Chapter Two - Rhea
“Rhea! To what gods do I owe thanks for you shining that lovely smile upon my halls this evening?” the one-eyed innkeeper shouted over the bar and over the din of fiddles and revelry that filled the smokey room. He smacked both his gnarled hands on the splintered wood of the bar in order to lean closer, close enough that his repugnant breath wafted towards me. I fought the urge to lean back on the bar stool and instead just kept holding the pretty smile up on my cheeks.
“The same gods as always, Henrick. The gods of luck and the gods of violence. As it turns out, they’ve both favored me this past night.”
Henrick turned green and leaned back. I blew a breath of relief into the blessed space that opened up between us. “So, you did away with the beast, did ya?”
“She’s been properly dispatched to the next realm,” I chirped, folding my hands neatly on the bar. “And for that, I’ll be taking that thanks you owe to the gods in the form of a pitcher of beer, if it please you.”
“Please me, why I’d be pleased to offer you my left arm in payment if ya asked me for it!” The innkeeper barked out a laugh and turned, shaking his head. “A pitcher as payment for doing away with that cursed creature.”
“Don’t you worry about my payment. I’ve been well taken care of by the proprietor. All you need worry about tonight is seeing that these hands are never empty.”
Henrick laughed as he filled said hands with a frosted mug of frothing beer. Beside me, a handsome stranger turned from his conversation to let his eyes rove over the red dress I wore. I didn’t mind. It was for this very reason I’d chosen the dress. But still, I crossed my legs and leveled a stern gaze at him.
“Seems the rest of the folk here will do well to keep your hands filled, should that be your desire,” Henrick commented with a guffaw. The stranger smirked.
“Is that so?” I mused, letting my own eyes take in the tanned, muscled lines of the stranger's face. “You can keep a lass’s hands full, can you?”
“I’ve been told I can keep a good many things full, I have,” the stranger said with the gruff accent that was common to the hard-working folk of this province. It was so near to the fae kingdom’s border that not many traders ventured to travel so close. What these people had, they had worked to create. It made them hard, body, voice, and mind.
But hard had never been something I’d shied from.
I drank deeply from the mug, letting the cold beer settle into the dark, cold center of me. It did little to fill the hole that had been growing there for so long, but maybe another two or three would begin to reach it.
The stranger watched as I drank deeply, a familiar hungry smile growing on his face.
“What should I call you?” he asked, his body and attention now fully on me. I smiled for him and saw the way his eyes lingered on the plump red curves of my mouth. I could see the thoughts playing out clear as day on his face. Just another way to fill the hole, to keep the dark grasp of loneliness at bay for another night.
“Darling, sweetheart, lover. Any of those would do.” I leaned forward onto an elbow on the bar, letting the front of my dress hang open just slightly.
“Lover it is.” His eyebrow raised. “You know, I’ve never met a woman quite so… open. Aren’t you the least bit afraid one of these dastardly men in here might steal your virtue?”
I laughed, drawing his eyebrow up even higher as he smiled at me. “Oh, honey. When you’ve spent your life butchering fae beasts, you find everyday men lose a bit of their menace.”
He blinked, looking from me to the innkeeper, who was busy serving more patrons at the far end of the bar. I could practically see the gears in his mind turning as he thought over the conversation he’d overheard a few minutes prior. I drank deeply and smirked as I let him work it out.
“You’re the Shrike?” he whispered, almost reverently.
“A rather adorable nickname, don’t you think? I’ve always liked it. Shrike, one of the smallest birds of prey. And one of the most masochistic.” I drew my finger around the rim of my glass, noticing how his eyes followed where it twirled. “Aren’t you afraid?”
His hazel eyes came up to meet mine, and for a moment, I thought I might have scared him away. But then he offered me an off-centered grin and a hand.
“Would you dance with me, little bird?”
I looked at the hand he offered, but then my attention was drawn to a dark corner of the tavern. Behind the raucous laughter and dancing, the spilled beer and the lifted skirts, a man sat at a table. His face beneath his dark hood was shrouded in shadow, but I felt his attention on me. The weight of it was so heavy, it seemed to slow the very pace of my beating heart. On the table, he drummed long, ringed fingers in a steady rhythm against the wood grain.
“Don’t tell me you’ve gone shy after all that.”
