Scarred Beauty

by Jennifer Silverwood

  DESPITE WYLL’S SLOW gait, Vynasha did not see any trace of her nephew and the wild woman after she left her painted reflection behind. She shuddered and knew she would never come to this place again. But she was grateful to Resha for carrying Wyll this far, for doing what she could not.

  Don’t think about it now.

  Underneath a canopy of snow-laden evergreens and soft sunlight she could finally breathe, the madness exposed in the cave left behind. No fresh snow drifts masked the tracks leading back to the village. Wyll and Resha’s retreat, too, was barely marked by their scents lingering behind.

  Erythea’s majik tugged at her consciousness.

  Follow…

  This time she grudgingly obeyed. There was time later to brood over the fact a child’s majik could sway her so easily.

  Home…

  She ran through woods so deep it would be easy to get lost, to miss all signs of life in apparent barrenness. Before Vynasha had been changed by the curse, she’d lost her way, saved by the grace of two humans. Now she kept watch on the space between the trees as she ran through patches of loose snow and wondered what happened to Wolfsbane. There hadn’t been time to ask, not that she expected Resha to tell her. But if Wolfsbane had killed Erythea’s mother as the twins claimed…

  Don’t think about it now.

  Vynasha squashed the emotions wriggling up inside her back down until she was hollow, cold and empty as the sky above. Every exhale brought her closer, their scents fresher.

  Shouts and screams and snarls pulled her closer to the village.

  Erythea’s curse eased the closer she drew until the nagging tingling sensation was gone, replaced by Vynasha’s terror. The scent of smoke, frightened people and majik filled her nose, dim shapes darted ahead. Screams from other villagers sounded from all directions as people hid away in their homes.

  “Run!”

  “It’s here!”

  “—find Baalor!”

  A blood-curdling wail drowned out the other voices as a spark of blue light flashed through the forest. Vynasha knew what she would find even as she broke through the tree line, even as she took in the devastation and the chaos her choice had wrought.

  Ceddrych and the twins were nowhere to be seen, but several elderly men and women hung about the edge of the road, swords in their hands. The three half-sized, bearded men hefted axes in their hands. The man with ebony skin and horns stretched out an equally dark longbow and took aim. Their weapons would not be enough, not against one of Grendall’s beasts, though at least they were prepared to defend themselves. Some still ran for the relative safety of their walls, while the rest stared in horror at the village center.

  A foul, grating howl reverberated on the air and the hair on the back of her neck stiffened. Vynasha shuddered as she pushed her way through to the road and time slowed.

  Broken clods of earth and bloody snow surrounded a monstrous furred creature further up the road. The creature was a malformed cross between bear and something other and much larger than any of the pack. Roots had sprouted from the ground to tangle with the beast’s limbs and pin it in place, stinking of majik. By the scent of blood in the air, she could tell the earth majik had done damage to the creature, but not enough.

  A crack echoed through the air and pulled her attention back to the beast as it broke free of its temporary bonds. For one mad, wild moment, Vynasha considered ripping Grendall’s amulet off her neck and letting her majik take over. She took hold of the amulet as she approached, until she saw the lifeless child half buried among tangled debris of roots and earth.

  “Erythea!” The girl’s name ripped out of Vynasha’s throat and something irrevocably snapped inside of her. Her cry became a full-bellied roar that shook the air and her last coherent thought was a simple plea.

  Please!

  The creature gnawed at a root tangled in its paw, escaping the last of its majikal bonds. It lifted its head with a victorious howl the same instant Vynasha jumped onto its back.

  Please don’t!

  Time rushed to catch up as she raked her claws, willed for them to grow longer, to curve into wicked hooks to cull the creature. Roots and rock cut into her skin as the creature rolled in vain effort to fend off her attacks. Not until it lay frozen underneath her, pinned against the earth by her bare hands, did Vynasha see the creature wasn’t fighting back.

  Their eyes met, a clash of silver that captured her attention, begging the only way the creature knew how.

