Hunted(83)
BEAST
Story. Lie. Words. Meaningless. Empty.
She smells of something more than fear and blood. She smells like sky.
We snort and flex our claws until they grind on the stone but she holds us. We could devour her in one leap but she huddles there in her torn clothing and she holds us like no creature ever could.
She is magic. And we will wait for her spell to falter.
TWENTY-EIGHT
“ONCE,” YEVA BEGAN, HER voice shaking, her whole body shaking, “there was a man. A king. With three sons.” She couldn’t push aside the fear that made her want to run for the mouth of the cave, to lunge for freedom. So she closed her eyes instead, and tried with all her might to fool her body into believing she was back in the Beast’s valley, in a cell below his castle, speaking to someone on the other side of a locked door—her invisible ally, her friend, the man called Ivan.
“The elder sons begged him to name an heir, each of them wanting the power and wealth they knew would make them content. But the youngest son was different.” Yeva’s voice steadied a little. “He didn’t want his father’s throne, had never wanted the life spelled out for him by his birth. What he wanted, he couldn’t name. All he knew was that he wanted, and that he’d never truly be home, never truly content, until he found all that he longed for.
“His father, the king, had a beautiful garden with a beautiful orchard that was his pride and joy, but every night an invisible thief had been stealing the golden apples from his most prized tree. He gathered his three sons and told them that whichever prince could catch the thief would be named heir. The elder sons were so eager to catch the thief that they fought and grappled with each other all night and missed the thief entirely. It was the youngest prince who, despite having little interest in his father’s throne, caught a glimpse of the bandit.
“He came to his father in the morning and told him he’d seen the Firebird, the most elusive of all magic things, stealing the king’s golden apples. The king sent his sons out into the world to find the creature, and though the young prince couldn’t care less about the throne, the moment he’d seen the Firebird he knew it was all he’d ever wanted.”
Yeva’s voice, dry with fear and tight with cold, caught in her throat. She heard the Beast draw breath, and for a terrified heartbeat she thought he might leap—but instead he let out a long, low growl.
“Speak.” His snarl was barely a voice at all, but there was a word in it, and it made Yeva open her eyes.
The Beast was crouched low, and stared at her with a red gaze that pinned her to the spot, like a serpent staring down a mouse it intends to devour.
Yeva shivered. “Th-the young prince set out to find the Firebird but before long a great gray wolf came out of the forest and demanded the prince’s horse. The prince begged him not to eat his horse, but the wolf could not restrain his hunger, and soon had devoured the horse whole. But when the prince explained he sought the Firebird, the wolf took pity on him and offered to carry him to the next kingdom, whose king had boasted of owning the Firebird as a curiosity.
“The prince explained to this king that he needed to bring the Firebird back to his father, and the king told him that he would give him the Firebird if Ivan would travel to the next kingdom and bring him the thing he most coveted, a horse with a golden mane. So the young prince went back to the wolf, who agreed to carry him to the next kingdom and the next king.
“The prince told his story again, and again the king took pity on him and said he’d give Ivan the horse with the golden mane if the prince would go into the next kingdom and bring back Yelena, the most beautiful maiden in the world, with whom the king had fallen madly in love. So the young prince and the wolf traveled on to the next kingdom, and there they found Yelena the Beautiful locked away in a high tower.”
Yeva had left the original story, the one her father had read to her from the book she’d turned to ash, behind her. She knew she couldn’t possibly guess the truth of Eoven’s life, or how he had come to be cursed, or even what had driven him to seek the Firebird. But she’d seen the longing in her own heart reflected in his, in the loneliness of his castle and in the hope on every page of the storybooks he’d kept safe in the tower room all these long centuries.
The truth of his life was that it was Yeva’s life, too. And there was a reason she’d always loved and hated the story of Ivan and the Wolf, and the Firebird that sent them out into the world. She’d just never known it until she met the Firebird herself.
The prince’s curse wasn’t arrogance or cruelty, as it was so often in fairy tales. His curse was wanting, always wanting. And so was Yeva’s.
“The young prince went to the king of that land and asked him to release Yelena, but this king was older than the others, and he’d seen more of the world, and he warned Ivan to stay away. He said that no matter how much the young prince wanted Yelena, the satisfaction of desires sated was short and pale compared to the dream of wanting.
“The prince ignored his warning and went back to the gray wolf, who turned himself into a rope stair so that the prince could climb the high tower and take Yelena for himself. They returned to the king who’d asked for her, but when they reached his castle the young prince looked at Yelena and decided that he wanted her for himself, because love would make him happy, and he begged the wolf for his help. The wolf took Yelena’s form and the young prince brought him to the king, who was overjoyed to have his heart’s desire at least. He gladly gave the prince the horse with the golden mane. Once the young prince was beyond the kingdom’s borders, the wolf escaped the castle and ran back to meet him and carry him to the king who’d asked Ivan for the horse.