Scarred Beauty

by Jennifer Silverwood

  ENSCONCED ONCE MORE in the abandoned cottage, Resha and Ceddrych huddled by the fireside, speaking in a mix of motion and hushed words. Baalor had not returned to the cottage and Vynasha tried to ignore the incessant baying and howl of beasts echoing in the distance. She could only hope he wasn’t foolish enough to seek a fight and hope in turn her rash impulse hadn’t doomed them all. Still, she couldn’t shake the faint tremble of power and the need to dominate from her blood.

  Don’t think about it now, the human girl buried within her begged.

  Vynasha curled onto the pallet beside Wyll and held onto that small voice in her head until the tug of beastly instinct abated. By some miracle, he had not stirred from sleep during the ruckus, so she carefully settled in against his feeble frame and drew him deeper into her embrace. She matched her breathing to the slow, hitching pace of her nephew’s and breathed him in. Tears spilled from her eyes but she dared not move to wipe them away, or pretend to feign sleep.

  She studied the curve of the boy’s face and the sharper line of his jaw. He was a child to her still, but he looked older, stronger even in his deteriorated state. Wyll was as much of a contradiction as her majik was to her cursed form. Sickness and youth had been so long at war in her nephew, but for how much longer could he last?

  Vynasha whispered so softly, not even her brother’s Wolv hearing would pick it up. “I’m sorry I wasn’t strong enough to heal you.” A quick glance to watch firelight play against Ceddrych’s turned profile and then, “I have to leave you again soon.” Wyll stirred and she brushed curls so much like her own from his scarred forehead. “I know I promised once to never leave you again, but until this is all over with, I must keep you safe.” Her vision blurred and she gasped when Wyll’s small hand came to wipe her tears away.

  The scarring made his smile lopsided. “It’s okay, Aunty Asha. I know you’ll come back.”

  “Oh?” A sob caught her breath and she forced it into a breathless laugh.

  Wyll nodded. “You always come back.”

  Vynasha took his hand in hers and held it to her lips. “I always will.”

  Wait for me, she silently pled, don’t leave this world without me.

  Instead, she leaned in closer and kept their hands clasped between them. “Tell me a story, Wyll.”

  “But you’re the storyteller, Aunty Asha,” Wyll replied.

  “Tell me about the hunters and your adventures with Resha.”

  Wyll’s nose wrinkled but mirth danced in his eyes as he said, “It’s not a majikal tale, not as exciting as yours.”

  “Tell me and see, little love.”

  Wyll’s rasping voice filled the forlorn cottage with more warmth than the fire. Soon Ceddrych’s whispers ceased and Vynasha knew they listened as keenly as she.

  “After you left with Wolfsbane, Resha pulled me on our sled. Remember how much we laughed when we made it back home?”

  “I remember,” Vynasha said.

  Wyll’s lopsided smile grew brighter. “The Wolvs came looking for us, so we had to run. But the sled overturned and Resha caught me at the bottom. I thought the wolves were going to eat us, just like in the old stories.”

  He shivered and she echoed his actions with darker thoughts. Back when wolves had become a thing of legend in Whistleande Valley. Before they had entered the Wylder Mountains and dared to believe in majik and monsters.

  “Resha knew how to hide us and mask our scent in this old fir tree. I was so scared, even more after the wolves came, but then they changed.” Wyll whispered the last, and she could feel the quiet horror he must have known. “One of them spoke like a man and they were looking for Wolfsbane and Resha. I didn’t know about the hunt yet. Wolfsbane told me later.”

  “Not quite what I had in mind when I left you with them for safekeeping,” Vynasha teased, glancing over her shoulder to find Resha’s dark gaze. The huntress shrugged and turned back to sharpening her daggers.

  “Yes, Auntie, but after we escaped and hid in Resha’s cave, I found Uncle Ceddrych. I almost didn’t know it was him, he looked so different and I was so little when he left with Grandfather.” Wyll laughed and squeezed her fingers. “He didn’t believe me when I told him about the fire and everything that happened after. He was so mad we came, until I told him about that old beggar and the Source.” His smile faded and a piece of the light in his blue eyes dimmed as he added, “I didn’t have to tell him I was sick.”