I blinked, breaking the spell the dark stranger had cast over me. Somehow, in its wake, the hole of loneliness in the center of me had opened up. I swallowed, trying to force the smile back up to my lips as the man beside me began to frown.
“Try to keep up, handsome.” I took his hand and pulled him to the small open space in front of the elevated stage where the fiddlers were kicking up the beat.
His smile returned as I spun in a circle, holding his hand loosely above my head. My skirts whirled around me, and my spirits lifted with it. Nothing did more to ease the darkness in my soul than a good fiddle, a handsome dance partner, and a bit of liquor in my veins.
But as I spun and as the stranger’s hands made their way to my waist and the music came to a crescendo, the hole inside me only yawned wider. I clenched my eyes tightly shut against the memories that rose in me unbidden. The strong hands of my father holding me, the smile on my mother’s face, the bite of the whip at the citadel, the terrible pain in another monster’s eyes.
I gasped as the music sputtered to an anticlimactic end. The stranger in front of me seemed hardly to notice the panic, the pain on my face. He drew a hand to the small of my back and pressed my body against his. His calloused hand cupped the side of my face as he leaned forward, making to close the distance between us.
I pushed myself away from him, perhaps a bit too harshly. He stumbled, nearly losing his balance. Others in the room stopped to observe us, and the dark attention of the man in the corner was among them.
I cleared my throat as the man looked at me in astonishment, shocked by my sudden change in demeanor, no doubt. But my interest in him was gone. Nothing would save me from the pit tonight. Better to leave this place now than drag someone else down into the hole with me.
“Thank you for the dance,” I muttered with a quick curtsy and turned to leave, my mind on the room I’d taken up in above the tavern.
As I turned, I felt tight fingers close around my upper bicep. Before I could react, I was whirled back around roughly, like an ugly parody of the dance we’d been caught up in only moments before. But now the stranger was snarling, and his hand closed tighter on my arm as I leaned in.
“I know you’re not about to head to bed alone after running your mouth like you’ve done,” he said, his face close to mine. His eyes burned with more than lust.
All at once, my vision narrowed, my heartbeat slowed, and every muscle in my body filled with inertia. The dance had become dangerous, and though it might not be the kind of threat I’d faced in the dark courtyard beneath the full moon, it was still very real. The room had quieted. Eyes were watching. If I didn’t move with the correct steps, the dance would end in death.
And I’d had just about enough of death, for tonight, at least.
I smiled, letting my body melt just a bit beneath his hard touch and harder gaze. He blinked at me, some of the heat leaving his body. I leaned into him ever so slightly, still weighing the course to take this unfortunate turn of events.
When his eyes dropped to my smile, I knew what the next step must be. I stood on the tips of my toes until my lips brushed his ear.
“Meet me upstairs in ten,” I purred. “And I’ll show you just how I run my mouth.”
I pulled back with a wink and thanked the gods when his hand slipped from my arm. To drive it home, I let my hand linger against his chest for just a moment too long. He smiled at me, and I turned again. This time, he let me go.
“Ten minutes, lover,” he called out as I swayed towards the bar. I waved a hand behind me, feeling his eyes boring into the back of me. Inside, the hole was threatening to swallow me, but instead of aching sorrow, I felt hot frustration. The pain was insistent and impatient. It wanted me alone. It wanted me to drop the false smiles and the fake bravado. It wanted me to show my true face so the world could draw back in horror.
But I would not allow it. I would let it have me, but not here. Not yet.
As I made my way towards the stairs, I caught sight of the dark corner. It was empty now. I supposed the cloaked figure had found the drama on the dance floor boring enough to end his night.
Henrick called goodnight to me from behind the bar as I gathered my skirts and made my way up the stairs. I staggered and clutched the railing for support, surprising myself with the sudden loss of balance. I hadn’t drank that much tonight, had I?
I gathered myself and hurried the few steps up the creaking staircase and down the carpeted hallway to my room, a small, unimpressive place. But as the door closed, I breathed in the solitary space. I had only a few more minutes until my unwanted suitor would come calling. For a brief moment, I considered simply following through with my original plan of sleeping with him and driving away the darkness in his embrace until morning came. But as soon as the thought came to me, my heart clenched in response.
No, there would be no hiding from the grief tonight. No one could send the shadows from my heart when they held this tightly.
