Scarred Beauty

by Jennifer Silverwood

  Ceddrych’s heavy sigh pulled her out of her brooding and back to the present, to the warmth in his eyes. “Well, I wish I could say that was unexpected.”

  “Do you mean the part where I attacked Baalor or threatened your village?”

  Ceddrych rubbed his beard a moment as though contemplating her question, but his eyes betrayed his mirth. “I must confess those were my favorite parts of the morning.” He leaned back into his chair with an uneasy groan. Neither of them had really slept the night before. “I didn’t know you had it in you, little sister.”

  Vynasha grimaced. “Mother always said to leave a sleeping bear where he lies.”

  “True. You didn’t just poke the bear, or wolf in this case, you drew blood.” Laughter followed his words.

  She scowled at him. “Fine for you to see the humor in this.”

  He wagged his eyebrows at her and leaned forward over his knees, rubbing his hands together. “As much as it wounds my pride that my baby sister saved my hide, it was worth seeing Baalor’s face when you pounced him like that. I don’t think anyone has surprised that Wolv in his long, miserable life.”

  “You seem quite pleased with yourself, but what if the villagers decide I’m a real threat now and burn us in our sleep?” She longed to impress on him the obvious and could not fathom why he wasn’t more upset with her. His first order to her in this village had been to hide her claws and teeth. Early this morning she’d done the opposite, and not by accident but in the worst, most glaring way. Baalor was an enigma and contradiction. While she could smell the desire on him, when she was still claws deep in him with their limbs tangled, he seemed unpredictable.

  Ceddrych laughed at her again, lightening the mood in an annoyingly familiar manner as he said, “Don’t worry, Ashes. I’ve got allies in this village too, lone wolf or not. Besides, no one acts without the elders’ approval, unless they want the same done to them twice over.”

  Vynasha crossed her arms over her chest. “I don’t trust any of them.”

  “Good,” he replied with a slight downward turn of the mouth, “you’ll live longer if you don’t.”

  A knock on the door interrupted Vynasha before she could press her brother further. She watched with more than a little trepidation as her brother stood and crossed the room to answer.

  “What are you two doing here so early?” Ceddrych said from the open doorway. Vynasha crouched lower in her seat and sniffed at the winter air breaking the blanket of warmth the fire provided. For a moment she feared it might be Baalor, the pack leader again, or more angry villagers. Her fingers slipped beneath her gown for the scabbard strapped to her calf. It was the first thing she’d put on after the events from this morning.

  “Sorry, Wanderer,” a young male began, “but we heard what happened this morning and had to tell you…”

  “Aye!” a nearly identical voice butted in. “We had to tell you what Baalor said.”

  “Yes, we have to tell you what the elders said to him.”

  “I see…” Ceddrych leaned against the doorframe and inclined his head. “Well?” After a pause, he added, “Anytime today, pups.”

  Vynasha peered between his legs at a pair of dirty, youthful, identical faces and gasped. She had never seen twins before. She ducked lower to claim more than a glimpse. These brothers looked so alike there was no telling them apart.

  “Well then?” her brother intoned. The twins looked at one another, then knelt in unison at Ceddrych’s feet.

  “We shouldn’t tell you here,” one said.

  “Yes, anyone could be listening,” added his twin.

  Ceddrych grumbled something under his breath, which to her newly sensitive ears sounded much like, “Dropped on their heads at birth…” Then, to the twins, he spoke slowly. “Siam, Rian, I don’t have time to go for a run today. I can’t leave my sister here alone after what happened last night.”

  Siam and Rian straightened and ducked, first one and then the other to peek at her through Ceddrych’s legs. Vynasha froze, embarrassed to be caught, crouched low to the ground like this. The twins’ mouths turned up into identical smirks.

  Ceddrych turned around to follow their gaze. “I hoped to spare you these miserable mutts’ acquaintance, but I suppose there’s no stopping them.” He inclined his head and waved his hand. “Come inside, then.”

  Siam and Rian stared, mouths slightly gaping, as Ceddrych stood aside, and then bowed at one another. “After you, brother.”

