By day, they laid traps throughout the forest and scouted the old road for sign or hair of beasts. Fewer attempted the crossing now that the winds had shifted. Now that Vynasha wore Grendall’s amulet about her neck and dreamed dreams of a woman with wings and men that gleamed like the golden sun.
These dreams were better than the ones she had of Ceddrych and Wyll or of Baalor and Erythea.
“There are worse fates than dying. Not meeting you…” Baalor’s fingers grazed her clenched jaw and slid into her curls. “That would have been a tragedy.”
Vynasha sucked in a sharp breath of cold air at the memory and leaned heavily on her walking stick.
A firm but gentle hand squeezed her shoulder. “All right then, beasty?” Wolfsbane turned his head before she could catch more than a glimpse of his concern. The roaring of the falls was ever present, the air fragrant with blossoms and snow that would never melt so far north.
Vynasha touched his glove with her clawed hand and smiled. “Just need a moment.” This was a lie, of course. Her calves no longer burned from endless days of hiking up and down mountains and through slippery brambles.
Wolfsbane’s breath puffed before his bushy black beard, and his teeth flashed as he released her. “Not much farther to camp, little wyldcat.” He sniffed and tilted his head to the gathering clouds. “Smells like new snow.”
Vynasha huffed a laugh. “Does it ever stop?”
Wolfsbane’s periwinkle blues twinkled back at her with only a smidge of madness today. “Not even in summer.” He nodded toward the falls and the Lost City. “Not since the curse.”
Vynasha followed his gaze and clenched her sharp teeth. No matter the time or distance, she always knew in what direction the castle lay. It was in her blood, just as he was.
Forcing her attention to the boundless forest dipping into the valley below, Vynasha caught the break where the road to the Lost City truly began. They often camped up in the crags above the Silverblud Forest.
“We really going down there tonight?” she asked.
Wolfsbane grunted. “Land will have settled by now. Safe enough to cross, long as we avoid shadows too deep and holes in the ground.” He winked at her and lifted his stick, testing the snows as they began their descent anew.
“You shall never let me live that down,” Vynasha growled.
The man barked a laugh. “I had not heard such foul language from your mouth before, beasty.”
“Keep laughing, old man,” Vynasha called.
“Old man? I could run five leagues up and down these mountains before you finished one.”
“So you say.” Vynasha smiled in spite of herself. Wolfsbane had been someone she thought to tolerate. Past hunts, when she still spent more time with the Iceveins family than apart from it, Vynasha hadn’t understood Wolfsbane. Now, however…
She watched the determined set of his burly shoulders and the vigor of a man half his age. But at night, with naught but the fire between them, she glimpsed moments of sadness so deep in him that it was like peering at her reflection.
“Not everyone turns into a wyldcat, witch,” Wolfsbane continued as if they weren’t entering the most dangerous part of the forest. Vynasha pushed her legs a bit to catch up so he wouldn’t need to be so loud.
“Already you have grasped more than I had hoped to teach you,” he declared.
Vynasha snorted and carefully checked the patch of snowdrift before her. “I survived off the land just fine for years before I met you.” The ground was leveling out before them, the trees drawing closer.
Because of the curse, her guide had said.
“Aye, you did.” Wolfsbane’s voice was warmer, less manic. “Still, two moons ago, you could not tell the smells of the forest apart.”
Vynasha had opened her mouth to retort, fully knowing she was taking his bait, when movement caught her eye. Just off the corner of her periphery, into an especially dark patch of forest.
“First rule of survival in the Silverblud, beasty,” he had warned. “Beware deep shadows and deeper holes.”
“Stay close,” Wolfsbane said as he bent into a loose crouch and took a few cautious steps toward the deepening shadow ahead of them.
Vynasha released her claws. Her left hand flexed over where the prince’s dagger rested on her hip. She had not used it yet, not to skin prey or against her beasts. It was stained with Baalor’s blood. The amulet grew heavy about her neck.
