The shape paused. And then, a voice floated through the darkness, wet and rasping, neither male nor female. The sound echoed oddly, bouncing off the kitchen walls and sounding further away.
“Who’s there?”
Lilac booked it for the open door. Knowing that she could’ve, probably should’ve ran upstairs to the safe confines of her room, curiosity still consumed her. Grabbing the nearest torch from its bracket, she returned to the kitchen and thrust it into the dark—and gasped.
A large gray wolf stared back at her, frozen mid-step, with the top end of what seemed to be a burlap potato sack in its mouth.
Lilac swallowed her nausea. “Did you just—”
The wolf dropped the sack onto the stone floor and backed up until it bumped the far wall of the kitchen. “Don’t tell anyone,” the wolf pleaded, it’s raspy voice continuing to echo. “Please.”
Even with its mouth moving and hearing the sound it produced, Lilac couldn’t believe her eyes.
“Can you… understand me?” she whispered.
“Of course I can,” the wolf replied hesitantly. “Are you a witch or… or vampire, working here? Do they know?”
She had to be dreaming. She must have fallen asleep after her shower. “No, I’m not a—” she gulped. “I’m normal. I mean, human. And does who know what? How are you talking to me?”
The wolf licked its snout. “How are you talking to me?”
Sighing, Lilac gave into her wobbly knees and knelt on the cold stones. Now at eye level with the animal but a safe distance away, she began to realize what must be before her—the wolf wasn’t a wild wolf at all, but a shapeshifter in beast form.
Her pulse jumped erratically. All her life, she’d been taught by her parents and tutors that no Darkling could safely be trusted. That shapeshifters were such ravenous tricksters and scavengers, that they would unthinkingly kill a human on the spot. Yet, she was in the middle of having a conversation with one. One who seemed afraid more than anything. Lilac swallowed her terror like a thick spoonful of honey, heart thumping in fearful fascination.
“You didn’t attack me. And that’s not an invitation,” she added hastily.
“No. I… I’m here to take care of business.”
Lilac warily glanced at the burlap sack laying on the floor between them. “May I?”
The wolf took a hesitant half step forward as if to stop her, but Lilac was quicker. Inside the bag, a large slab of cured pork, three baguettes, and a pile of discarded chicken bones from dinner all jostled together. She dropped the sack and confusedly rubbed her brows with one hand, holding the torch in the other.
“I don’t understand.”
“Ma’am, I wanted to feed my children. That’s all.” Its voice wavered slightly. “My sons, they haven’t eaten in a few days. Please don’t say a word. I’ll give it back, you can take it. Please just let me go so I can get home to my babies.”
Lilac frowned. “Don’t you eat… rabbits? Or like, squirrels? Can’t you?”
The wolf coughed. It might’ve been a chuckle. “Well, I do. I’m trying to get my babies used to eating… hunted food, though I haven’t had much luck. Their guilt gets in the way, and they feel bad for the bunnies.”
At that, Lilac placed the torch in the rung above the hearth stove and took the sack. She went to the meat hooks and removed three more slabs, two lamb and one beef, dropping them one by one into the bag. Then, she turned to the counter on her right and used her hands to break off a portion of a cheese wheel off, dropping that into the bag as well.
Her mind was as busy as her hands, if not more. Her parents had always allowed the castle leftovers to be left for the Darklings. Was it not enough? If the shapeshifter was forced to risk everything by sneaking into the castle for food, how many others were suffering, too? Whatever responsibility her parents brushed off, Lilac was determined to take into her own small hands. Even the castle horses ate as well as she did.
So, why not the Darklings? Or at least the good ones, especially one as kind as this? How happy its family would be with this little haul.
“You take this,” she said under her breath to the wolf, who’d begun trembling. The animal’s amber eyes shone like wary embers in the wind, dancing in the flicker of torchlight across the room. “Please take this for yourself, for your family. For anyone it will feed.” She paused to listen—no sounds yet—then nodded decisively. “I’ll open the castle door, and if anyone asks, I’ll tell them I wanted to get some fresh air. You’ll have to run as fast as you can.”
