Chapter 33
“[The Phynnodderee] is condemned to remain in the Isle of Man till doomsday, in a wild form, covered with long shaggy hair, whence his name.”
As I race from Regina Centrum to the Maudite estate on a borrowed mare, my mind fills with unwelcome images of Mother and Rylan lying dead on the ground.
I want both to ride faster and to slow my pace so I can scan the underbrush for bodies.
Now that I have identified the quarry, the geas to hunt and stop the beast fills me with urgency.
The challenge is doing so before the beast kills the rest of my family.
Is the beast always restricted to nighttime?
So far, the bodies have been found in early morning, and my two encounters with the beastly side of Isabeau when she did not have her sleeping tonic and the second encounter with the beast were both at night.
The first was during early morning. The only exception to the pattern was Emma’s midday attack, but I cannot understand how that was the same beast—or whether it was a hoax.
At best, either way, I have a few remaining hours to reach the dowager duchess.
I urge my borrowed horse to speed, but there’s a limit to the mare’s ability to race on unfamiliar terrain.
The bulky saddle adds weight that likely adds a few more seconds to her time, but I can’t try a saddle-free ride on an unfamiliar horse.
I am grateful that I am coming from Regina Centrum, as opposed to the manor.
There, I’d have to cross through Brimmond Wood, but I am still faced with the difficulty of a horse more accustomed to tracks and city roads.
As the mare grows tired, I am less than an hour’s ride from Maudite Castle.
The road is pitted but fine. I traversed it only yesterday, so I am not prepared when the horse stumbles.
In the next moment, I find myself flung through the air.
Although I expect to land on the ground, I instead tumble through a net of branches and leaves into a muddy pit.
My quarry has taken the time to construct a trap.
I am on my back, staring up at the horse, who gazes down at me for another moment before backing up with an alarmed sound and running.
I cannot see where she flees, but the result is the same: I am trapped, delayed, and unable to get to the castle right now.
I stare at the late-afternoon sky and try to plan. Under me is a few fingers’ depth of muddy water. The sticks, leaves, and moss that hid the trap are all around and over me. Evening will come soon, and with it, the Beast of Brimmond will shed her human disguise.
And kill my family, my terror whispers.
The pit trap is primitive, but all the same, I am not sure how to escape. I am in a hole deep enough that even if I jump upward, I have no chance of grasping the ground above to pull myself out.
“I do not have time for this.” I scan the sides of the hole, hoping to find an option to scale it.
Several roots jut out of the earthen walls, but as I tug on them to heave myself upward, they all snap and rip. I try jabbing my fingers into the walls, but I cannot get purchase in the mud-slicked sides that way either.
“I am the Hunter, not prey,” I repeat periodically as I whittle broken branches into small stakes.
Then I use the hilt of my sword like a crude cudgel to hammer the stakes into the wall.
Cautiously, I step on one and then the other. It works.
I hop back down with a splash in the muddy sludge that fills the bottom of the pit and continue to carve stakes for climbing. By the time I have made progress, my mind is a maze of jumbled thoughts.
Do the monsters look alike?
What if Isabeau escapes?
I have to kill the duchess before Isabeau gets here.
Does it matter? Will I have to kill Isabeau too?
I let my mind run down random paths to keep myself from the most important questions—Is my mother alive? Is my sister? Can I save them?
I have no idea whether the two monsters look alike.
I realize now that the one who attacked me was the dowager duchess.
I didn’t see her, not well. I saw glimpses that night in the city.
That isn’t enough. I listen to a pack that sounds like it has both coin shìth and wulver as I use my stake ladder to crawl out of the pit.
Thirsty. Exhausted. Aching. If not for my resolve—and the lifetime of training—I might have to rest. My family is in the company of a killer, though.
There is no time to rest or recover my strength.
I whistle, hoping that at least the mare is nearby. Nothing. No noise or movement.
So I run the last distance toward the castle. The sky dims, and I am afraid that by the time I am at the castle, I will be facing a monster, not a woman.
That’s better, my guilt insists.
I have never had to kill a faery that truly looks human, not by the time my blade is raised. I am not sure I could convince my mind to lift a sword to kill the frail dowager duchess. I will. I must.
I am glad she’ll be a beast.
As I get closer, I can smell smoke, not hearth fire smoke but something larger, something that was not meant to burn.
There’s a smoldering weight to the air that thickens in my chest as I reach the castle grounds.
