She opened her eyes and lifted her hands, again marveling at the dim glow, the smooth skin. “I am changed, but not like you.”
New ears picked up the tell-tale signs of Grendall’s wonderment, from the way he swallowed to the hitch in his breath as he struggled for words. Other senses came alive then. The blackness of her cell did not appear so inky but marked by different shapes and shades. Smells of past prisoners, of the underlying filth of this place overwhelmed her. She leaned against her cell door and found she didn’t have to stand on her toes to see through the bars. Distant torchlight illuminated the hall beyond. And still there was that other, sixth sense that allowed her to hear the words hidden in the beasts’ cries, pulling at her, pleading with her.
“Please help us… so dark and lonely.”
“I am so sorry, Ashes. I could have stopped it,” Grendall finally said. “I should have been broken the wall. I should have been stronger.”
She turned toward his voice, saw his light pouring through the hole they had made a day or maybe a lifetime ago. All sense of time was meaningless now, but she was still human enough to dare ask, “How long did it take?”
“Felt like an age,” he said, but she could sense the fury behind his relief. “You screamed through most of it, called your brother’s name. And then—then you snarled. I could feel your pain. I nearly lost my mind, but I could not transform with you. This body is still too broken.” He pounded his fist against the rock and cursed. “I tried to call to you through our bond, to keep you anchored… I failed you.”
“No, you didn’t fail.” Vynasha almost laughed at his misery. How could she be upset when she was stronger than ever before?
“Are you not still furious with me for keeping the truth from you? Your punishment is the result of my arrogance.”
“Grendall, I’m still me, and I feel better than I have in years, like I could take on Rrolthoz or any beast in this dungeon.” She smiled in anticipation, with the urge to test out the power in her new limbs. Her blood ran faster, hotter than before, driving her to new heights. “Now that I have the power Odym promised, I’m going to free all of you. Nothing will stop us this time.”
“No, Ashes, please! There is still so much you do not understand. I have not had a chance to explain, but you must not break the wards of this prison!”
A monstrous snarl ripped past her throat, the sound of a wyldcat. “I am finished with caving in to the whims of beasts, gatekeeper. You said yourself it was time for majik to die. I won’t listen to their misery one moment more. I will break whatever wards I have to, and then I’m leading us out of this prison now.”
She pushed back from the door until her back was against the opposite wall and then, with all the strength she could muster, ran her body against the barred door. Wood splintered, cracked and quickly gave under her brute force.
Laughter escaping her lips rippled and swelled into a triumphant howl which drowned out the Dungeon Master’s protests. The other beasts joined her in their eagerness. She knew the lust for blood for the first time and then understood the temptation to give into the animal.
“I’ll free you all,” she growled as her heart pounded fresh blood through new, enhanced limbs.
“Wait! You condemn us all!” Grendall called after her, but it was too late.
She leapt past the splintered wreckage into the hall and looked up and down. Heavy metal-wrapped wooden doors rattled in their hinges as beasts that had slept for half an age woke.
“Yes! Free us!”
Vynasha started for the cell door opposite hers, smiled at the glimpse of hungry blood-red eyes. She sniffed and then froze, turning to the sweet scent that called for her. Grendall’s blood smelled heavenly, like the only thing she truly needed. He was hers, but he was weaker and she would free him last. She needed to find a safe place to heal him. And the other beasts were not pleased by the Dungeon Master. They, too, called for his blood.
Instinct took over reason as she turned away from Grendall’s cell and then ran to the end of the hall. Using majik and her clawed fists, she tore each majik-protected door down until her hands were stained purple with her blood. Luminous trails stained fallen doors and dripped to the floor, but the creatures she freed did not attack her. Some of the beasts inside were hunkered in dark corners, their glowing eyes weak and frightened.
“Come! You are free!” she urged them.