“N-n-no, I can’t,” the wolf protested dubiously, eyes darting from Lilac to the bag in her hand. “I can’t. Please just let me go.”
The shapeshifter didn’t trust her, but she couldn’t dwell on it now—they’d have to hurry if they wanted to avoid being discovered.
Another idea suddenly occurred to Lilac. “Can you transform back? Into your human self? I’ll get you some clothes! Um…” Lilac wrung her hands on the neck of the sack. “Are you a girl?”
The wolf sat down. “Sweet girl, I am. My name is Freya. And if I turn back right now, I won’t have any clothes on at all, I’m afraid. I’m not sure which would frighten a witness more, a wolf or an unclothed woman.”
“J’y crois pas!!”
Lilac jumped up so fast she saw purple spots. The room was suddenly illuminated with firelight—her parents stood in in the doorway, a tearful Piper standing between them. The queen held her by the elbow, gripped her arm so tight that her nails dug into the girl’s skin. Lilac refused to look at their faces, but knew their expressions must have been horrific.
Immediately she turned to sprint out of the archway behind her and almost impaled herself onto a spear. Four guardsmen stood there, the spear tips pointed at her and the wolf, who had backed into the far corner.
“Were you speaking to that thing?” her mother shrieked. Her father shook his head uncomprehendingly, glancing at her like an unwelcome stranger.
Lilac opened her mouth to answer, but nothing came out.
Face purple, the queen lunged at her, grasping her shoulders and shaking hard. “Answer me! How do you—how is th—” Her eyes rolled up to the ceiling and back into her head as she toppled to the floor.
From then on, everything seemed to move in slow motion—her father roaring for the servants to come revive the fainted queen, the guardsmen slipping a noose over the wolf’s head, while another dragged a kicking and screaming Lilac after them. Hedwig pressed against the wall, clutching her hair cap.
“My heavens,” she gasped as they passed her. “Lilac, what—”
With a single glare, King Henri quieted her. All Lilac could do was sob and avoid Hedwig’s gaze. The kind soul had always looked the other way when Lilac snuck into the kitchen for sweets or alcohol. Now, Lilac kept her head down and hoped Hedwig wouldn’t feel any sort of guilt. It wasn’t anyone’s fault. Not anyone’s except her own.
Lilac fought the rough hands that gripped her, as she and Freya were led into the foyer and out the double doors. She screamed for her mother, for Hedwig, for anyone’s help when they dragged her out into the cold, across the stone bridge and onto the grass, where her father viciously pointed a finger at a lone tree stump, meters away from the tree line. She thrashed and bit and cried when the king ordered the guards to pin Freya to the stump. The guards who held Lilac didn’t force her to watch, but by the time she finally realized what would happen, she was unable to turn away even if she wanted.
A tall, hooded figure had appeared with a double-edged axe, taking a wide-footed stance beside the trembling animal. In one swift motion, the executioner slashed through the wolf’s neck; as it hit the floor rolling, a dismembered human head bounced in its place. Long, strawberry blonde hair, matted in dark blood.
The ten-year-old princess couldn’t scream, couldn’t bring herself to cry. For once in her short lifetime, she regretted rebelling against her parents, regretted her mischievous sense of adventure. All she’d wanted was to help the
creature, since what her parents provided was evidently not enough. With the fury inscribed upon her father’s features, Lilac knew her actions had struck change into motion.
There was a price to be paid, and this was only the beginning.
3
After the news of Lilac’s Darkling Tongue had spread, she was confined to royal grounds at the expense of maintaining—or saving—her parents’ reputation. Unallowed to socialize with the other children of nobility and even those of the servants, she immersed herself in her studies. Alchemy had been too technical for her liking, and Philosophy was outright annoying; it was frustrating, taking a course based on the opinions of dead men.
