Hunted(78)

Again there was no response, and Yeva’s heart tightened. Without the help of one of the strange creatures that lived in this place, she’d have no idea where to start, no clue as to where to find the Firebird in the wood that stretched on forever to the north, to the edge of the world.

“It’s for the Beast,” Yeva burst out, voice ringing loud in the cold air. “It’s for Eoven.”

A gust of air nearly knocked her from her feet, the sound of massive wings shattering the quiet and blinding her with snow flung up by the wind. When Yeva had wiped the melting snow from her eyes there was nothing there—but then Lamya emerged from behind a birchling far too slender to have concealed her. She wore nothing but her long, black hair, which fell over her shoulders. “For Eoven?” she asked, her voice velvet.

“He told me he asked you to help him once before.”

“He wanted to die,” Lamya said dreamily, moving through the snow without stirring a flake, her bare feet perfect and white and showing not a hint of cold. “I have helped many that way.”

“He said you couldn’t kill him.”

Lamya’s black eyes swung round to meet Yeva’s, and Yeva had to fight the need to shiver with all her might. “The Beast cannot be killed.”

“I know,” Yeva said, trying not to show her impatience. “I need to—”

“But Eoven can die,” Lamya went on as though Yeva had not spoken.

Yeva froze, chilled as though she were as naked as Lamya. “What do you mean?”

“The world of men,” Lamya murmured, “is so strange.” She rubbed her body against a rough-barked tree with a little sigh of pleasure. A normal woman would have been left scratched and bleeding, but Lamya’s skin only shone all the brighter. When she continued moving, inscribing a wide, lazy circle around the clearing, Yeva saw a glimmer of scales left behind on the tree’s bark.

Lamya continued. “For you all things have one nature. Winter is cold. Death is a tragedy. But even in the world of men, this is not true. Your warmest memories are of winter, and the times spent near hearth and home. For the sick and the old death can be a gift. And yet you insist on seeing only the faces of things. I am a woman. I am a dragon. I am these things all the time, and I am never one but not the other.”

Yeva’s impatience grew. She couldn’t afford to alienate Lamya, but the urgency in her heart made it almost impossible to stand and listen. “Please. Tell me what this has to do with Eoven. I’ve had dreams that he’s lost himself, that the animal within him has taken over, and I need to—I need to know that he’s all right.”

“The Beast was a man and a wolf,” Lamya said. “As I am a woman and a dragon. But the day I saw you with him in the wood, he was no longer those things. He was a man only. The face of him still spoke of the wolf, but his nature—the truth of him—was Eoven and not the Beast. You did that to him.”

Yeva blinked. “How can that be? He was the Beast when I first came upon him in the woods. He was cursed long before I was even born.”

“The Firebird made him a being of two natures,” Lamya went on. “You changed him into two beings grappling for a single heart.”

A little trickle of horror shivered down the back of Yeva’s neck. “You’re saying I . . . I caused the wolf to take over?”

“You let the man take over,” Lamya corrected her, “and give his heart to you.” She lifted a languorous hand and combed her fingers through the long length of her hair so that it fell slowly, carving out the shape of a dragon’s wing in the air. “Now, without it, Eoven has no more strength to exist alongside the wolf.”

Yeva’s eyes burned. She slipped her hand into the pocket at her waist so she could curl her fingers around the feather there. “It was the Firebird that cursed him. And it’s the Firebird that can free him. I must find it.”

Lamya paused, surprise halting her sinuous movements for the first time since she appeared. “The Firebird?” she echoed. “No one has seen her for many years.”

“You must have some idea where to find her,” Yeva pleaded, desperation rising. “If I’m the one who did this to the Beast then it’s all the more important that I fix it.”

Lamya’s brows drew together, and her eyes caught Yeva’s. All at once their blackness called to Yeva, becoming not an empty abyss but the warmth of a soft, velvet bed. Yeva wanted nothing more than to stagger to Lamya’s side and drown in those eyes. “I can help you,” Lamya whispered, and her lips were as soft as her eyes. “I can free you from the pain in your heart. Winter does not have to be cold. I can show you heat. . . .”

Yeva found herself aching, found the sharp edges of her thoughts fraying. She was so tired, after all—tired of fairy tales and magic and empty castles, tired of wanting so intensely that she didn’t know what she wanted.

Perhaps Lamya could be what she wanted. It would be so easy. . . .

“The Firebird, Lamya.” Yeva held up the feather in her hand, her face flushed despite the cold. “Please.”

Lamya’s lashes fell, and as soon as her gaze left Yeva’s, the spell vanished like smoke. “North,” she said softly. “I have never seen the Firebird and I have wandered here since the first time the sun ever rose.” Her soft voice held a deep sorrow, a longing that touched Yeva so deeply her eyes stung with tears. Yeva was not the only one for whom the Firebird was a symbol of wanting. “You will not find her here. Go north into the next valley, and the one beyond. What you seek can only be north.”