,” Ashe asked him softly. I stepped toward him, looming over him like a storm cloud. He looked up to me, eyes full of tears. “Cut it off, Izzy.”
“You should,” growled Fray. “Otherwise, he’ll become cursed just like me.”
Ashe fell onto his back in the bloodied ground. “Cut it off!” he screamed. “Izzy, please!”
I watched him writhe around in pain, and all I could think of was Wargrave gouging out his own eyeball to save himself. Did I wish Ashe to become a Gwylis? Did I truly hate him that much?
I shook my head. “You better do it quick,” I said to Archibald. “Do it!”
Archibald stepped forward, battleax in hand, and let out one big exhale before bringing it down, severing Ashe’s arm just above the elbow. I stood, clutching my wrist, my heart pounding in my chest. I longed to dig my heel into his bleeding wound and press until his throat dried out and he couldn’t scream any longer. I tipped my head toward the prince’s guard. Archibald, once cocky, now looked as passive as a kitten. I stepped away, allowing him to bind the prince’s stump.
Missing, Abiyaya had said when first taking his right hand. That one is missing.
I shifted a few inches away from Ashe’s bloodied arm and his screams of pain. I looked to Fray, his breath coming out in clouds a few feet from where I stood. A crack of lighting sounded, and the first drops of rain fell. I was so close to Fray that I could feel his breath warming my skin. And all I could think about was how we’d be free of this soon, and the peace of that promise was all I could feel.
Then the cold iron of the ax pressed against my throat.
“Touch me, and she dies.”
With one steady hand, Archibald braced me just under my ribs and pulled me back. I started to scream but the head of the ax pressed so hard it cut off my voice.
Fray leaped toward us and released a barrage of roars, saliva mixed with blood spraying my face.
“Keep away, or I’ll gut her,” said Archibald. He dragged me toward the tree line where the archers waited.
“No, Fray,” I breathed. He was more than an arm’s length away, but I reached out for him anyway.
“I don’t want her,” said Archibald, and suddenly I could feel his hand trembling. “Just you.”
And then the archers were there, circling us, arrows primed.
“This pretty, little thing,” said Archibald, his words hot in my ear. He relaxed his grip on the ax, enough for me to suck in air. “I wish it was you I had stabbed instead of your cousin. That death, I heard, was quite dramatic.”
I tried to hide the shudder that shot through me at the mention of Lulu. I started screaming, looking first at the bloodied Ashe crumpled on the ground, and then to Fray. The tears came at the panic in his eyes. I tasted salt on my lips.
“Let her go, and you’ll have me.” Fray’s voice trembled and rolled like thunder.
“Don’t,” I said to Fray. His blue eyes considered mine, and for the first time I thought I saw fear reflected in them. “He won’t hurt me. He’s a coward like his prince.”
“Archibald!” Ashe writhed on the ground and attempted to sit up, only to fall back again. “Leave her to me.”
I froze, silent, waiting for something to happen. Anything. I wanted Fray to lunge and kill everything around us until we were the only two standing. The anger…the rage lit like a torch inside of me. I was ready to fight if he was.
But Fray arched his back and tucked his tail, and even though I knew what it meant, and I knew what was happening, it didn’t seem real.
“Fray,” I cried out. “Fray!”
Archibald gave the order. The arrows flew, piercing his skin, causing spots of red to seep onto his fur. I was forced to the ground where a foot drove into my ribs, taking the air from my lungs. I gasped and clawed across the dirt toward Fray, but then I was off the ground again, this time yanked by my hair and thrown toward the trees where I couldn’t see him—only hear the groans as he retook human form.
“Get off him, you bastards!” My voice ripped through my throat. I clutched my broken wrist and bruised ribs and hauled myself to my feet, but something hard struck my face and knocked me back. Spots formed in front of my eyes. I tasted blood in my mouth.
“Leave her,” a distant voice said. “She’s not going anywhere.”
I got up onto all fours. The trees blurred around me, smashed together. I crawled, and turned, and fell again. I blinked, putting everything back into view. The soldiers closing in, Fray in his human form, bloodied and naked, his wolf form outlining the edge of my sight. No blue eyes. No tawny brown wolf. Red. Red, everywhere.
He wasn’t fighting. He wasn’t making a sound.
I wanted to scream. I tried to fight. But I didn’t have it in me. Through the storm clouds in my vision, I saw Fray’s naked body, his beautiful body, and then there was nothing left. No light.
I pushed myself onto my knees. Moments later something hard struck my cheek, and then nothing.
Chapter 40
The air was stale and cold when I finally opened my eyes. I moved my right arm to see my bandaged wrist and then I tried to sit up, throbbing all over. How did I get here?
A torch blazed on the wall of the room. The same end table, the same glass of water, the same door. I saw my boots beside a water basin. This had been Fray’s room when he got injured. I’m back at the castle.
I threw off the sheet and swung my legs over the bed so that they dangled. Pain doubled me over. I lifted my tunic to find m
y skin a sickening black and purple. I took a shuddering breath. How many ribs had Archibald cracked? Along with my wrist and the aching in my head, I was beaten.
A broken thing. The princess with stars in her eyes and darkness in her heart. I was nothing.
I gripped the sheet of my bed and let the tears fall.
If I gave up now, Lulu’s death would have been for nothing. I had skirted death more than once. I was no longer afraid of it. But I wanted to die differently. Not here in this castle.
I swiped away the tears and balled up the fist of my good hand. At heart, I saw hope as something attainable, something that should be held onto no matter the conditions.
And I knew things would be all right in the end for a girl that loved all the wrong things.
I uncurled my hand and pulled on my boots. My cloak was nowhere to be seen. Neither was my dagger. My hair had come undone, but with only one good hand, I couldn’t tie it back, so I combed with my fingers and tucked it into the back of my shirt just as the door to the room inched open. I sat there on the edge of the bed and took a deep calming breath as my mother entered, holding a cup of amber liquid.
“For the pain,” she said. I took the cup from her and drank it. Then I set the cup down onto the end table and went to stand. “No, sit for this.”
I stared at her. She was dressed in a black gown with lace sleeves and her hair was pulled flat against her head. Even her lip stain was black. Was this all for Lulu?
“Did you know?” I asked, my voice strained. “Did you know that father killed Henry?”
“Yes,” she replied, the word like a knife to my heart. “Your brother turned against us, Isabelle, and it seems you have done just the same. Why?”
“You knew,” I croaked. I curled my fingers and wiped the sweat on my tunic. “I loved you. I didn’t know it until tonight, but I did, just as a daughter should love her mother. But you weren’t a mother.”
My mother backed away, staying within the shadows, hidden from the torch. “You will know someday,” she said softly. “And you will have to choose between two things and decide which will kill you first.”
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