Wolfsbane barreled through the thicket in a blur of furs, a baleful cry on his lips. The hunter stopped just shy of a gap in the forest and lifted his arm in a wide arc. Vynasha slid in low to the earth and prepared to claw the beast from behind. Only there was no beast. There was…nothing.
No, there is shadow and the stench of death.
Another of Wolfsbane’s lessons came to mind. “You are right to pay the shadows mind. Deep places like this one are favored hiding places of forgotten, foul creatures.”
Vynasha met Wolfsbane’s gaze around the emptiness between them and tried to call to him. No sound came out. A pressure began to build behind her eyes, and for the first time in a moon’s turn, her skin glowed violet. Then the empty space moved.
The shadow took advantage of her open mouth, pouring down her throat like smoke.
Vynasha gagged as she helplessly watched another vein of shadow swallow up Wolfsbane whole.
No!
Fury and fear warred within her as she watched the darkness gather unto itself as it passed over the space Wolfsbane had been.
Every hair on her body stood on end. The darkness thickened, singeing her everywhere it kissed her bared skin. Few people knew the smell of burnt flesh as intimately as she. At the very thought, Vynasha stood in the burning cottage, wood curling back in thick molten globs to shower over them. She clutched little Wyll’s burnt body in her arms. Her sister Tamyra screamed after them, “Go! Take care of Wyll!”
Instead of burning with the rest of her family as she deserved to, Vynasha obeyed.
No…not again. Please, I can’t bear it again.
The pressure behind her eyes grew, and Wyll’s body crumbled into ashes, caught up in a sudden wind that stripped the cottage and flames away.
She was in darkness again, but she was not alone. Vynasha’s hair stood on end as the terrible voice clanged about her mind.
“What would you give me for your life?”
The darkness drew upon itself and took a vaguely human shape around a pair of murderous red eyes. The terrible voice spoke from it and in her head, rasping like a blade over a whetstone.
“You are what called the bound ones here. You are the one the white wolf calls to at night,” the darkness hissed.
Vynasha flinched.
“I have watched over this wood since the trees were naught but sprouts. You are new to me. Tell me, what form has that foul Fayere’s curse created?”
Vynasha choked and gasped as the shadow released her throat, pulling from her mouth, allowing air back into her lungs. Nothing but rippling growls escaped her lips. What had once been human in Vynasha retreated to a safe pocket of her consciousness.
“Do not bare your teeth at me, little beast,” the voice chuckled. “I am the Changeling, and by the old laws of majik, I demand you speak.”
Vynasha’s bones ached as she tried to claw at the darkness.
“No need for that.” The shadows held Vynasha in place as the Changeling slowly circled her. And then the strange other presence nudged Vynasha’s inner beast aside, reaching deeper into her unwilling mind.
“You have trespassed my wood,” the Changeling insisted. “Yet I shall grant you your pitiful life if you give me a boon.” Misty tendrils caressed her arms and cheek with the gentle prick of a serrated metal feather.
“Stop,” Vynasha gasped as her violet blood pooled to the surface. “I swear, I’m no one!”
“Lies! You taste of blood majik. Tell me what you are and why you have come here! Did they send you to kill me?” The Changeling’s fiery eyes fl
ashed with an endless, deep hunger that had once ravaged kingdoms.
This much Vynasha saw and understood. Those embers burned with hatred and something Vynasha was not strong enough to see. “I didn’t know you even existed until now,” she spoke aloud.
“So you say. Though, surely they would not have been so foolish as to send you.” The Changeling’s voice dripped with pleasure. “You are nothing but a youngling, too weak to harness the power in your veins. Give it to me, and I will show you what true power can be.”
In the depths of the creature’s eyes, Vynasha could see what would happen should she let the Changeling take possession of her. Darkness donning her flesh like a new dress, wielding Vynasha’s majik with a brutal hand and feasting on chaos and pain.
“Are you not weary of failing their expectations, curse breaker?” the Changeling crooned. “Give in to me, and I shall cease our torment. Are we not weary of destroying the creatures who beg us for freedom?”
“Get out of our—my—head!” Vynasha snarled as her blood dripped down her claws, glowing with a brilliant flash of evanescent light as it mingled with the snow at her feet. The snow floated up, glittering with the light of a thousand amethyst stars.