  Please, the beast spoke to her mind, a plea that was not hers. In the hazy between-space of human awareness and bestial instinct, she heard its voice, just like she’d heard and answered the others in the castle dungeon before she freed them.

  Please don’t kill me, the beast thought.

  A low growl escaped Vynasha’s throat as she struggled for speech, as her hot blood was cooled by human sense. “Can you understand me?”

  Yes. Please… Guardians hunting me.

  “Guardians?” Shouts and voices and feet approached, but Vynasha ignored them and leaned in closer. She could feel her life force spilling as it dripped onto the creature, fell against rolls of skin and fur. “Do you mean the Wolvs?”

  Wolvs, yes, that is the word. Followed your scent here, my Queen.

  “I am no queen.” She loosened her grip on the creature but kept her hands on its neck and chest, in case it lost the ability to reason.

  No time… Cannot hold on long. You must see what I have seen, quickly, look, my Queen.

  Vynasha shook her head, confused and worried over Thea’s motionless form. But those silvery eyes pulled her in again and she saw into the creature’s mind.

  She saw them…

  Escaping the prison because their Queen had freed them at last!

  They wanted to follow her, but feared Rrolthoz, and others demanded they seek revenge on the one who had trapped them here.

  But the Prince was nowhere to be found, missing. In their rage, they came for the Dungeon Master. He had kept them prisoners and he did not fight them when they came.

  Then came a horrible howling darkness, majik so abhorrent so many of them fled, had to escape.

  She had to find their Queen, had to tell her, beg her to come back. They were lost without her, still cursed. The circle must be completed…

  “Vynasha! Get away from that monster!” Ceddrych grabbed her shoulder, breaking Vynasha’s connection to the beast’s mind.

  “No!” She fell forward, gasping for breath, and stared down at her bare-skinned hands, devoid of fur. Vynasha gasped as she looked back into the vacant silver eyes of the creature, the girl trapped inside a beast’s form, even in death. A hot, stinking warmth pooled at her legs and she clutched at the creature’s fur as she buried her face in its chest. “I’m sorry I wasn’t there. I’m sorry I abandoned you.”

  “Ashes…” Ceddrych’s voice was softer, then. She might have believed his concern, might have stood and gone into her brother’s waiting arms were it not for the warning in her heart.

  Instead she released the creature that had given its life for her and knocked her brother’s hand aside. “You think I’m a monster just like her.”

  Ceddrych looked pained and replied, “I think you’re sick, Ashes. I should have taken you away from here the moment I found you. That demon you escaped seems to want you enough to send its beasts after you. Can’t you see we have to leave, now?”

  Vynasha jerked back when he reached for her. “I promised Wyll, that’s the only reason I’m going with you.”

  Promise me! Thea had pleaded with her, insisted.

  “Thea…” Vynasha whispered and stood, stumbled as she pushed her way through the people assembled around her lifeless friend, the little girl with majik, who made her not feel like a monster. She’d promised her.

  The villagers, both mirror folk and Wolv, backed away as they saw Vynasha coming, their fear a palpable stench in the air. She pulled at the tangled roots and clods of dirt covering Erythea, started to reach f
or the girl. Blood, burns and ruin coated her elongated claws and she shuddered, squeezed her eyes shut as she willed them to retract. When she looked again they were the same terrible length, so she was extra careful when she pulled the girl up and into her lap.

  “What’s happened?” Baalor’s voice bellowed over the crowd. Vynasha flinched and looked up to see his people fall back as the pack appeared from the opposite end of the road.

  “Ashes, leave her, we have to go now,” Ceddrych said with a hiss at her ear.

  She looked quickly over the twins’ stricken expressions before settling on Baalor. His teeth clenched together with his fists as he trembled, then fell to his knees before them.

  “Is she…” he began in a harsh whisper as he pushed Vynasha’s tangled hair from her filthy face. “Vynasha?”

  I don’t know. I tried to get here in time. I should have come with them instead of waiting. I should have let her stay with me. I wish I could tell you, wish I could be what you want.