Others were eager and helped her break their bonds. She discovered her claws were preternaturally sharp and best for slicing rusted chains. Soraya’s antiquated majik couldn’t hold against hers. Every time she defied the curse by freeing them she grew stronger.
“Follow me!” she howled as she freed the last, the one in the cell opposite hers, a large black red-eyed beast. He was unlike the others, watching her with keen, almost malevolent satisfaction, like a predator biding its time. She pushed aside his almost familiar scent as she returned to Grendall’s cell without waiting to watch this one flee with the others.
She had saved the gatekeeper for the last, but when she attempted to slice through the majikal chains, her limbs froze, as though she were pushing against air.
A whimper escaped her throat as she pulled back her fists and tried again. Her hands met an invisible force, vibrating as she struggled to break through the majik keeping her frozen. She cursed her frustration, then stilled when Grendall’s face appeared through the bars. She could see the golden glow of her new eyes, set in an almost human face, stricken in the reflection of his silver eyes.
His face was marked by half-healed claw marks and swollen welts, but his weary voice betrayed the depths of his condition. He wrapped a pale illuminated hand around one of the rusted bars. “I am sorry, Ashes, but I cannot let you do this.”
She tried to speak, but only more whimpers followed, the wordless plea of the creature she had become.
His composure broke at that sound and his pewter eyes glistened. “I cannot let you free me. You must flee this place, before the curse takes possession of all of you. I am so sorry for all the pain my selfishness has brought you, Vynasha.” His eyes roamed over her new face as though to memorize her.
She hissed and tried to argue with him, tried to bring a clawed fist against the door only to beat at the air again. Her blood was still running too hot and she could not recall how to form the right words.
He shut his eyes and bowed his head with a final command. “Leave this place and do not look back.”
Majik spilled past his lips and resonated with their shared blood, tugged at her limbs and forced them to comply.
Vynasha cried out as their bond, once made to heal, the bond she had intended to use to free him, compelled her body to turn away from his cell. She was new to majik and didn’t know how to fight him this way. Yet the struggle to stay and ignore his command was making her less beastly by the moment. As her legs carried her away, she caught a glimpse of the other beasts rushing toward the upper bowels of the castle, a path she had trodden before. Upon tasting their vengeance, she felt an instinctual urge to follow, but Grendall’s majik kept her moving the opposite direction.
No! she tried to cry after them, afraid what might happen should they go after the Prince. Could they harm the other partially corporeal wyne? The Dungeon Master was too broken to stop the force of bloodlust in their hearts and now he was sending her away.
Tears stole her unnatural vision as she was forced to run past the prison and toward another path she vaguely remembered. Grendall’s powerful command of her new legs made her run faster, taking twists and turns she eventually gave up fighting.
Only when she entered the lower cavern crusted with precious gems, echoing the rush of the underground river, did she realize she was not alone. Hot breath grazed the back of her neck and, turning her head, Vynasha met a pair of cold ruby eyes, surrounded by razorback-black fur, a terrifying cross between a bear and something not of this world. It was the last beast she had freed before attempting to release Grendall.
He alone had ignored the others in their need for revenge, choosing to follow her for reasons she couldn’t sense. Whatever bond allowed her to comprehend these creatures was eerily silent now. Rather than words, all she felt from this beast was a single emotion: hunger.
So she remembered the last time she’d met this particular beast, in his battle with the gatekeeper. Rrolthoz was not bound so easily, which made her wonder why he’d waited for her to release him, rather than come after her again.
Still, he made no move to harm her, though she kept a wary eye on him as they approached the end of the castle and entered the winding cave she remembered. The further they ran, the more her bond with the Dungeon Master dimmed. In that moment she hated the Dungeon Master for what he had done, sacrificing himself and the wyne they cared for. She cursed him for giving her this bond which allowed her to hold onto her conscience, rather than give into mindless, beastly instinct.
She cursed him for choosing for her.