“Contain your light, Phurie!” the Changeling shrieked as it drew back into itself. And as though a veil had lifted, Vynasha watched the creature’s face take shape. Narrow, feminine features set about furious red eyes.
“You should be dead! Your kind were not allowed to exist.”
“What do you mean, my kind?”
Phurie. The word slithered across Vynasha’s mind.
“You are poison, world breaker. Be gone from this realm,” the Changeling hissed. But there was fear beneath the creature’s anger. Its terror was not enough to stop the Changeling from thrusting its darkness upon Vynasha one last time. Shadows poured down Vynasha’s throat, drowning her screams. Memories not of this world filled her head, pushing until Vynasha could no longer sense her inner light.
And as her heart slowed, her mind sharpened until Vynasha could see the Changeling waiting, its face at the crux of youth and age. Whispers passed ruby red lips in a tongue she could not understand, until she did. Until Vynasha found the words forming past her own chapped lips.
“You have forgotten your name, Changeling, but I can see you beneath your curse,” Vynasha whispered.
The Changeling shrank back from her mind, shrieking in that tongue, old as the earth beyond the Veil.
A cold sweat broke over Vynasha’s skin as she spoke again. “You are so very far from your home, but you will remember yourself and what you were before.”
“No!” The Changeling howled in protest as the shadows peeled back, revealing the writhing form beneath.
Vynasha focused on the Changeling, just as she had practiced with Erythea, until she wrapped her light about the creature’s mind. “I name you Eliajaqlyn and free you from your curse.”
The Changeling wailed in despair, and violet light pierced through into the creature’s body. Eliajaqlyn’s skin was ochre, her black hair wild and her clothing tattered and threadbare. She was shorter than Vynasha and free from her shadows, though they lingered in the depths of her golden eyes. The Changeling crumpled with relief, and it should have ended there. It might have had Eliajaqlyn had time to warn her.
But some curses, especially very old mirror curses, have a life and mind of their own. The shadows needed a host and slithered across the gap, lashing about Vynasha’s hands like vines, snaking beneath her sleeves and up her arms. Shadow ribbons embedded themselves in her skin until she bled and cried out. Her light sputtered until Vynasha was nothing but a beast wearing a witch’s talisman. Not a curse breaker. Not Phurie.
The Changeling shrieked and broke free of Vynasha’s light, golden eyes wide in terror as she twisted and ran into the Silverblud Forest.
“Beasty?” Wolfsbane’s voice came from very far away.
Vynasha’s vision flickered between a midnight forest and darkness. As her majik retreated into the amulet about her neck, Vynasha shivered from pain and a very human fear.
What have I done?
Wolfsbane’s panic carried through his words, reaching into the darkness and dragging her conscience back to his blue eyes, dim in the night. “Did the drakkor possess you, beasty? Tell me, what is your brother’s name? Your nephew? Why have you come to the Wylder Mountains?” He shook her. “Look at me and tell me who you are!”
“Wolfsbane,” Vynasha rasped, “she was so very old and—so very sad.” For a moment she saw sparks as her friend created a fire. She reached for him, desperate to hang on to something tangible and real.
Calloused hands wrapped around hers, infusing her with his warmth. He was always warm, her human friend. He was ripping her sleeves with one of his knives and spitting curses.
“It has marked you. Soraya take that foul drakkor! Forgive me, I couldn’t break from its thrall. I should have warned her better, Nephthys, curse my arrogance,” he growled as he built the fire higher.
Vynasha reached blindly for his arm. “Wolfsbane, what’s happening to me? Why can’t I see?” She blinked as the last vestige of sight died. “Why can’t I see?” She rocked forward and fell into his chest.
“Shh, all will be well, beasty. Just listen to my voice, and please, you must not fall asleep. Do you hear, child?”
Vynasha laughed, and her tongue was suddenly clumsy. “You never say please.”
Wolfsbane’s gruff pleas slurred and then faded away as her sight had. She should have been terrified. Instead, she found it no longer mattered whether she could see or hear. Nor did she care that she might die in these woods without seeing his face one last time. She welcomed the embrace of oblivion.