  “No, no, after you.” They pushed and cajoled one another until Ceddrych grasped them by the backs of their fur collars and dragged them inside.

  A chuckle escaped Vynasha’s lips as the twins scrambled to regain their footing while Ceddrych shut the door firmly behind him. She covered her mouth when one of the twins caught her laughing.

  “Rian! Straighten up, mangy hare.” Siam elbowed his brother.

  Rian nudged him back harder with a scowl, but kept his mouth shut when Ceddrych came to stand before them. Side by side, they weren’t much shorter than her brother, in fact they might have been taller. Youth marked them by their almost scrawny limbs, faces caught in the crux between boy and manhood.

  Or wolfhood, I suppose, she thought with the tiniest of smiles.

  “If you’re both done ogling my sister, could we get on with it?” Ceddrych kept a stern façade for the twins, but turned and winked briefly at her.

  The mangy hare, Rian, wouldn’t lift his gaze to Ceddrych’s, in a submissive manner. “Baalor wanted to continue his hunt for the humans.”

  Siam piped up, “Aye, and the elders approved.”

  Ceddrych’s posture stiffened and Vynasha recognized the effort it took for him to contain his anger. “I thought they had agreed we should leave Wolfsbane and his daughter alone, since my sister just escaped the lost city.”

  Rian nudged his brother, a solemn look on his face. “Siam, tell him.”

  Siam, apparently the more talkative of the two, winced as he added, “Baalor claimed he could win her to our cause.”

  “I see,” Ceddrych said through clenched teeth.

  Siam continued, hands splayed in placation, “He also got the elders’ approval to continue his hunt of Wolfsbane and his daughter, and we are meant to stay and guard the village from the witch while the pack… ouch!”

  “Shut it, feces! She’s his sister.” Rian glanced furtively between Ceddrych and Vynasha. Siam rubbed the shoulder his brother had just hit.

  Ceddrych rubbed his face slowly and a faint tremor passed over him as he looked up. He spoke calmly while the fire in his eyes betrayed his mercurial rage. “Where is that flea-biting son of a crow?”

  The twins paused and Siam sheepishly answered. “In the elders’ longhouse still… They have been arguing ever since they left you this morning.”

  Ceddrych turned to her, a flash of fear striking through his gaze and piercing her. None of his earlier joviality could stand up in the face of their reality. Vynasha expected this, having lived near a village that took her roses yet barely tolerated her in return. People were cruel, and majikal curse or no, it seemed to be a sickness not isolated to Whistleande.

  “I have to deal with this,” Ceddrych told her.

  “I know.”

  Ceddrych nodded to her and then turned to the twins. “The two of you will do exactly as Baalor said. They want you to ‘watch the witch’ and you shall. Stay here until I return.”

  “You mean… stay inside? With her?” Siam asked with a sniff.

  Vynasha wondered if he could smell the remnant of majik on her and pulled the borrowed cloak tighter over her chest.

  They followed Ceddrych as he pulled his fur cloak over his shoulders and attached a bone-handled blade to his belt.

  “Stand guard outside if she makes you nervous. She won’t bite, will you, little sister?” He lifted an eyebrow and his grin transformed his face into the handsome warrior he had once been. The sight worried her, but also warmed her heart with past memories and she couldn’t
help but return his confidence.

  “Not unless they ask me to.” She clicked her sharp teeth for the wide-eyed youths.

  Ceddrych stepped out into the snow with the twins. “No one goes in or out. First sign of trouble you get her out and bring her to me, understood?”

  “Of course!” The twins spoke over each other. “You can depend on us, Wanderer!”

  Vynasha shut the door, setting the latch in place after them. At the sound of wood scraping the door, all confidence sapped from her like the pretense it was. She pressed her back to the door and surveyed Ceddrych’s cottage.

  “We’re fine.” Her fingers twitched against the amulet. “He’s going to be fine.” Words fell on a too-silent room, unaccustomed to lengthy speeches. Times like this she missed the familiarity of the whispering castle walls with their shifting tapestries and watchful shadows.