  Baalor kept a hand on Vynasha’s shoulder, squeezing as he covered his face with his hand. She couldn’t look away, couldn’t speak as she watched him pull his hand away wet before he held his daughter’s face. The muscles in his hand tensed as he shifted and slipped an arm underneath hers, helping her support Thea’s head.

  Vynasha’s tears fell and she followed his gaze, daring to look on the girl’s face for the first time. Tears of violet blood fell from her wounds, from burns that had not yet properly healed, burning with cool fire as Vynasha brought her forehead to the girl’s. “I’m sorry.”

  A jolt stronger than majik shot through her skin, building to a pounding rhythm in time with her heart. A flash of blue light sparked in the space between them and then Erythea opened her eyes.

  Screams echoed in her ears and Baalor’s voice was somewhere above the din, calling Vynasha’s name. Strong arms wrapped around her, catching her before she collapsed over the girl as the remaining strength in her limbs gave way. The last thing she saw was the glowing blues of Erythea’s irises before darkness took hold of her vision and Vynasha finally succumbed to exhaustion.

  COOL FINGERS DRAGGED over her forehead, causing her to shiver.

  “I have you,” he whispered over her closed lids. “You are safe, love.”

  The shock of hearing Grendall’s voice made her aware to find she was indeed trapped in his arms, cheek pressed to his chest. “I’m dreaming,” she said, trying in vain to recall the events that had taken place before she woke up in his embrace. When her mind refused to supply any clarity, she searched his face for answers and then forgot to care what happened before.

  She had never seen him so close before and stared in wonder at the flecks of silvery blue in his pale eyes, at the small scar against the left-hand corner of his mouth. His lips parted and a strange, distant longing stirred in her chest at the sight. Yet his skin was gray, charred like a piece of wood burned too long. Pain etched its way across his brow, made her cringe as she recalled the howling darkness, the fire that had consumed them the last time they met in his dream space.

  “I am so sorry, Ashes. I never meant to hurt you.” His touch over her fresh scars was feather-light and surprisingly free of pain.

  “What happened to me?” she stuttered, suddenly nervous at his proximity.

  “I lost control last time…” Constrained emotion flickered across his cracked and dulled visage. No longer was he the glowing wyne she’d first met, nor the golden god of his dream space. Now he was something she didn’t recognize, someone who had hurt her in the end.

  “I woke up with burns all over my body,” she said, her voice cracking as the memories came in painful flashes. “If Erythea hadn’t found me, if Grandmother hadn’t tried to heal me…” She caught his confusion and remembered the last time she had seen him, his flesh had exploded in a cloud of ashes. “You died?”

  Grendall shook his head, bitterness creeping into his reply. “I cannot be destroyed by the curse so easily.”

  But then she remembered the silvery-eyed beast, a moment linking them to visions of terror, and Vynasha gasped. “You never told me what happened to the ones I set free. You didn’t tell me they escaped or that they needed me. She said I had to complete the circle, but what does that mean? Why didn’t you just tell me everything?”

  She pushed against him, only to find she couldn’t move, and her breaths came faster. He frowned, as though perceiving her struggle, pulled back to reveal the dungeon cell they had often shared while he wore his beast form.

  “My dream, remember? If I do not keep you shielded in my mind, I cannot promise the curse will not attack you again.”

  “So that’s what happened before? The curse attacked both of us?”

  His features hardened into the granite mask she first remembered meeting.

  “I should have never healed you in the first place, or let you heal me. You know our blood connected, awakened your gifts. I believed our bond would protect you, keep the nastier effects of Soraya’s enchantment from harming you. But you never completed your transformation because of it. Nothing like this has never happened before and I think the curse is trying to find you through me.”

  “One of the beasts escaped somehow and it almost killed Erythea, but I…” She paused, frowned at the words and the hazy memory they evoked, then looked up at Grendall. “What did I do?”

  The mask Grendall tried to keep up slipped as he confessed his horror. “I do not know what you are capable of. You were powerful before I bonded with you, Ashes, you just never knew it. Now… I do not know.”