  Vynasha pressed her lips to the crown of his head to hide her tears. “But you’re better now.”

  His small body shuddered with the following breaths, as though he too was masking his fear. She had always known he was braver than she could hope to be, even now when she should be powerful.

  When I should have cured him.

  “Time to go.” Too soon, Ceddrych interrupted Wyll’s tale.

  Vynasha glared at her brother and the knowing look in his eye. He didn’t waver under her silent reprimand, but turned to rolling up his and Resha’s pallet.

  Wyll buried his face in her neck with another slight shudder, and if Vynasha’s returning embrace was too tight, the boy didn’t complain. Instead he wrapped his arms around her waist and held fast.

  Don’t leave me behind, Wyll.

  Before the beggar appeared on the road to Whistleande that day, Vynasha had considered what she might do should this winter be Wyll’s last. All scenarios had grown increasingly bleak and ended with her following her family’s fate by brutal choice. She shivered and a faint pounding echoed somewhere at the back of her mind, keeping time with her heart.

  Resha came to help Wyll roll up his pallet and organize their things. The boy smiled up at Vynasha softly. It was pure torture to let him go.

  Ceddrych came to stand before her with his pack already shouldered, an apology etched in the lines about his face. “Ready to go, Ashes?”

  Vynasha dragged her attention from Wyll to look about the cottage. “Where are my things?” The pack she had cast beside her pallet the night before was missing and she turned to the cottage door.

  “Or perhaps you prefer to stay and howl at the moon some more?” Ceddrych added.

  Vynasha crossed her arms over her chest. “Wolfsbane’s madness can be infectious.” She eyed him through downturned lashes. “Surely you understand the urge to howl at the moon, brother?”

  Ceddrych’s lips pressed together. Still, he couldn’t seem to help speaking his mind. “The reason I came running last night wasn’t because I was afraid for you.”

  Vynasha opened her mouth to protest, but Ceddrych held up a hand.

  “I know you can look after yourself. It was… well, it was because I heard your call and I had to come.” He took a step closer, the gold interchanged with a flash of green as he bore over her. “I don’t know if what you used was majik or something to do with this bleeding curse.”

  She rubbed the gooseflesh on her arms. “I don’t understand what happened up there any better than you. It felt good to let go and I thought it harmless, until this thing inside me took over. Before you say anything, I promise, I’m going to ask the Forgotten and Grandmother and I’ll learn how to control… whatever this is.”

  Anger screwed up his handsome features as he waved her words away. “I’m not worried about you doing what you must, I’m afraid of the consequences. Learn to control your curse, slay the beasts, only be careful about trusting Wolfsbane’s counsel, or the village Elders for that matter. They’ll fill your head with their prophecies while molding you into what they want. Don’t underestimate any of them, especially Ilya Iceveins.”

  “I know,” she replied and this time her skin pricked against the cold winds piercing through her cloak.

  Ceddrych reached a hand for her but hesitated just shy of her glowing skin, his face creasing with regret. “I know you may not believe I could stay with you.”

  Her breath hitched. “I know.”

  “I’m—sorry I haven’t been what you needed.”

  I’m sorry I didn’
t trust you from the beginning, she longed to confess, but her voice was drowned by the wind. Instead, Vynasha threw her arms around his shoulders and buried her face in his neck. She breathed her brother in until she could smell the man beneath the curse.

  “You’re my brother,” she said, because while their bond was fragile, it was enough.

  Ceddrych stiffened then pressed his palms to her back. Against her ear he whispered, “Don’t let them turn you into a martyr, Ashes.”

  She managed a halting reply. “I’ll send word—when I can.”

  As they parted his eyes searched her face before he nodded. Some of the old fondness settled in his smile as he added, “This isn’t farewell, you know.”

  “I know,” she replied with as much warmth as she could muster. Ceddrych turned to help Wyll to his feet. Resha waited nearby ready to take Wyll’s hand and together they walked to the cottage door.