  Vynasha went to her bedside and pulled the threadbare sack from her hiding place. Slipping a careful hand within, she passed over Ceddrych’s letters and Soraya’s journal, relieved nothing was missing. The Prince’s dagger was already secured to her thigh. Ceddrych had made no comment that morning when she asked him for a bit of leather. He had watched from the fireside as she constructed a crude garter to conceal the dagger against her thigh. Strange how a gift from the Prince, who wanted a loveless marriage, could bring her comfort.

  He was nothing more than my jailor, she told herself, but there had been so many small moments of… kindness between them. A slow-burning ache formed in her chest, beneath where Grendall’s amulet rested, as she recalled the Prince’s last words to her.

  “A pity you could not love a beast…”

  Blinking past the blur to her vision, Vynasha took in the waterproof leather boots covering her feet and wrapped her brother’s fur cloak tighter over her chest. The door loomed ahead, daylight peeking through the cracks, beckoning her, yet for a long moment she hesitated.

  Winter laid claim over the Wylder Mountains most of the year, they said in Whistleande. Life was harsh and bitter here, so near the top of the world, and yet the sounds of children playing, of people speaking outside proved otherwise. Some people were born with ice in their veins. A part of her feared those people who came for them with ill intent. She had almost tasted their fear and, in some cases, blind hatred as she’d forced Baalor to the ground.

  These are not men as you knew them, she reminded herself, these are skin-changers, more wolf than man.

  And now Ceddrych was out there, somewhere, trying to reason with them, with tension running high among the villagers. Despite his reassurances, she could not quiet the disquiet in her soul, or the faint caress of majik at the edge of consciousness.

  Vynasha lifted her chin as she lifted the latch and opened the cottage door.

  Twin shadows stepped in front of her, blocking the weak sunlight. Siam and Rian spoke at once and over one another.

  “We can’t—”

  “Can’t let you go outside!”

  “Not without—”

  “Not without Wanderer! He’ll skin our hides for sure!”

  Vynasha fought her initial instincts to cower and forced a grin. “Nonsense. I’m the scariest thing in this village, aren’t I?”

  Siam and Rian shrugged and ran opposite hands through their shaggy brown hair. Standing this close, she could see the faint differences between the otherwise identical brothers. The one standing to her left avoided eye contact and his furs were slightly darker, while his pale skin was dusted with freckles over his almost childlike nose. The other twin’s gaze was more direct, his complexion slightly clearer, and his single blue eye stood out beside the other brown.

  “Siam, right?” She made sure to smile with her lips closed. Siam, with the mismatched eyes, smiled in turn. “I’m sure neither of you wanted to spend your day standing guard over me. I’m very boring.”

  Rian glanced up at her with a faint grin and rubbed his forearm across his nose with a sniff. “Hardly,” he muttered.

  Siam rolled his eyes. “Shut your trap. Do you want her to pluck out your eyeballs?”

  Vynasha leaned further into their space. “It’s all right. I just want to step out for a bit.”

  Rian frowned and spoke up. “Wanderer told us not to let anyone in or out.”

  She took a step onto the snow and they backed down like she’d known they would. Boys this young were used to taking orders and not giving them. Besides, she was a predator in more ways than them. The taste of her dominance hung between them in the air. “My brother wanted you to watch me, right? So come with me.”

  She waited for the twins to sort her words out by whatever silent means of communication they seemed to possess. Another step and the twins caved, heads slightly bowed to her as she parted them.

  “Are you coming with me, then, or not?” Vynasha did not wait for their answer as she walked down the short path and onto the main path.

  The village was ringed by the greater forest and the mountains beyond this and the rush of a nearby river sang in her ears. Shivers slipped down her spine as she recalled the deadly plunge she and Rrolthoz had taken into the Silver River. Wolfsbane had warned her the waters were full of majik. If the nearby river was the Silver, it was a wonder these people should choose to build their home so close by.

  She twisted back around to catch the twins trailing her a few safe steps behind and wiggled her clawed fingers at them. Ceddrych’s home sat snug against the forest edge, built out of a dried brown substance with curves rather than corners, and the thatched roof met at a high point where smoke escaped the air vent. She turned to face the other homes lining the main road a little further down and wondered why he should choose to live separate from the others.

