Hunted(81)

“Who is Eoven?” the Firebird asked.

“I . . .” Yeva stared, bewitched, into the Firebird’s knowing eyes. “I don’t remember.”

“I am what you seek,” the Firebird said. “I am the conclusion of your journey. All you’ve ever wanted. Magic. The music of the forest. Forever. You are home, Beauty.”

Yeva’s eyes had begun to close, the Firebird’s sweet voice warming parts of her she’d long ago forgotten. But her name, the word beauty, it rang in her thoughts and her eyes flew open. For a moment she saw not the Firebird, nor its crystal cave or the sky ribbons dancing at the edges of her vision, but a pair of gold eyes, and the rumble of a warm voice, and the feel of a blue velvet divan beneath her cheek.

She saw her Beast, and felt the lonely weight of his gaze, and heard the soft sound of his paws by her door, and smelled spices and wind and, just a little, the smell of wet dog—she remembered.

“You are not real,” Yeva said, gasping. “It’s as Lamya said. Nothing is in itself only one thing. You can’t be all I’ve ever wanted because I’ve never wanted only one thing.”

The Firebird’s eyes narrowed, then softened. They held such acceptance, such knowledge of her. “I am everything,” it said.

Yeva forced her hands to tighten, intending to drive her own fingernails into her palms to jolt herself from the Firebird’s spell. Instead she found one of her hands was full, and when she looked down she remembered she was still holding her father’s bow.

“You’re right,” Yeva whispered. “You are everything I want. Because you are what will save my Beast. You are the third test.”

She raised the bow and fitted the arrow to the string and drew in one motion, so practiced and swift from her months of training with the Beast that it happened all in the quiet between one heartbeat and the next. The Firebird’s chest swelled, its wings still outstretched as if daring her to shoot, as if certain she could not.

Yeva’s fingers trembled.

I will call you Beauty, said the Beast. For that is what you are.

She loosened her fingers and let the arrow fly.





BEAST


  fire

     snow

beauty





TWENTY-SEVEN


THE FIREBIRD’S LIGHT WENT out the instant the arrow would have struck it, and Yeva found herself in darkness so complete and solid that she cried out, dropping to the ground so she’d have something to touch, something to tell her she was alive and real. She groped around ahead of her, expecting to touch blood and feathers and the still-warm carcass of the creature, but all she found was a single feather it had left behind, like the one the Beast had left for her to find.

It glimmered at the touch of her fingers, just enough for her to make out the outlines of the cave. The ice curtain had sealed her in, and this time when she approached it, it did not part. It was as solid and as cold as stone. Her arrow had struck the far wall and sunk halfway up its haft into the rock. She couldn’t pull it free, and without the sharp edge of the arrowhead, she had nothing with which to chip at the ice sealing the cave’s entrance.

Fear surged through her like a winter wind, and like a winter wind, it left her teeth chattering. She was cold, colder than she’d ever been in her life, as though she’d been exposed for weeks but was only noticing it now. Her stomach ached with hunger, and she couldn’t remember the last time she’d eaten. She felt dizzy, weak, lost in the dark.

I’m alone, she thought. Her father had taught her that she should never try to comfort herself by lying about her situation. No heat, no food, and no way out. She wedged herself in between ice and stone, trying to trap what little body heat she had left, instincts still fighting for survival despite what her senses told her: that she would die here in this cave of ice and darkness. Yeva couldn’t help but cry, and it was only some time later, when they began to freeze against her cheeks, that her tears ceased.

If only the Beast were here, Yeva thought, her numb heart warming just enough to ache. I would tell him I don’t care that he’s the Beast. I would tell him the Firebird doesn’t matter, that he doesn’t need to be cured. I would tell him my choice, that I would stay with him forever, and teach him how to find Eoven again, and keep him safe for as long as I live.

She’d been so sure she was destined to save him that she’d left him to fade away.

The only warmth she could feel came from the feather clutched in her hands, and she lifted it up so she could see its pale light. A lick of flame danced along its edge and then whispered out, too tiny to generate any lasting heat, but Yeva could not stop staring at the afterimages before her eyes. The cave was empty, but with a jolt, Yeva remembered the bow in her hands and the book nestled against her breast.

She had fire. She had wood. And she had kindling.

Her hands began to work before her thoughts had caught up, before she could think twice, before she could stop herself. Who was she without stories, without the promise of the wood she hunted in and the gift her father had given her, to see the quiet, hidden tales the forest held? What was she without the restless wanting that drove her?

She ripped the pages from the book of fairy tales without hesitation, then tore them into smaller pieces. She took her father’s bow and wedged one end into a fissure in the stone wall, and then heaved with all her might, crying again even before the great splintering crack rent the silence of the cave.