  “The one who escaped, she called me Queen.”

  Grendall’s form shuddered as pale golden light began to glow through the broken cracks of his ashen skin. “This must not be,” he choked. “My fault. I could not tell you before…”

  Vynasha tried to reach for his face, force him to look at her, but was still frozen against whatever control he held over her. “Grendall,” she said, afraid of the ashes flaking off his skin in a soft rain over her. This time they did not scald her flesh, but transformed into the strange floating lights she had seen before.

  He gasped, eyelids fluttering shut, and his skin healed, smoothed into a warm luminous gold. As he held her to his chest so his breath caressed her cheek, he told her secrets. “Vynasha, I am afraid to tell you the truth.”

  “Keeping the truth from me hasn’t helped either of us. I won’t let anyone else get hurt because of me.”

  He would not look at her. “I hoped if I sent you away the curse would let you go. You could have a chance at happiness, with Ceddrych and your nephew, Wyll. I could not let you marry the Prince or the curse would have destroyed everything. When you arrived that all changed. Your blood is the cure.”

  Vynasha gaped at the lights floating in the air between them. The hum of their bond grow with his light as her majik healed him even in dreams, even as the curse was tearing her body apart somewhere else.

  “When you were with me, I grew strong enough to fight back my mother’s enchantments. I could not let the others know you had finally come.”

  “Your mother? But the Prince…”

  He silenced her with a hand to her cheek and a thumb to her lower lip and a look fierce as it was tender. “He calls himself prince, but he was only my mother’s guardian. His true name is Grolthox and there is little he can truly do to me now, no matter what power my mother gave him before she faded. And I was ready to let the curse take us to rot at last, until I sensed your father and I could see you in his mind.” A smile spread slowly across his face.

  “You are the true Prince? You—did all of this?” Vynasha had forgotten her revelation before, his earlier confession, in the pain she’d found after. So much had happened since she woke up to Erythea and Grandmother and then searching for Ceddrych and finding Wyll.

  “You lied to me. You made my father bring me back here with false hope and now he’s dead. Now Ceddrych can’t look at me for what I’ve become and Wyll—gods, Wyll—�
�� She tried to pull from his embrace, couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe. “Let me go!”

  “I had no choice.” His smile turned almost cruel as he said, “Unlike Grolthox, I believed in Soraya’s prophecy. For three centuries I let him do as he liked, let him think they won…” His smile faded and again she saw that fierce determination take its place. “I know it was cruel, bringing you here, but I could not resist a child of both bloodlines. I knew you were the one she promised, yet feared you would come undo her judgment of us.”

  The more she struggled, the less she could move, while a pressure began to build in her chest. “Grendall, please let me go,” she said with a gasp.

  He shook his head, laughed as he replied, “I tried to, foolish girl, can you not see? The reason Soraya cursed me in the first place was because I was just as cruel as my father. He believed in power, but never trusted the people of the veil like my mother. He made me see the dangers of letting them control us with their majik, so I agreed to help him enforce our rule. I never learned anything different until I met you.”

  Vynasha blinked rapidly as her vision blurred with hot tears. “You want me to pity you?”

  His expression darkened. “Soraya put her bloody bodyguard in charge of the castle, to make sure her prophecy never came true. My own mother wanted to destroy me. I started to believe her in the end, did not blame her for cursing me to this half-life. Maybe I even wanted her to kill my father the way she did. Maybe I wanted to give into madness and despair too. I almost let Grolthox win you over because I convinced myself I deserved my punishment. But the curse would have destroyed you with us and I am sorry, Ashes, but I have always been a selfish beast.”

  His words struck her as much as her father once had, during the worst of his drunken fits. The same blinding pain rang through her skull and she ground her teeth to keep from crying out. Through clenched teeth she managed a curse. “Damn you to seven hells.”

  “We are all dead already, Ashes. I have tried to release you twice now, but the curse knows of our bond and I am not strong enough to fight it without you.”