The gate itself is closed, so I sheathe my sword so I can scale it.
Rusty metal bars carve into my skin, but I pull myself up and over. I land on the inside of the grounds.
I push my weary body to cooperate as I move toward the smoke.
Every muscle screams in pain already, and I know that I am at a disadvantage in the fight to come.
I already was. I am to fight a creature that beheads men with a single cut.
Time is run out, and I have no options left—but I am not ready.
This is why we train, Father’s voice reminds me. Even after his death, his lessons are the words that drive me to push just a little harder.
By the time I reach the front steps of Maudite Castle, I see that the garrison is barricaded and smoldering.
In front of it, hands bleeding, is the steward for Maudite Castle.
Alain is trying to pry a piece of metal free.
It’s been twisted in such a way that I don’t realize at first glance that it’s the door’s handle.
“Who’s inside?” I stare up at the tall tower.
“Soldiers and your sister.”
“Let me.” I wince at what I must do, but flesh wounds will heal. A lost sister would be a different kind of pain.
Alain steps aside, swaying as he moves, and I notice that he has a deep cut on the top of his head. He leans against the building.
I grab the hot metal, feeling the edges sear my palm, and rip the lock off with a horrible shriek of metal.
“Thank you. Her Grace is more upset than His Grace had expected. He warned us . . .” Alain gives me a look. “She can be volatile when her emotions are stirred.”
“You know what she is?”
“A creature.”
“A killer,” I correct.
And although I appreciate Alain’s validation of the queen’s admissions, I don’t have time to waste words. I step into the smoke-filled staircase to the tower and yell, “Ry! Rylan! Where are you?”
I can hear coughing and thumping. No words. I step around a fire still burning on the stone steps. It looks almost like a person, but I realize that it’s a bundle of cloth and rubbish.
Arm over my face, I ascend the staircase. “Ry? Mother?”
“Hunter,” Nolan barks out from behind a closed door.
“Stand back. I’ll knock it inward.” I pause, hoping he’s listened, and then lift a foot to kick in the door. The only way that’s possible is Hunter strength.
Inside the door I meet Nolan’s eyes and say, “Rylan?”
He nods toward the wall where, through the acrid haze, I see my sister trying to pry open a window with Anders’ help. Nolan and others were pounding on the door. Others are bashing on a window. Rylan has a dagger, hilt aimed at the locked shutters, hammering on it.
She’s knocked several slats off the shutters, but it’s not enough.
I glance at the other window and see much the same. That one has fewer shutters removed.
Several small fires are smoldering in the room, but no visible flames remain on any of them.
“She threw that in and locked the door,” a soldier says.
I don’t ask who “she” is. Instead, I ask, “Human shaped or fur and claws?”
“What? The duchess. The duchess trapped us,” Nolan says like I’m daft. He starts coughing, as if the air in his chest won’t allow quite so many words.
“I know. She’s the monster,” I tell him. “She shifts forms.”
His eyes widen, and his coughing worsens.
“Get him out.” I point.
Some of the soldiers are on the floor, under the worst of the smoke. Lowell helps Nolan toward the staircase, but it’s full of smoke still from the burning pile at the base.
As I watch, several soldiers stand and switch with the pair hammering ineffectually at the other locked window.
“Everyone out,” I order, motioning to the stairs. “Get everyone out.”
Rylan is still at the other window, hammering on the heavy shutters. Anders is gently tugging her arm, but Rylan shrugs her off.
I step up to my sister and touch her shoulder. “Ry.”
“Mother,” Rylan says. “She took—”
“Move back, Rylan.” I grab my sister’s arm this time, holding her still.
Once Anders pulls Rylan away from the window, I punch my sword hilt through the shutters.
The heavy metal pommel shatters the window, and glass rains down outside, but the sharp edges still in the glass frame slice the back of my hand.
The fresh air from the open stairwell door and the broken window start to clear some of the smoke out, working together to create a cross breeze that will start to air the garrison out.
Rylan sounds pained as she says, “She took Mother.”
“Was Mother alive? Walking? What do you know?”
“Mother cried out in pain, and none of us could get out of the garrison.” Rylan looks stricken and sooty.
“That foul woman asked me to carry linens in because she was weak. It was all a ploy. She followed me, tossed those burning rag heaps in, and bolted the door. A little while later I could hear Mother yelling.”