by Lisa Daniels
“Hmm.” Yelena looked skyward for a moment. How pretty she was. Even with the unflattering way she had her hair and clothes. Shove her in a dress, bit of blush on those pale, smudged cheeks, touch of lipstick—she’d be killing it at court. A surge of mild jealousy went through Bethany. Along with frustration at such wasted beauty.
She should have been at the court. Yellow eyes. Highborn. Yelena was highborn.
“What I don’t understand,” Bethany said slowly, likely voicing Ronan’s own question, “is how a highborn like you ends up falling through the cracks. Those yellow eyes don’t lie. You have noble blood. You belong to the nobility.”
Unless she’s a bastard child. But best not to mention that.
“My mother was highborn,” Yelena said. “She fell in love with my father. They ran away together—she wouldn’t have been allowed to marry such a lowborn person. But… she was young. Really young. Like, twelve, and he was twenty or so. Charming. Irresistible.”
And illegal, Bethany thought, feeling the hairs on the back of her neck rise. Imagining Kiara when she was twelve, still so young and innocent, running away with some adult who had lured her into his arms. Nights, she would have murdered that man.
And likely, Yelena’s grandmother had the same issue. Any mother would have had that issue, if they even cared one millimeter about their offspring.
“She fell pregnant at twelve. Gave birth to me at thirteen. Their relationship… was strained, to say the least. But there’s one thing I remember quite well. I must have been, oh, six. And I remember hearing yelling downstairs. So much noise. My father was angry, I think. And when he came into the room, he was covered in blood.”
Bethany exchanged a look with Ronan. Thinking the same thing, not wanting to voice it.
“He told me that a bad, bad monster had taken my mother. And he took me downstairs to show… a werewolf, lying on the ground. Dead with silver in its heart. He said the bad wolf had killed my mother. It broke in and ate her. He wept real tears, acted so distraught. The bad monster took her.”
“Oh no…” Bethany whispered.
“I thought it strange, horrible, but I just accepted my father’s words. And then… I saw him change into a human.” She jabbed her finger at Ronan. “And I realized that the ‘bad wolf’ was my mother.”
No amount of words could describe the utter loathing and disgust Bethany felt, at the idea of a child, a child being lured into false promises of love at such an age. Forced to look after her own child. Dead by eighteen, nineteen.
“She went through her first transformation without help,” Ronan said quietly. “She must have been scared, confused. And she was so young. She probably wouldn’t have hurt anyone.” His eyes glinted. “I’m sorry, Yelena. But if I ever, ever get the chance to meet your father again, I will personally gut him alive.”
Bethany sat there with hands clenched, tears of rage building in her. That hatred, nights, so powerful. Flooding her with bile. She never thought she could hate someone so intensely in that moment.
Yelena simply closed her eyes. “I… I’m having a hard time processing this. All my life I believed the werewolf had killed Mother. There was something wrong about that story, somehow. But I believed it. But… I know now it’s a lie. I know he killed Mother.”
“I hate your father,” Bethany said, in an attempt to express that boiling rage inside her. “I blasting well hate him.”
She doubted anyone wanted to hear that someone hated their father. But Bethany just couldn’t stay quiet and polite about this one.
Ronan nodded, though he seemed entranced by Bethany. She probably looked quite a sight, muddy and tattered, but eyes gleaming with rage, lips twisted in contempt.
Not exactly an attractive quality in a princess, to be fair.
They stayed silent after that. What could you say? Nothing had prepared Yelena for that punch in the gut. Bethany and Ronan just wanted to run, to get away from the place of their imprisonment. And he’d been so close to killing Yelena.
Bethany shivered.
“You know,” Ronan said, now easing himself into a crouching position, “if things were normal right now, you would have to marry me, Bethany.”
Instantly, her senses went on full alert. “What?”
His bushy blond eyebrow raised in amusement. “You see, since you were supposed to be heading to the Dome of Delights, the rule there is that if you lay eyes upon a werewolf’s human face, that automatically betroths you to him. We wear masks to stop that happening. It didn’t really matter in Golubria, however. They like to see faces. And I’m a big boy. I can get over it. Twenty-nine years.” He patted his chest proudly.
