Beasts of the Frozen Sun

by Jill Criswell

  The moonflowers tickled, soft as a blanket. Aillira’s thorntree swayed above us, the only witness to our awakening.

  Dazed and sated, we lay on our backs, scanning the night sky for falling stars—sometimes the sky god’s children begged to visit our world. Sometimes Nesper let them, and they raced from the heavens to the earth before he changed his mind.

  In the morning, Reyker and I would try to find our way out of this realm and back to our own. I wanted to return to Ghost Village, to be there when the prince arrived.

  Reyker touched my temple. “No dragons in here?”

  “No.” I’d not felt Draki scraping at my mind since I’d woken in the ruins. I brushed my fingers across Reyker’s face. “You look weary.”

  “I believe that’s your fault. You were quite demanding.”

  It was true—we’d drunk deeply of the blessings of ardor bestowed on us this night. I felt my cheeks flush, and Reyker grinned. “I mean it,” I said. “You need rest.”

  “I passed out from the venom.”

  “That doesn’t count.” I poked him in the ribs.

  Reyker caught my hand and kissed it. His voice was wistful as he said, “I wish I could take you with me to Iseneld.”

  “Would you? I want to see all the places you’ve shown me in your memories. The mountains and rivers, the ghost lights dancing in the sky.”

  “Those lights mark the gateway to the sacred sky-well of creation, where my people fell from the realm of gods into the realm of men. It is said that if you stare into them long enough, you will glimpse your fate.” He tucked a strand of hair behind my ear. “One day, I will take you to see them.”

  “Good.” I kissed him softly. “But for now, you must sleep.”

  He slipped an arm beneath me as I settled against him. The night was mild, the air pleasant enough that we were comfortable wearing only our smallclothes. “You sleep, Lira. I’ll keep watch.”

  “Stupid boy,” I mumbled. “You’ll be sorry one of these days, when you fall asleep on your feet in the middle of a battle.”

  He stroked a hand along my cheek. “You assume I’ve not fought while sleeping. Plenty of warriors aren’t worth waking up to kill.”

  “Oh, you’re so clever.” I smiled drowsily at him in the starlit dark. “That’s why I love you, min vulf.”

  My wolf.

  He pressed his forehead to mine. “As I love you, min dyre.”

  My deer.

  I closed my eyes, feeling the breeze around us, the bed of flowers under us, the rise and fall of Reyker’s chest beneath my head with each breath he took, the steady thump of his heart next to my ear. The sound lulled me. This was a blissful moment, one I wanted to savor. One I hoped would be the first of many.

  I walk through the ruins, circling the fallen remnants of castles and manors and towers that surround the giant thorntree.

  “This is a lie,” a cold voice beside me says. “Remove it.”

  A girl with apricot hair waves her hands, and the image of ruins lifts like a drawn curtain, revealing Aillira’s Temple. Not a broken kingdom, but a sanctuary. The girl turns, and I recognize Eathalin, but she isn’t herself. Her face is blank, her eyes unfocused. A young gray-eyed woman beside her wears the same vacant expression—Sursha, the pain-wielder.

  An army of Dragonmen is with them. A sharp whistle from their leader, and as one, they march on the temple.

  The temple guards meet them, their swords colliding with the Dragonmen’s axes. The Daughters of Aillira do not sit idly by; old priestesses and young pledges greet the warriors with arrows and swords. Between the guards and the women, dozens of Dragonmen fall. But the man in front, leading the charge, walks right through them all, untouched.

  The Daughters with the deadliest gifts fight with what the gods gave them. Wind-wafters send gales at the army, knocking Dragonmen into one another, slamming them to the ground. Yet the wind seems to bow before the leader, not even ruffling his silver hair. Fire-sweepers pull the flames from lanterns into their hands, tossing blue fire over the heads of the warriors, burning them alive. When sparks rain down on the leader, he reaches up to catch them. The light curling in his hand reflects off his gold-green eyes.

  Draki hurls the fire at the temple library, and the building bursts into flame. It spreads to the lecture halls, the dormitories. As the women scramble to put out the flames, Draki’s forces cut through the guards, pressing closer to the ancient thorntree at the temple’s center.