IN THE DARKNESS, she did not dream. It was simply a different state than the waking world of melting forests and hunting beasts. Still, as comforting as the darkness was, she could not escape the other. The watchful evil with a power and hunger of its own. It whispered to her, in that old mirror-tongue of gates and guardians, of war and betrayals.
It showed her glimpses of a land more colorful and alive than she knew upon waking. She saw cities glittering in the golden sands and mountain holdfasts guarded by pearlescent dragons. Creatures with wings caught between light and darkness, Wolvs living freely in the boundless forests, and humans dying like cattle and always at war among themselves.
This darkness, which had been part of the Changeling’s mind for so long, latched eagerly to Vynasha’s light.
World breaker, it hissed with reverence. Phurie.
“Beasty!” A gruff voice called to her, and the darkness hissed in reply.
Vynasha woke to the sound of muffled screams and Wolfsbane’s hand pressed roughly over her mouth. His other arm he kept wrapped about her waist, holding her body firmly with her back to his chest. His beard tickled her ear as he whispered, “Mustn’t let them hear us, Nymwe. Would not do at all, letting a phurie die like this. Should have kept better watch and sniffed the demon out before it could poison her. Too late, always much too late…”
Vynasha whimpered. Tears streamed from the corners of her eyes then froze to her cheeks with the midnight frost.
Wolfsbane started at the sound. He did not release her, though his voice softened. “Ah, there she is, poor lass. Can you see now, beasty?”
Vynasha nodded, blinking at this strange awakening to dark snowcapped forests and the heat of the fire in sharp contrast to the freezing night.
Wolfsbane released a shuddering breath, his tense muscles easing at her back. “Forgive me for not spying the demon’s mark on you sooner. I fear I have made things worse. Now it is too late.” He slipped his hand from her mouth.
The wind nipped her chapped lips. She ran a dry tongue over them and tasted blood. “Where—” she began, pausing as her raw throat constricted, “where are we?”
Wolfsbane nodded his head to their small camp. “Couldn’t carry you back to the wolves’ den, now could I? No. Couldn’t fight back
drakkor and the darkness in you. Could not linger in that patch of the forest, either, not with every foul thing in these mountains sniffing us out for a taste of your sweet blood.”
“How long have I been asleep?” She heard her voice, but the sound was strange. She had been listening to the soft, sibilant voice in her head for too long.
Wolfsbane held his breath and released a warm puff against her tangled curls. “Three nights since the attack.”
Vynasha shifted, but this awakened pain in her arms and chest, as though she had been burned with cold fire. “I couldn’t see. I lost my light.”
“Aye.” The cold finality to his voice made her shiver, as he didn’t deny it.
She swallowed back tears. “How am I able to see now?”
Wolfsbane allowed her to lift an arm. The furs had been sliced back to reveal scarred olive skin no longer pulsing with violet light. The firelight played off swirling black tattoos that grew like living runes up her arms.
“What is this?” She hated the panic in her voice.
Wolfsbane pressed her arm back down and covered her with his fur cloak again. “Best not look too closely at that, now.”
Vynasha bit her lip against rising panic. “I shouldn’t have tried to cure her. I—I thought she was bound like the other beasts.”
Wolfsbane hummed low in the back of his throat. She was suddenly grateful he kept her back to his front. His heat and embrace were a comfort. What’s more, she couldn’t bear to see revulsion in his face.
You are all I have left, old man.
“Don’t think on it now, beasty.” Wolfsbane’s command was firm but kinder than she had believed him capable of before living alone with him for weeks on end. “Time to rest. Come, sleep by the fire.”
“Please,” Vynasha clutched his bear-like arms, perhaps too tightly. Wolfbane hesitated but did not protest as she added, “Please let me stay. I don’t want to sleep anymore.”
I can’t hear that voice and forget what’s real or who I am again.
“You never said where we are, exactly,” she was quick to add as Wolfsbane eased against the tree at his back.
Bound Beauty Page 5