What? “You… have to marry someone just by looking at them?” Bethany blinked rapidly at this insane rule.
“Well,” he said, “I suppose it would be between the two of you, but I’m sure you’re not planning to get married to a werewolf yet, isn’t that right, Yelena?”
The bandit girl rolled her eyes. “Technically, we can’t see your face, so I don’t think that’s a valid way to get yourself with a princess.”
“Oh, no! I’m just saying,” he said, stumbling over his words, “that, you know. It’s what happens.”
Bethany and Yelena snorted at this reaction. “She’s right,” Bethany told Ronan. “We can’t see your face. All that stuff is in front of it.”
“Anyone got a knife?”
Bethany’s heart twitched in a painful way. Not that she wasn’t convinced he meant this whole statement as a joke, but the thought of her seeing his face just after he had confessed to her what it meant made her want to run away into the bushes. Which would probably result in her being sucked up by the unstable ground.
“Me.” Yelena tossed the knife over, and Ronan checked how sharp it was, before going off to find a water source to help trim himself.
Yelena and Bethany waited anxiously for him to return, though it didn’t take too long. He sauntered back into the clearing, saying, “We shouldn’t drink any of the water here, we’ll need to go further.” He rubbed at his now stubbled face, though there were a few nicks from where he cut wrong.
Bethany gaped at the man beneath the fur. Without the mask of hair obscuring him from view—he’d even sliced some of his scalp hair off—she stared into a face that made her weak in the knees. He had a strong, solid, square jaw which complemented the plump lips that stretched into a smile. They looked pale and kissable, shadowed by a rounded nose, smooth high cheekbones, and eyes sunk deep and penetrating in his sockets.
He might have been the kind of figure who stood and waited as the sculptors worked hard on capturing the essence of his face, chipping away to get that perfect angle of his lips, and the slight indent of his temples.
“Cleans up nicely,” Yelena noted, in what had to be the understatement of the year. She accepted the knife back from him, before adding, “I hope this doesn’t mean you have to consider me for marriage.”
“Wait. That custom is true?”
“Yes.” A teasing smile played upon Ronan’s lips. He had transformed into a completely different person with the removal of all that hair. “Though, I should also mention that in the case of rescuing like this, there are exemptions. But I couldn’t resist letting you have a look for all your efforts.”
I bet you couldn’t, Bethany thought. Now acutely aware of the fact that if Ronan had been trapped for three years… that also meant three years without sex. Three years being beaten without any hope of warm arms to hold him at the end. He probably had to let go of his dreams of getting married, having children.
And, by the looks of him, he appeared very, very interested in Bethany.
Flattering. If a little embarrassing. Her face colored at the notion. Yelena observed the tension and gave another protracted eye-roll. Yelena might be eighteen years of age.
Certainly wasn’t innocent, though.
Crack.
The sound of something breaking sent them all on full alert.
R
onan’s jovial expression dropped into a snarl. Bethany’s heart beat faster, not from embarrassment and slight attraction, but from fear. Yelena gripped her knife tightly and crouched in a feral way, lips curled.
They huddled together, and Bethany extinguished the light.
Breath trembling, she waited in the dark, nothing but black painting her eyes. Nothing but fear holding her still.
Chapter Five
Something snarled next to Bethany in the darkness, along with a distorted voice that said, “I’m changing. I’ll grab you and run!”
Seconds later, a big, hairy hand swooped her up. Yelena’s gasp joined with Bethany’s, and then they were off, with Yelena’s glow necklaces flickering back to life. Again, she’d tugged on the threads of dying light and returned them to their resting place.
“Sorry,” she muttered, before bracing herself on Ronan’s back. Riding like this was uncomfortable—Bethany much preferred a horse. At least her head wouldn’t whip about quite so much, and the ache in the back of her scalp might stop at last.