According to her studies, the sprawling forest of central Brittany crawled with the unspeakable. Creatures who looked human by day, but transformed into quadruped, fanged beasts by light of the full moon. Impish brutes who could often be found playing an instrument or recklessly intoxicated—usually both. Bewitching creatures with olive skin and aventurine eyes, who had an affinity for wearing precious family heirlooms plucked from war corpses. Things that stood twice the height and ten times the weight of the burliest Breton soldiers. And human-like parasites that could charm any mortal into letting them feast from her veins. Creatures whom the first settlers were quick to call Darklings.
Living, breathing omens of darkness.
Still, never in a million years did Lilac suspect that her lessons would prove useful in one day preparing her for survival.
As she made her way through the towering trees, the threat of encountering a Darkling in the flesh began to terrify her. All she wanted was for the creatures to leave her alone on her way to Paimpont. Deep down she knew she would come face-to-face with one sooner or later; if it wanted to give her trouble, she was ready. Lilac grasped the handle of her dagger even more tightly.
Dry pine needles twirled down from the branches above, settling into her hair; eventually, she gave up trying to shake them all out. Moonlight shone brightly through patches in the treetops, much to her displeasure. That meant the Darklings wouldn’t need their nocturnal vision to see her tonight. She'd have to make haste if she wished to remain hidden. As long as she traveled northeast and stuck carefully to the thicker areas of wood, she could avoid being spotted from the main roads tracing the forest’s perimeter—most of which did not weave a direct path to Paimpont, unfortunately. After she was reported missing, spotting a young woman running through the trees would certainly raise a red flag to any human passersby.
She gave it until breakfast the next morning for her parents to initiate a kingdom-wide search. She never missed her favorite meal of the day, most days consisting of smoked quail, pastries, and melon sprinkled with honey and goat cheese. Her stomach rumbled loudly, and she retrieved a rather smooshed pastry from her sack to munch on as she continued onward.
Even if she happened to come across anyone who thought she looked familiar, their hunch would remain just that: a hunch. No one outside the castle would know what she looked like after all these years cooped up. Plus, a very new haircut and nine years of anxious humiliation did quite a number on one’s appearance.
She had been walking for just under an hour—or so it felt —in the growing cold, with no sign or sound of a creek. Not even the faint trickle of a brook. Weren’t they supposed to be more common in this lush forest? She never anticipated having trouble finding one. And she really, really had to pee.
In the moonlight she could barely make out the ground flattening to her left. The towering beeches were more scattered here, leaving an empty area with a few dispersed piles of large boulders. It seemed like a safe place to take a quick break. She couldn’t tell if it was a natural or man-made clearing, but perhaps an improved view of the sky through the canopy opening would give her a better perspective of her bearings.
Well, she was almost positive she was still headed east, but there was no real way to tell for certain. Her father once told her the moss in northern forests grew heavily on the north sides of tree trunks. With all the other bullshit that spewed from the king’s mouth, Lilac decided against using this bit of advice as a reliable method for travel.
Leaning against a pile of boulders, she hiked up her dress and squatted to relieve herself. With winter finally retreating, the dew drops of springtime evening began to frost over in the cold without completely turning into ice. The night air was freezing on her bare ass, so she was quick about it.
Just as she peered up through the trees to see if she could tell where the sun would rise, a low rumble cracked across the sky. A few ominous clouds had appeared since the last time she’d checked, one of them threatening to conceal the moon. She exhaled, hoping to expel the growing unease along with it. There was no use in trying to figure it all out on her own, and there was no point in trying to push onward to find the right path tonight. All she needed to focus on was seeking shelter along the river, but at this point she couldn’t even locate a stream to lead her to it.
Lilac felt a wet plop on her cheek. Then, another on the back of her right hand. Flecks of cold rain spat from the cobalt sky. In seconds, the whole forest was alive with the pitter-patter of raindrops beating down upon the leaves.
Perfect.
Suddenly, her world began to shift wayward. The boulder against her back began to topple. Lilac frantically leapt forward and bolted for cover in the nearest thickening of trees.
Something was shifting around behind her. Impossibly, it sounded like the large stones were grating up against one another. She knew she needed to keep running, but curiosity ate at her like the biting cold on her cheeks. Only once she sheltered behind the thick trunk of a sprawling oak did she dare to whip around. There were things—enormous things—moving in the clearing, visible only by the dappled splotches of light.