A chorus of mighty roars trickled down from the castle high above, jarring her sensitive ears. It was the sound of a battle she was denied, and a reminder. No matter how strong she might become, majik or no, Grendall’s command reminded her why he was called Dungeon Master. Now she, too, had to obey him. Was this why he’d allowed the bond where he refused others?
The thought struck a nerve in more than one disturbing way. Much as the Prince had tried to orchestrate his courtship of her, Grendall manipulated her in a different manner.
And you started to believe you cared for him, simple naïve girl.
No need for compulsion then. Rrolthoz fell behind as the caves narrowed, and she led them nearer the scent of water. As before, the tunnel opened into a larger chamber that broke off suddenly before a thundering waterfall. The odd blend of wolf and human scents clashed in her nose, a union forged by dark majik that stank of Soraya’s curse. The same curse that had turned the beasts in Grendall’s dungeon. The wolves had come here before, while she was too exhausted and injured to comprehend anything but Ceddrych’s appearance and Grendall’s beastly form.
Here at last, Grendall’s compulsion ebbed and she regained full control of her body. Her blood boiled with the urge to break or tear into something and she twisted to find any outlet, then cringed. The hair on the back of her neck lifted as the black beast that had followed her slunk past, lumbered to the dark end of the cave, and then swiftly turned to face her.
“Rrolthoz.” The name was strange on her tongue. This same beast, the one the Prince called brother, had almost killed Grendall in his attempt to get to her. But he still made no move to harm her and her instincts were screaming with the need to snap at him or flee.
Rrolthoz’s lips pulled back to reveal a mouth of thick, sharp teeth in what could only be a feral grin. He rose up on his hind legs and let loose a deeply rooted roar in challenge.
Vynasha steeled herself, crouched low and then unleashed her pent-up fury and leapt, teeth bared. Her claws clung to his chest as Rrolthoz dug his teeth into her shoulder.
She screamed and bit through fur into flesh while clawing at his exposed belly.
The beast released her shoulder with a pained bark as she dug deeper into his flesh, then rolled onto his back, taking her with him. They rolled over the cave floor in a tangled mass of fur and claws and teeth.
Her blood spilled from the wound on her shoulder, yet she kept a firm hook into his side with one hand and continued to rake at his belly with the other. The scent of his blood fed her rage.
He is the reason Grendall could not stop the Prince from throwing us in that dungeon.
He almost crushed her back against the rocks with his weight in vain effort to throw her off. Vynasha ducked her head to avoid his gnashing teeth and panic quickly set in.
The beast was larger and stronger than her new body. If she lost her hold on his underbelly, he would kill her. So she hung on and delivered as much damage as she could, even when his paw raked against her back. Black spotted her vision and she screamed as they rolled over the lip of the cavern and into the pounding force of the waterfall.
Rrolthoz’s roar filled her ears as they tumbled off the edge of the cliff, spilling with the overflow.
Time slowed as water thundered, a merciless force, pushing them faster. Her heart leapt from her chest as they fell down and further still.
Into the pool far below they careened at breaking speed and she caught a brief glimpse of the shape and form of her death.
Rrolthoz twisted at the last possible moment, taking the brunt of the impact as they hit the water. Vynasha didn’t dare let go, hooking her claws further into his flesh as the water shoved them down.
Water filled her mouth and beat its way through her throat. The merciless current tossed them against rocks at the riverbed. But Rrolthoz pushed off the bottom, sending them back up to roll among rapids. Flashes of trees and mountains interspaced with the spray of white water before they were shoved under and tossed them down the current. The last of Rrolthoz’s considerable strength give out.
When they did not breach again for air, her lungs constricted, threatening to burst. A primal instinct pushed aside all thoughts and majik, until the only thought screaming in her mind was survive. Her last thought as the blackness took her was for Wyll, who would never know how she lived or died.
