Hunted(47)

That brought the Beast up short, and he gazed at her with those steady eyes, tail swinging side to side like a slow, gentle pendulum. He stared at her so long that Yeva’s own eyes began to water with the effort of not looking away. When he spoke, his voice was low and careful. “I still have your word that you will not attempt escape?”

Yeva swallowed at that reminder, bitterness on her tongue. “You still have my word. Since you will kill my family if I do.”

Silence again, broken by the hiss and intermittent pops of the fire in the hearth. “Yes,” he said finally.

Yeva hesitated. “Yes, you will kill my family if I escape? Or yes, I may go alone?”

“Both.” The Beast’s brows lowered. “I accept your word. If you were given to lying, you would have promised not to kill me at the start. Since you did not, I believe you when you say you will not flee.”

His voice was so low, so bitter, so full of loathing, that Yeva almost took a step back. The fire no longer seemed to hold any warmth for her, and she shivered. “You killed my father,” she whispered. “I can never let his death go unanswered.”

The Beast’s eyes were flat and dull. “And that is why you stay. Not because of threats or fear. Because you believe one day we will drop our guard, and you can avenge him.”

Yeva’s jaw clenched. She had little hope of convincing him otherwise, not when he saw through her so easily. So let them be enemies. She’d find a way to destroy him regardless. “Yes.”

The Beast’s tail stilled. The flat eyes softened, his face suddenly so human that Yeva knew he had changed, that it was no trick of the light or her own eyes. He seemed torn between two warring natures, and whichever ruled him at any given time, that aspect took over.

Just now, his face, his expression, was so full of anguish that Yeva’s fury vanished and her heart ached so much that she bit her lip.

“We did kill him,” the Beast said after an eternity, and his face closed over again as he looked away toward the door. When he looked back, he was the Beast once more. “And maybe one day we will drop our guard. Then you will get what you most desire.”

He turned and was gone.

Yeva fought the instinct to wipe the frigid wash water from her face. She wanted to hold in the chill, wanted to remind herself she could not, would not be comfortable here. She was a prisoner in this decaying castle, tied to the thing that had destroyed the person she loved most in all this existence.

But something, an ache that Yeva would not name, stirred deep in her heart. With those words the Beast had renewed her dedication to vengeance, shored up her determination to remain here. Even if he said she could go free tomorrow, she would stay, and wait, and find a way. . . .

With those words he had ensured she would not try to leave him. It was a human thing to tell a person what they want to hear. A human thing to manipulate and hide the truth to serve one’s own ends. A human thing to lie.

And in the moment he admitted to killing her father, he had seemed so very human.

Though the sky was clear and sunny, the air was bitingly cold, and Yeva set a brisk pace to keep her blood pumping. Doe-Eyes trotted at her heels, her leg so improved she could accompany Yeva all day if necessary. Her father’s bow at hand, her pack filled with her own gear, Yeva felt more at home, more truly free, than she could remember ever feeling. Even without the Beast’s threats against her family, she would return to his castle by choice. Vengeance, not fear, would bring her back. And if all went well, she would return armed with knowledge of the Beast’s weaknesses.

She could hear the music always now, a constant thread that lingered in the very back of her mind, unless she summoned it to her attention. It was not unlike the way she’d always heard the forest before, its tiny noises and breezes weaving together automatically to paint a picture beyond what she could see. It unnerved her, how easily the music became a part of that picture.

She shoved those thoughts aside and concentrated, turning her head this way and that to locate the different threads of magic, like scent trails. She twisted toward the nearest, giving Doe-Eyes a sharp whistle to stay close, and set out.

Yeva had learned from her excursions with the Beast that the creatures in this wood were rarely evil—and neither were they good. They simply were, the way animals were. Spirits that led travelers astray could also help them find the road again. Birds that warned of dangers ahead could also cry out and betray a person’s presence to waiting beasts.

This was a world governed by balance. Evil deeds begot evil consequences. Blessings used for ill purposes could quickly become curses. Though Yeva would tread carefully, and knew any information she sought would require some kind of payment, she felt certain that even in this realm she could only be rewarded for seeking to destroy the Beast.

She was several hours out from the castle, over the ridge and into the valley beyond it, when a movement caught her eye and made her stop. She put a hand on Doe-Eyes’s head, signaling silently for her to be still.

Just ahead, mostly hidden by the trees, was a face. An old man was watching her, as still as the snowy world around him. His skin was lined and grooved like bark, his hair long and tinged green like moss, his eyes the pale blue of an icy pool. She had never seen him before.

She took a breath and moved forward a step, but the instant her weight shifted the face vanished behind the tree again.

“Wait!” she called, breaking into a run, eyes scanning for a shape darting through the woods. But when she reached the tree behind which the man had been standing, she found a fox there, sitting calmly in the snow and gazing up at her.