The boulders had gotten up and began walking.
What she thought were boulders were actually thick legged, callous-skinned creatures, humanoid in stance and towering at least twice her height. There were five that she could make out. They had their noses up in the air, sniffing. Blinking rapidly and willing her vision to better adjust, Lilac eventually made out their stubbed ears, much too tiny for their gigantic bile-green heads.
Ogres.
Heartbeat rushing in her ears, she yanked her head back to conceal herself behind the tree. Had the rain awoken them? Or, she thought embarrassedly, the smell of her urine? Whatever the cause, they concentrated on tracking her scent, the task made difficult in the torrential downpour. Their vision wasn’t worth shit, her tutors had told her so. She would have to make a run for it—regardless of direction, anywhere, far away from the pack of green beasts. Knowing her luck, she would stumble into the nest of something else deadly and—
The thunderous, unmistakable crunch of wood and a loud thud, followed by a moaning screech interrupted her racing thoughts. Flattening her body against the trunk as much as she possibly could, she peered just a hair off to the right; two hundred yards away and across the clearing, an enormous beech had been ripped clean in half, its top now lying on the ground beside the base of its splintered trunk.
Another terrible cry of frustration pierced the woods—then, another ripping sound followed by the thud of a hundred year-old tree being picked and tossed aside as if it were a daisy. This time, it sounded closer. Trembling, Lilac pressed her bosom so hard up against the tree that it was painful. She shut her eyes, willing herself to remain invisible to the lethal giants.
A sudden buzzing from her belt almost caused her to yelp in surprise. Groping around her waist, her hand brushed the handle of her dagger. Then, she clasped her fingers around it. It was vibrating, clamoring violently inside of its sheath. Foggily, Lilac did recall her father once saying it occasionally had a mind of its own. If her ancestor’s dagger was somehow willing Lilac to face the ogres, it was crazy. She wouldn’t stand a chance. Either way, she couldn’t deal with it now.
A third tree, sounding much closer than the others, was ripped from its roots, a
nd with bated breath Lilac waited for the thud. With a loud thwack, the trunk she’d hid against rocked violently, impacting her with such incredible force that she was thrown backwards into the dirt. Lilac bit her lip to stifle a cry of pain and shock—she gasped in terror as the metallic taste of blood flooded her mouth. Keeping her movements nimble and silent, she stayed low to the ground and scrambled out of the moonlight, leaves raining on top of her as she hastily shuffled into the shadows.
A glance back revealed an ogre swinging a broken trunk like a blind swordsman, globs of saliva flying from its yellowing teeth as it bellowed in frustration. The ogre’s weapon of choice was what had hit her tree, no doubt.
She would never escape alive if she only hid. The ogres would continue uprooting trees as long as her scent was near, and it didn’t matter if they never found her if she’d gotten squashed like a gnat by a thousand-live beech instead.
Pulling her bleeding lip into her mouth, she did her best to suck out all the blood she could and then produced as much saliva as she could muster. With all her might, she took a full breath in through her nostrils, and—as she’d watched her father do a million times into his goblet after dinner—hocked the biggest spitball she could manage off to her left. It landed not even two metres away.
Run. Run, run, run.
Although she’d spat much too close, her plan infallibly worked. When all five ogres whipped around and lumbered clumsily towards the scent of her saliva, she didn’t think twice to sprint in the opposite direction, into the thick of the woods. She didn’t care if they saw her, didn’t care if they were following her. There wasn’t time to check, and she refused to look back.
Lilac didn’t stop running when she almost launched herself headfirst into a pile of leaves after tripping over a robust root. She didn’t stop when low-lying branches swiped at her face—didn’t stop when the emotions caught up to her and the lump forming in her throat helped her choke back tears, the corners of her eyes shimmering in the moonlight. She ran until her mouth was completely dry despite huffing the moist forest air, and the sack had grown heavy upon her shoulders.
Disenchanted Page 4