  Vynasha followed them into the soft gray dawn. The sun was climbing into the sky and it was long past time they return to the village. She quickly scanned the trees, but no flash of white fur lingered on her periphery this time.

  “Will you wait, then?” Ceddrych called back as they turned to pause and make a final farewell.

  Wait for Baalor, he means.

  She nodded and his jaw tightened.

  “Remember what I’ve said,” he warned. “Be careful how much you trust Baalor. He’s more dangerous than the worst demon in this valley.”

  “We have to start trusting someone other than ourselves,” Vynasha said with the faintest waver in her voice. She turned to Little Wyll, who was not so little anymore.

  He stuck out his chin bravely in the morning light. “Wait until I show you all the things Uncle Ced teaches me.”

  Vynasha and Ceddrych shuddered at their father’s name on the boy’s lips. Wyll barely remembered his grandfather, or the dread his shortened name inspired. He didn’t know Ceddrych hated his name because of Old Ced.

  “Come on, Wyll, time to go,” Ceddrych urged with a hand on the boy’s shoulder.

  Wyll smiled up at him so the sunlight revealed the worst of the pitted scars on his face.

  Wolfsbane’s daughter urged Wyll along, while keeping a watchful eye on the others.

  Yet Vynasha only had eyes for the last of her family, the reason she was saying goodbye and returning to the Wolv’s lair. She watched them until their forms disappeared through the trees along an unseen path.

  Once upon a time, she would have felt lost standing alone in the Wylderlands without Wyll to look after, but that seemed long ago to her now. Today the sun was rising slowly over the land unveiled before her, the dips and rises of the valley where the Forgotten Village lay. As the warm rays painted Vynasha’s skin with a palate of rose and tarnished gold she chose to push the ache aside.

  She needed to find her pack and that infernal demon, as Ceddrych dubbed Baalor. Looking about the cottage offered no trace of his trail. At this point it was too late to mark the difference between Ceddrych’s boot prints and the pack master’s.

  The wind cut through her hair with needle-like pricks, reminding her of her state. Vynasha gripped the pendant as she brought the edges of her cloak over her shoulders. She hadn’t thought about the cold when she was howling at the moon, or saying goodbye to Wyll and Ceddrych. She pulled her curls back from her face and pulled the hood of her fur cloak over her head as another wintery gust carried a fresh scent, familiar and heavy with anger.

  “Finally decided to show your face?” she called before pivoting to the source.

  “Time to go.” Baalor looked half wyld as he stepped onto the path leading down from the cottage with her pack slung over his shoulder. When she made no move to follow, he turned his head and pulled the strap of the pack tighter. “Forgetting something?”

  “That’s all you have to say?” Vynasha took in the dark circles under his eyes and doubted he’d found any rest. “Where have you been?”

  Baalor’s arms twitched, but otherwise the man gave away none of the fury clinging to his scent. “We can discuss your reckless behavior later. Now let’s go.”

  “Look at me!” Vynasha’s limbs surged with tingling energy as she marched up to him and grabbed his shoulder. He reeled back, giving easily into her pull with a snarl. She flinched when she discovered more of the beast than man burning brightly through his emerald eyes.

  “I am barely holding onto this skin, Vynasha. Please do not force me to speak now.”

  Her hand glowed brightly against his cloak. She took a deep breath to calm the surge of power building in her fingertips. With even greater effort she retracted her claws and curled her hand into a fist at her side. Another breath and she felt calm enough to reply, “My pack?”

  He removed the burden from his shoulder and helped secure it over her arm. His touch seared her, leaving imprints of warmth before he hunched back over the path. With a surge of light, he shed his human flesh and fell into his wolf skin. The beast cast one last look her way as though to say, Coming? before loping away.

  A sunbeam glinted off something half-buried in the snow. She bent to pull a silver pendant from the sludge. Her leather boots crunched against the snow as she followed and held up the pendant to the mountain sunlight. The metal base was attached to a thick needle at the back, meant for a girl’s shawl or cloak. Though crudely crafted, here at the edge of the world, it was a thing of beauty. She glanced back at the cottage one last time and then traced the outline of the bird in flight with a claw.