  When she turned to take in the snow-laden road, at the rounded cottages several paces across and further down, she noted a similar pattern in their build. Yet where Ceddrych’s house was almost primitive and small, the others were larger. Some had been added onto, other half circles connected to the main home. Almost all the other structures were decorated with paintings in red ochre and sulfur yellows, rich berry blue and smatterings of violet. Rather than stitched figures cavorting together in luxury and hunts, like the castle tapestries, the villagers painted the patterns of the forest on their walls—veins of leaves had been drawn over shades of dawn and the trail of invisible vines gave a natural pattern against splashes of color.

  Some homes favored certain designs above others, from patterns of earth to swirls of water or dapples of sunlight. Shade from the overhanging thatch roofs kept most of these paintings in shadow, but the sun offered an occasional glimpse of their brilliance, and evidence that these paintings had been lovingly added to over time. Compassion stirred in her chest as she recognized their need for beauty in their harsh world. That same need was what had driven her to tend her mother’s roses, what gave the villagers of Whistleande a reason to want her around. Like these people, she had been considered the monster, once.

  A girl’s shriek pierced the air, pulling Vynasha from the paintings. The sound lifted the hairs on the back of her neck and sent her running down the street and down a smaller path striking off to the left and toward a small copse of trees. Behind her, the twins’ nearly silent footfall loped after and they slowed as she hesitated on the edge of a clearing past the tall firs.

  Three dark-haired children wrapped in furs clustered together, their backs to Vynasha. The tallest of the three flung his fist at something in the snow. The creature in the snow whimpered this time. “You are a freak, just like your mother!” the tallest boy barked at the ground. “You think ’cause your father is pack master you can get away with it?”

  All three appeared almost human, children of the Wolvs, it would seem, but while the tallest was aggressive, the other two children laughed uneasily. They exchanged nervous glances as the tall boy pulled back his fist again. One of the other two tugged on his furs and whispered, “Aelon, be quiet! The grown-ups will hear!”

  Aelon waved o
ff the girl’s warning and scoffed, “They’re all at the elders’ longhouse. Besides, someone needs to teach this witch a lesson.”

  A low growl began deep in Vynasha’s chest and she sprang forward.

  “Wait!” Siam and Rian rushed to grab her shoulders. “Don’t interfere!”

  Vynasha hardly noticed their touch as she broke through the trees and into the clearing. Leaning on instinct, she rushed around the other two children and snatched up Aelon. The boy yowled in fear, the faint scent of his excrement passing her nose as she tossed him through the air.

  Without waiting to see where he landed, she twisted to crouch over the small, blonde creature cowering in the snow. Vynasha looked up from the ground at the wide-eyed children backing slowly away from her.

  Aelon was frozen and covered in freshly disturbed snowdrift and the stench of his terror. He stuttered as he stumbled to his feet and tripped. “J-just w-wait till I tell my mother!”

  Siam and Rian ran into the clearing, identical expressions of dismay on their faces as they herded the children out of the clearing and back to the village, whispering over them in hushed tones. “Come along, lads, quietly now.”

  Vynasha didn’t care about them, or what the cruel child would tell the others. She was too near the animal still and only assessed the threat, only cared to protect what was hers. As their shadows mingled with the dense fir trees, her heartbeat slowed and invisible hackles shuddered before lying flat.

  Odym’s words came back to her then, as clear as though he stood in the wolves’ den with her. “Remember you have the Source inside of you.”

  Claws she did not remember digging in to the earth retracted slightly and she sat back, staring at her gruesome hands in wonder. Grendall’s amulet was burning hot against her chest. A blessing that her inner beast had taken control, rather than the wild majik hiding inside her.

  “Stupid,” she muttered under her breath. Hopefully Ceddrych didn’t get into too much trouble now because she wasn’t in control of her monster. With another shudder, Vynasha sank into the snow and glanced at the forgotten creature staring up at her.