No one wanted to wait around long enough to see what had made the noise. Bethany dug her fingers into Ronan’s fur, feeling his muscles jerk and contract at the tips.
No sooner had they traveled for more than a few minutes when Ronan gave a startled yelp and pitched forward, flinging both women into sticky, gloopy mud. Instantly, Bethany latched her light onto anything within range of her vision. Ronan lay half buried in the mud.
He let out another whimper, and disappeared from view.
What? Bethany struggled, finding herself sinking rapidly. Yelena screamed, flailing, but before Bethany had time to react, the wet mud reached her face, sucking her down, and she slid in the tight, suffocating darkness, unable to yell, her heartbeat thundering in her neck and ears.
No, this wasn’t possible. This shouldn’t be happening. Her blood crystallized. She tried thrashing again, but a moment later, her legs dangled, then her waist, and she slid out of the sand, thumping onto solid ground. Yelena joined with a pained whimper, having lost the energy to scream. Ronan growled and coughed to the side, saturated in mud. Above them, the ceiling seemed to hang, bulging ponderously. The gaps which they fell through resealed themselves, but not after chunks of mud tumbled down on top of them.
“Wha—” Bethany wheezed. Her chest squeezed, making it hard to inhale properly. “What in nights just happened?”
“That’s no quicksand,” Yelena said, slumping onto her elbows, spitting out mud. “Quicksand sinks only a meter at most.”
Coughing, Ronan transformed into his human form. “It’s… magically held together. Look.” He pointed at the ceiling. For the first time, Bethany noticed the wisps of darkness that oozed out of the mud. Hard to see when the world was dark, obviously… “I’ve heard of these places before. They’re cave seals. Hiding entrances to the catacombs. Which are supposed to be where many night horde creatures dwell. Not that anyone plans to risk themselves trying out every swamp pit they happen to find.” He wiped his hands. “Ugh.”
Yelena crawled a short distance. “Water. Here.” They edged over to her, and used the brackish water to wash themselves off, churning some of the silt in it. Bethany threaded their clothes with warmth, aiming to dry them off and make sure no one caught hypothermia.
Not having any other choice, they progressed through the newly revealed tunnel, since the ceiling was too high for them to reach and probably impossible to crawl through anyway. Within moments, they stumbled across an underground orchard, fed by the black smoke, stretching out in a large, cavernous expanse.
“People definitely live here,” Yelena muttered, her eyes slightly wild. But no houses or structures revealed themselves in the light. Just the twisted, uneven fields of fruit trees, and little trickling rivers.
“It doesn’t look well tended to,” Bethany said. Everything had been allowed to grow wild.
Exhausted, apprehensive, they chose to settle in this place for now, to eat, drink, and sleep upon the highest point of the cave, Bethany’s warmth enveloping them. After resting, they gathered what fruits they could fit into Yelena’s backpack, the purple and green fruits in particular, and tentatively edged forward into unknown territory. To night horde territory.
The darkness bathed them, and their lights were painfully visible in this place that had perhaps seen no light in centuries. They slept long and quiet, taking it in turns to stay awake and watch the darkness for movement. Tempers frayed until they took the time to relax. No sense pushing themselves when they already had been pushed for a while. Even if they risked running into whatever lived down here.
“Wonder what it must have been like to live here,” Ronan said in a sleepy voice, startling Bethany out of her vigil. “Tending the fruits. Growing things underground without any need for light.”
Yelena snored lightly near Bethany’s feet, her blonde hair flopped out in a mess.
“Maybe a group of humans moved in here,” Bethany said with a shrug. “After the sun went out. They tried making something of themselves here.” She rubbed her tired eyes. She didn’t want to talk about whoever might have dwelled here once, though. “Ronan, do you miss your family?”
The werewolf’s yellow eyes turned from jovial to grave. “Of course. Thinking about them helped me through the worse times. Thinking about how they must be looking for me. Wondering.”
“Did you feel disappointed that they didn’t come?”