DROWNING WAS EASIER than fighting curses, she decided. Better to accept death than the constant battle with majik and beasts she had lived with this past season. Wyll, if he’d survived the worst of winter, could find safety and maybe even home with Wolfsbane and his daughter. She could only pray they would care for him better than she. At least now she would see Wynyth, her sisters, Grandmother Mayve, even her father again. Wherever they were could not be as horrible as the world of harsh winters, of fire and dark curses, she was leaving behind.
She waited for light to take her, to see the faces of her family she had slowly forgotten, and friends who’d lost their lives in the war.
A dull ache throbbed in her back and at her neck instead. Tingling sensations pricked at her limbs until she turned to face the earth. Water trapped in her lungs was exorcised until her throat burned and her sore lungs dragged in fresh, cold air.
Vynasha blinked against the bright light of day and pushed with quivering limbs against the mud, only to sink onto her elbows. Faced with her clawed and bloody fingertips, realization flooded her and spilled tears down her face, as though the river was still escaping her body however it could. She spat the last of it and laid her cheek against frozen mud as she waited for her heartbeat to calm.
How am I still alive?
As her vision cleared, the dark blur beside her slowly sharpened. She stiffened and tried to push off the mud and ice in case Rrolthoz decided to continue their duel. But the longer she stared, the less beastly the creature appeared, until she saw the naked man lying in a pool of black fur and blacker blood. His skin was marred by violent scars and bruises so his face was almost unrecognizable from his wounds. Yet something about him, much like his scent, was familiar.
“No,” she whispered with a sharp gasp as she scrambled to her knees, wincing as they scraped against rock and crawled to him. The fact she was naked too came belatedly, along with whatever dignity she’d once possessed. The river had stolen the remaining scraps of clothes Lyttia and Myrel had stitched up for her.
So it had also stripped the last vestige of the curse’s effect on the beast called Rrolthoz.
Thick bile rose up the back of her throat as the man turned his head and opened his eyes. They were familiar eyes, set in a face once more familiar than her own. She shook her head and cringed when the man’s eyes widened and he reached for her with a bloody hand.
“Father,” she mouthed but could not bring herself to come any closer.
“Vynasha.” He beckoned and then took in her altered appearance. “My girl, what have they done?”
“No,” she said in a broken rasp. She dug her new claws into the embankment and shivered as they
passed through a thin layer of ice. She willed that ice to cool the fury rising in her heart. The river had stolen much of her voice, but the curse was still coursing through her veins, keeping her trapped in this new body. She wondered why the river had stripped the curse from him alone.
“You’re already dead,” she said, because it had to be true. Those could not possibly be the same eyes she had inherited alone of all her siblings. Those eyes had looked on her with warmth and compassion as he’d held her close to his heart, then turned cold as ice after Wynyth died.
“I can explain.” He spoke between wheezing breaths and the sound sparked a distant memory she could not pin amid her anger.
“You never came back,” was the first thing she could say and the only thing that mattered. Tears burned behind her eyes but she would not give into them this time. “You took Ceddrych and you left us behind. You should have been there!”
Her father looked at her with something worse than indifference or hate, something that warned her they had little time left. “I am—so sorry—little sparrow…” Old Ced paused and blinked past tears she had only seen him shed once before.
“Why didn’t you come back? If you and Ceddrych were so close, why didn’t you come home?”
“We couldn’t escape the curse on this land… not unless we gave them something in return.” His gaze was heavy then as he struggled for air. Blood streaked out his nose and past his lips.
The transformation and brush with death left her mind numb, but she scrambled to piece together what she knew of the curse. It was possible he had been trapped like the other beasts until her arrival. But the Prince called him brother and Grendall had lied, saying Rrolthoz had been there a long time. Nothing about this made sense the way it should.
“You went north, looking for cities to trade…” She attempted to fill in the blanks. “You lost your way when the majik of this place trapped you. But… how did you become prisoner in the lost city and Ceddrych become… whatever he is?”
Scarred Beauty Page 3