  I move like Draki’s shadow, drifting after him, not certain if I’m inside his head or if he’s inside mine. This cannot be real. The temple cannot be taken. It’s a dream, only a dream.

  The Dragon places his palms against the thorntree. “Ildja sends her regards,” he says. Something flows out of him, into the tree—energy, power. The bark blackens, the branches wither and slump. The roots break off and the giant tree topples, coming down with a crash.

  The enduring symbol of Aillira and Veronis dies without fanfare.

  While the battle rages, Draki enters a tower and finds what he seeks—an elderly woman, furiously writing in a ledger, recording details of the attack on the temple for posterity, as if it is the most important thing she can do. The head priestess looks the same as she did when I visited the temple a decade ago; she squints at Draki without fear, speaking Iseneldish. “So you have finally come, son of the Ice Gods. Did you know the earth shook beneath our temple the day you were born?”

  “Your temple is full of superstitious crones.” He clucks his tongue. “Dragons are not born; they are made.”

  He ushers the priestess out, and she goes with the composure of a woman who has awaited this moment for quite some time. Draki puts a knife to the old woman’s neck. “Surrender,” he calls out in Glasnithian to the Daughters of Aillira, “or she dies.”

  The women glance at one another. “Don’t,” I whisper as they lower their weapons and the Dragonmen close in.

  Draki’s blade opens the head priestess’s throat as his guttural laugh pierces my soul.

  I cry out, shoving at him, but I’m no more than a ghost here.

  The Dragon drops the priestess’s body and turns, staring at me, even though I’m nothing but shadow and air. It is a dream, I tell myself desperately. Only a dream.

  “The temple has fallen, little warrior,” he says. “Now I’m coming for Stony Harbor. I’m coming for you.”

  REYKER

  you will chase what you cannot catch.

  you will love what you cannot keep.

  Reyker couldn’t expel it from his mind—those hideous phantom-gods beneath the water, tearing at him; their shrieking voices, solid and painful as a pounding hammer, divining his fate. Each word had slammed into him, so loud he feared he would dissolve beneath their blows.

  He didn’t trust this prophecy, foretold by dethroned deities. Lira lay beside him, head pillowed on his shoulder, breathing the deep soft breaths of sleep. “I will keep you,” he whispered to her, his eyes drifting shut. “Nothing will take you from me.”

  “Well, what have we here?”

  Reyker sprang from deep sleep into full consciousness, jumping to his feet, reaching for weapons that weren’t there. In an instant, he absorbed his surroundings: the snorts of horses, the rustle of boots treading over leaves. Five armed warriors—Sons of Stone. Familiar faces, men who’d beaten and tormented him. Including Madoc.

  “Torin’s had me out searching for his missing beast and his prized daughter for days,” Madoc said. “Now here you are, right under our noses.”

  They were no longer in the ruins. This was the Tangled Forest.

  Reyker didn’t bother to wonder how such a thing had happened—these were the ways of gods and magic. He kept his eyes on the men while he spoke to Lira in Iseneldish. “I’ll distract them. You take one of their horses and go. I’ll find you.”

 
Madoc had a sword, but the others held poleaxes. One of the men stepped toward Reyker, swinging his weapon, and Reyker ducked beneath it, lunging at the man, punching him hard enough to break the man’s nose and send him sprawling. Just like that, the poleaxe was in Reyker’s hands.

  “I’d warn you not to be stupid, beast, but it’s too late for that. Quite a deal you offered Torin at the conclave. An army of invaders at his disposal? Wherever did you come up with such a plan?” Madoc’s shrewd gaze said what his words had not: You offered Torin what you promised me. You’ll pay dearly for your betrayal.

  The black river surged. Reyker swung the poleaxe at Madoc’s torso.

  Madoc narrowly dodged it. “At least you had a little fun before the war starts. Gave the girl something to remember you by, did you?” He shot Reyker an icy smile. “Don’t worry. I’ll look after her while you’re gone.”

