Hunted(71)

She could not banish the thought that the Beast needed her.

By the time the rest of the household had woken, Yeva had packed a few meager possessions into a bag. Her father’s bow, which had been unstrung since the day she’d returned, stood next to it, string dangling from one notched end as if in invitation. She’d brought her fletching knife, some day-old bread and apples and dried meat, flint and tinder, a new cloak to replace the torn and muddy one Lena had insisted on burning. She brought only what she thought she’d need on the journey back to the Beast’s castle.

Except for one thing, which served no practical purpose: she’d brought a book, one of the few volumes her sisters had managed to track down and buy back from the townsfolk who’d purchased Tvertko’s possessions before the family departed a year ago. It was the book of fairy tales that her father had read to her when she was very small, so small that it was his voice telling her stories that colored her very earliest memory. She remembered perching on the sill of her bedroom window with the pane opened a crack so she could let the winter in, and she remembered letting it sting her nose and wash over her until she was shivering and blue.

“Ah, my little Beauty!” her father had cried when he lowered the book and saw her. “You’ll be frozen to the core! Come away. What are you doing?”

“I’m listening for the Firebird,” little Beauty had replied, voice shaking with cold. “Can’t you hear it, Daddy?”

Her father set the book aside and strode to the window beside her. He wrapped her up in his warm arms, but rather than close the window and bring her back to bed, he stood listening too. And after a moment, she felt his whiskers scrape at her cheek as he nodded. “Aye,” he said gravely. “I hear it.”

“How sad it sounds,” little Beauty said.

“Why is it sad?” her father asked.

“Because it is lonely.”

Her father stayed quiet for a while, then sighed. “Perhaps we will give it some company. When spring comes, how would you like to come with me to my cabin? I used to live there, before I met your mother and we were given you girls. It lies deep in the forest, and I can teach you all about the things that dwell there.”

“Does the Firebird live there?” Beauty had asked, brimming with sudden excitement.

“The Firebird, aye, and many other wonders. Would you like that, my little Beauty?”

Beauty had squealed and turned from the window and thrown her arms around her father’s neck, making him laugh and fall back as though she’d been a wild beast whose weight had driven him to the floor. She was five years old.

Now, Yeva shivered despite the fire surging back to life before her. How sad it sounds, she thought, remembering the Beast’s low, somber voice. How lonely.

Pelei, while overjoyed to see Yeva again, had nonetheless developed a quick and surprising preference for Radak. Lena said it was because of everyone, Radak had been the least generous with his affections for the dog, which seemed to make Pelei work all the harder to win him over. Though Radak protested he cared nothing for the creature, Lena privately confessed that most nights it was Radak who covertly invited the big shaggy scent hound up on their bed, to fold himself up in the hollow behind Radak’s knees.

Doe-Eyes, however, still rarely left Yeva’s side. It was Doe-Eyes who woke with her when Yeva bolted upright out of her dreams, and it was Doe-Eyes who padded downstairs with her when she woke early or wandered the back garden aimlessly.

And it was Doe-Eyes who lay across the front door now, trying to look easy and relaxed, but watching Yeva’s every movement with an intensity that betrayed her. Even as servants stirred and began the morning’s tasks, Doe-Eyes didn’t move. Yeva wondered how she could possibly know this morning was different from any others, how she could possibly read Yeva’s heart, but her time with the Beast had taught her how a creature could shout its intentions to the sky without ever making a sound. She knew Doe-Eyes could see Yeva meant to leave.

“If you wish to come,” Yeva whispered, crouching down by Doe-Eyes and laying her cheek against the top of the dog’s warm head, “then I will be glad for the company. But here you’ll be warm and fed, and there I can’t guarantee what we’ll find. He might be—we might be on our own.”

Doe-Eyes heaved a great sigh, blowing hot, wet air across Yeva’s neck, and didn’t shift from her spot guarding Yeva’s belongings by the door.

“What are you doing up?” Lena stood at the bottom of the staircase, rubbing at her eyes. She was wearing a dressing gown over her nightclothes, and her hair was flattened on one side from her pillow.

Yeva searched for the words to tell her sister that she was leaving, that she was afraid for the Beast, but could find none. But after a few breaths Lena’s sleepy eyes widened, traveling from Yeva, to Doe-Eyes skittering urgently from side to side, to the pack at Yeva’s feet.

The sleep left Lena’s face and she stumbled down the last few steps toward her sister. “Yeva! Where are you going?”

Yeva shook her head mutely, and gathered the cloak in her arms more tightly against her chest.

“No.” Horror colored Lena’s voice. “No, you can’t. He’s a monster.”

Yeva closed her eyes. “I know,” she murmured. When she opened her eyes again Asenka had emerged, drawn by the sharpness of Lena’s tone, and stood on the stairs watching them. “He is a monster. But I believe he’s a monster because of something that was done to him. I believe I can save him.”