  As if the pendant possessed a majik of its own, Wynyth’s slow but radiant smile filled her vision. So often her mother was little more than a blur on the edge of memory. Now her face was highlighted in painful detail: the way the sun gleamed off her golden curls and nut-brown skin, how her eyes shone with soft pale light as she took Vynasha by the hand then placed the velvety rose bud in her small palm.

  “Do you see how it sings to you, little bird?”

  Vynasha gasped, blinking past tears as she gripped the pendant and turned away from the sun. Snow continued to gather at her feet as she followed the sudden shift from boot to paw prints leading along the winding path down Mount Grimm.

  WITH BAALOR FOR company, Vynasha keenly felt the presence of all that had passed between them in the abandoned cabin. He alone had pulled her back from falling too deep into her majik. After she’d learned the truth about Grendall and broken the shield his amulet held, she had been drowning in power. She should have never tried to heal Wyll in her current state, but after saving Erythea…

  Nothing could touch you with that power.

  She shuddered at the unbidden thought as her muscles began to spasm.

  Too much power.

  She didn’t care to imagine what might have happened last night in the cottage had Baalor’s strength not kept hers at bay. She could still feel the pressure against her mind, knocking at her pulse with each heartbeat as she walked over upturned earth and upset tree roots. She felt far too weak and human to navigate and wished her cursed strength would return soon.

  Baalor appeared at her side again, though she had been aware of him circling back for the last hour. He wore his human skin and, judging by his tone, had regained the control he’d struggled with before. “Storm like this hasn’t struck our valley in half an age.”

  “I thought you were too furious with me to speak,” she chided, but could not hide the trembling in her voice.

  He eyed her critically. “Never mind that now. Let’s focus on getting you home.”

  Home, she thought with no small measure of longing. Her arms twitched as wyld majik moved through her, dripping violet onto the ruined earth. Another trick of the mind, or could he see it too? She squeezed the silver bird pendant and tried to focus on the prick of the needle.

  Baalor’s arms wrapped around her without hesitation, his hands wrapping over her fists firmly as the majik slipped past her fists, coating his fingers. Stars burst to life behind her eyelids and blood from her bitten tongue fi
lled her mouth.

  Baalor’s cheek pressed to hers and he mumbled low, past the ringing in her ears, using words she did not recognize. Until at last his voice surrounded and covered her. “Broc mín eafoð, módlufu…”

  His voice was her anchor and the language like music to her ears, and for a short time she floated outside of herself. Gradually she came back to the steady motions of Baalor’s sturdy gait. His chest was broad and so warm she nuzzled deeper against him. He glanced down and the naked concern in his face frightened her.

  “How long have I been unconscious?”

  Baalor’s grip at her back and knees tightened as he picked his way down a slick ledge and deeper into the forest. “You’re awake, good. Couldn’t camp near that mountain, but we are close to a place I used once. Hope the storm left it be.”

  She swallowed back the lump in her throat, afraid to look at him. “Majik made that storm—but I think you already know that.”

  “I hope you aren’t about to start blaming yourself again.” Baalor’s frown pulled the corner of his mouth further against his scar, drawing her attention to the crude mark. Had Wolfsbane cut him with one of those long daggers he favored?

  “Why not? It was sent for me. Sooner or later I’ll have to go back there and face… and end this.” She couldn’t say his name, no matter how much she needed to hate Grendall. To speak a name is to give it power, Wynyth had once said. Speak a name and you might unwittingly summon its bearer.

  “I shall hear no more talk of you going to the Lost City without me. Surely you don’t think we would let you walk into the beast’s den alone… Ah.” He paused. “This could be a problem.”

  Baalor lowered her to her feet and, once certain she could stand on her own, climbed over a fallen fir tree blocking their path. He carved a way through its jutting limbs until the evergreen needles swallowed him whole. Vynasha waited and listened for her guide and shifted nervously as his tread suddenly fell silent.