  “Go now, Lira,” Reyker said, launching himself at Madoc. The poleaxe’s spike sliced through the flesh over Madoc’s ribs, spilling the commander’s blood.

  Lira rushed for the horses.

  Madoc brought his sword up, blocking Reyker’s next swing. “Stop her!” Madoc said as his blade met Reyker’s poleaxe again.

  Reyker kept one eye on Madoc and the other on Lira as she leaped onto a horse. She kicked it so it reared, its hooves smashing into one warrior when he tried to grab her, but another warrior slammed the flat end of his poleaxe into her hip and knocked her from the saddle. Reyker was edging toward her when he saw the shapes out of a corner of his vision, heard the movement of more warriors coming from the woods behind him.

  A heavy net was thrown over his head. Before he could slice his way out of it, the bottom of the net pulled taut around his ankles, jerking his feet out from under him, and ten warriors fell on top of him, holding him down, prying the poleaxe from his fingers. They tightened the net, pinning his limbs, and tossed him on the back of a horse.

  “Stupid beast,” he heard Madoc sneer, slapping the horse, and then it was running, carrying Reyker away from the commander. Away from Lira.

  I didn’t understand how I’d gotten here. Reyker and I had fallen asleep in one world and woken in another, as if the ruins had spit us out during the night, back to our bitter fates. Back on a path that led straight to Stony Harbor.

  Avoiding my gaze, one of the warriors handed me his tunic, and I slid it over my thin shift, the hem coming down to my knees. I wondered if he’d done it to spare my shame or Torin’s.

  Madoc wrapped a piece of cloth around his bleeding torso. He kicked my knife, where it had landed when I fell from the horse, and picked up the square of parchment beneath it. When he unfolded it, his eyes widened. “It seems I underestimated you, niece. You have far less regard for your own life than I imagined.”

  He tucked the parchment under his clothing and mounted his horse. The warrior whose tunic I wore lifted me into the saddle behind my uncle. Madoc whistled a grating tune that set my nerves on edge as we rode.

  “You could let us go,” I said. “Tell Torin you never found us.”

  “And miss an opportunity to degrade my brother and his whelp? No, I’m going to ensure you and your beast get exactly what you deserve.”

  “Why are you so cruel?”

  “Maybe because the Brine Beast spared you, but ate my only son and heir,” Madoc said. “Or because the god of death robbed me of my wife and daughter. Maybe because my younger brother stole all that is rightfully mine.” Turning his head, he regarded me coolly. “Maybe it is simply how the gods made me. Does it matter?”

  “I’m sorry about your family. I wish—”

  “Does it matter?” he asked again, silencing me.

  Our arrival in the village caused an uproar. Villagers halted their chores, hurried from their cottages. I spotted Ishleen among them. Her lips moved, and though I couldn’t hear, I knew what she’d said: “What the devils have you done, Lira?”

  Madoc hauled me off the horse, presenting me to our scowling chieftain. My uncle leaned over, whispering to his brother. His words made Torin’s eyes blaze. Reyker and I had run off together in the night; we were found wearing barely a stitch of clothing, locked in an embrace. No lies could absolve us.

  “Lira,” Torin said. “Have you been defiled?”

  I held my chin high. “No.”

  “If I had you examined, we would find your virtue still intact?” he asked doubtfully.

  “No.” If I tried to deceive him, he’d make Olwen examine me as he’d done before. I would spare myself that indignity.

  “No?” He cocked his head, furrows creasing his forehead. “Which is it?”

  “No, I am no longer a maiden. No, I was not defiled. I gave myself willingly.”

  Torin’s gaze flickered to Reyker; a group of warriors were dragging him off the horse, still trapped in the net. “To this invader?”

  “To Reyker. The man I love.”

  Black spirals shuddered in Torin’s irises, sending chills through me. Who was he now? He was my father, yet not my father. Puzzling over it hurt my head. It hurt my heart.

  Madoc muttered something that made Torin’s mouth twitch. A grimace, or a grin?