He sighed. “I don’t see how that’s relevant. But yes. I was. Though I understand. What’s with the suddenly personal questions?”
“I just want to know more about you. Who you are. How you coped.”
“You’ll get plenty of time to know who I am when we get back, Princess.” He gave her a gentle smile, and reached over a hand to envelop hers in warmth, mixing with the heat transference.
“How can you be sure? Because our luck’s been pretty awful so far.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t say that.” The smile grew. “My luck changed when you came into my life. Did I mention that I’m terribly grateful about not being enslaved?”
“Maybe a few dozen times.” Bethany didn’t move her hand away. She liked the feeling of his big palm cupping hers.
Her eyes locked with his. Such earnest eyes. For a moment, Bethany imagined herself crossing the small distance between them and kissing those lips.
Then, just as quickly as the thought appeared, she banished it furiously from mind.
No.
She wasn’t going to kiss someone she’d only known for, what? Three nights? Four?
Though it seemed much, much longer than that.
Already, the carriage on the lightwoven path seemed aeons ago. That past belonged to a different Bethany. One who would never contemplate breaking the law in making necessary sacrifices. In deliberately, perhaps coldly, choosing her own life.
She wasn’t sure if she liked the Bethany that had replaced her.
Yelena stirred in her sleep, before opening bleary yellow eyes. “Oh, good,” Yelena said. “You’re not kissing.”
Bethany flushed. Ronan laughed, before helping the girl get up to her feet. Refreshed after drinking more water from the little streams, though Yelena needed to cough out some of the dark fluid in her throat due to her ongoing swamp fever, they continued their wanderings along the catacombs.
Such an eerie place. Past the orchards, they were greeted with long, winding tunnels, some that ended abruptly in deep, deadly drops. Others that were caved in with rock. Several times they passed skeletons.
Ronan didn’t opt for carrying them this time. In such a tight, unfamiliar place, he wanted his limbs free to protect. And it gave Bethany ample opportunity to study the network of tunnels, thinking about what Ronan had said about living underground.
She would hate it. Having the walls close in like this, like the twisting body of a worm.
Parts of the tunnels had lightwoven paint upon the walls. Paint that had cracked and faded with time.
Eve
ntually, they saw a faint light ahead, and approached cautiously, Ronan in his wolf form, Yelena holding her dagger like she meant to use it. They entered a dome-like cavern with faint light coming off the sloping walls.
Patterns adorned the sides. Murals, paintings of a long ago dwelling. Lightwoven paint that had stood the test of time. Perhaps a temple dedicated to some ancient god. A civilization lost when the endless dark came. Such beautiful, if faded, pictures. The images glowed with fluorescent light—the paint itself had a lumpy, blotchy quality to it, but it allowed the images to tell a story.
In succession, the walls showed an image of the mythical sun—yellow in a painted blue sky, juxtaposed by the moon, a dark gray object with a tinge of red on the side.
Like the corona of red seen in the sky in the warmest part of night. She held her breath, eyes absorbing the images. Trying to comprehend what they meant. The images that gave her most pause, however, was one of a single figure, black silhouetted hands straining towards the sun. The light funnelled off the sun, taken by the shadow man, until nothing remained but a dark spot in a dark sky.
Bethany stared, stunned.
She thought about the way she had taken all the light from the camp. From the fires.
According to the painting, the sunlight had been stolen.
An old poem stirred to mind.
“And the sun went out,” she recited. “And the moon moved in.” Her hands traced over the next image. Where the dark gray moon had been moved in front of the sun. Because, of course, even if there was no light, they could still get the sun’s heat. The sun’s rays. “And the stars were gone…” The glowing dots in the black sky disappeared in the pictures—the shadow man taking them all.
“How did we never discover this before?” Ronan’s nose was practically pressed to the images, his eyes ablaze with newfound knowledge. With realization.
Other images showed after the darkness. People holding burning light swords. Conjuring light monsters. Fighting against those who oozed the anti-light, the darkness. The shadow man’s people. People who fought, with agonized faces, weeping eyes.