  “No,” Torin said. “I will not—”

  “You’re her chieftain.” Madoc gripped Torin’s arm. “She defied you in front of your clan. She chose a beast, one of the men who murdered your son, over her own people.”

  “Reyker had no part in Rhys’s death,” I said.

  Neither of them listened. “She had this on her when I found her.” Madoc pulled out the page from the Forbidden Scriptures. “The girl is a whore and a heretic.”

  Torin took the parchment and read it. The muscles in his jaw tightened; the demons in his eyes danced. He crumpled the page in his fist. “You’re right. Fetch it.”

  My uncle headed for the armory.

  I couldn’t hear the orders Torin gave his men, but some paled, looking stricken, while others sneered, eagerly awaiting whatever was about to befall me. Torin escorted me up the path, past the cells. To the gallows.

  My knees shook. Surely, he didn’t mean to hang me?

  “String her up,” Torin said. I was led up the stairs onto the scaffold, forced to kneel between the vertical beams. Right beneath where Dyfed’s body had hung from a noose.

  A public whipping? They were reserved for serious crimes, mostly theft or destruction of another man’s property. Women were never whipped in public, but punished privately by a husband, father, or brother—though Torin and my brothers had never raised a hand to my mother or me.

  “Open her tunic.”

  I jerked my head toward Torin. He really meant to do this. If I begged, he might change his mind, but I wouldn’t demean myself. I would take my beating as bravely as I could. I would show no weakness.

  One of the men ripped the sentry’s tunic that covered me, and my shift beneath it, leaving my back exposed. Each of my wrists was tied to one of the beams so my arms were spread wide.

  Villagers crowded around the scaffold to witness my punishment.

  At Torin’s command, Reyker was bound to the thick trunk of a nearby tree. They tied enough rope around him to pin a wild bull. Torin tested the knots himself, then grabbed Reyker’s chin, lifting his head up. “Keep your eyes open, beast. You’re the one who did this to her.”

  Reyker looked from Torin to me, his eyes darkening with dread. With wrath. “Please,” Reyker said. “You cannot do this.”

  “Tame your tongue, beast, or I’ll have you muzzled.”

  Madoc returned from the armory, and Torin went to meet him. My uncle held the whip out to Torin, and the chieftain hesitated; he must have assumed Madoc would wield it. He glanced at me, then at the villagers who watched him expectantly.

  He accepted the whip.

  “Lira of Stone, you are charged with fornicating with an invader, an e
nemy of this clan.” Torin addressed me but faced the crowd. “Do you deny this charge?”

  “No.” I spoke loudly, without shame. Gasps and chattering arose.

  “Your marriage could’ve secured crucial alliances for the Sons of Stone. With your virtue spoiled, by a savage no less, no respectable man will accept you as a wife. You’ve betrayed your clan, your country, and yourself. Are you ready to pay for your crimes?”

  Again, I let my voice ring clear. “I’m prepared to be beaten by my own father for bedding a man I chose instead of one forced upon me.”

  More jabbering from the audience.

  “Five lashes is your punishment. Let it be known that no one is exempt from this clan’s judgment. Not even the chieftain’s daughter.” Torin lowered his voice, so only I heard. “I hope he was worth it,” he said, revealing the tool Madoc selected for my castigation: not a regular whip, but a rawhide knout, its thongs made of branches tipped with long, slender white needles. Branches from a southern thorntree.

  A nasty, deadly tool.

  The moment hung there. It was so brief, yet it stretched on forever. Help me, I thought, not sure who I called upon. The gods? The crowd? My father?

  Help me.

  Torin swung the knout. The thorns tore at my flesh before I could blink.

  The ache. The shock. It was like jumping into freezing water, knocking the breath from my lungs. My back was on fire.

  “One!” the crowd counted.

  There were gasps. There were cheers too.

  Torin jerked his arm, ripping the branches free before lashing me with them again. My breath came in tight spasms as pain washed over me. I strained against my bindings.

  “Two!”

  There was an animal nearby, howling and rabid. The sound burned holes in my ears. It spoke in Reyker’s voice. “I forced her! I raped her!” he kept shouting.