Another breath in the space, and I turned back to the door. I held the token around my neck as I considered how to make the flimsy wooden door a bit more secure. My attention was drawn to my rucksack on the bed, the only furniture in the small space beside the wash basin by the window.
I rustled in the bag for a moment until my hand brushed against the hilt of a dagger. My silver dagger was sheathed on my upper thigh, but steel was just as effective for this task, and silver should always be saved for the fae.
I twirled the dagger between my fingers, then threw it with force towards the door. It slid between the door and its frame up to the hilt. It wasn’t my most secure defense, but then again, I was defending against a drunk human and not some otherworldly beast. Even if he made his way into my room, I could easily dispatch him. All he should really need was enough deterrent to realize some other maiden was an easier conquest.
I sighed as I shrugged out of my red dress and let it fall to the floor. What a waste of a perfectly nice outfit, and my hair had even cooperated this evening.
But the hole waited to swallow my soul, and I let myself fall into the sheets of the bed and down deep into the abyss.
The morning light danced behind my eyelids as the dreamless sleep left me. Someone was knocking on the door, but through the window came the sweet sound of a bird singing somewhere close by.
I sat up and stretched, the sheets dropping from my body. The knocking came again, more insistent this time. I was surprised my unwelcome suitor hadn’t even roused me from sleep. I’d expected at least a few minutes of angry banging at my door, but I’d slept soundly through the night.
“Rhea, come on girl. Don’t ask for a wake-up call if ya aren’t going to wake!” Henrick called from the other side of the door. I swung my bare feet onto the hardwood floor and strode to open it, releasing my dagger from the door frame as I did.
Henrick’s eyes shot to my unclothed frame, then immediately to the ceiling. “Good gods girl, have you no shame at all?”
“Not much to speak of, being raised motherless does that to girls like me.” I took the plate of berries, fried bacon, and sweet bread from his hands as he continued to examine the ceiling. “But I’ve still got some manners, and so I thank you for the wake-up call and for breakfast, good innkeep.”
Henrick smiled as I made to close the door. Just before it could close, Henrick stopped it with one booted foot. I frowned at him in question as he cleared his throat.
“One more thing before you leave us, dear,” he said in a hushed tone that meant my work in this village wasn’t as complete as I’d thought. He held out an envelope sealed with black wax. “A patron left this, said it was for your eyes only.”
I carefully took the envelope from his hand, curiously examining the dagger mark pressed into the wax. It wasn’t the mark of any lord I was familiar with in this part of the world.
“Thank you,” I said quietly.
“You be careful out there, miss. I know you’re a force to be reckoned with, but all by yourself is a good way to be to get yourself killed.”
“It’s a good way to be to keep myself safe, believe me.”
I closed the door before the old man could give me another well-intentioned warning and start up the darkness in my core once more. I popped a berry in my mouth and sat on the bed to open the envelope.
The scrawling script was so beautiful, it took me a moment to even be able to process the words.
Shrike,
You’ve proven yourself to be quite the hunter. Should you seek to add to your trophies of heads and hearts, I offer you a beast of quite terrible measure.
Come to the split of the River Kine and test your strength against this utterly unique foe. Accept this hunt, and your reward shall be twice your weight in gods’ gold.
My brows furrowed as I read the note again. It was a far cry from the typical petitions I received. No talk of terrors inflicted by the beast, no desperate plea for help. In fact, this job sounded more like a challenge than a request, like the writer had thought I take on these jobs for some kind of hubris.
The thought made my stomach turn. Is that how the world saw me? As a heartless hunter looking to destroy the most powerful creature the world could offer me?
So be it. I straightened up, putting the note aside and finishing the plate of food, doing my best to keep my eyes from drifting and admiring the strange script on the note.
Twice my weight in gods’ gold? A sum like that would keep me fed for months, if not years. That could even be enough time to find a way through the veil, to finally fulfill the purpose I was born to fulfill.
I stood and walked to the water basin to wash. But before I could, I caught sight of my reflection in the still water. On the tanned skin of my chest, the silver and white scarred flesh shone like a bolt of lightning. The lines curved and twisted in the unmistakable mark of a dove in flight.
Moving quickly, I reached down and splashed the water onto my arms and face. I couldn’t think about the mark, about the sure fate I was to follow. If I was to accept this new job, I had to be ready. There would be no room for second thoughts or for wishes to have been cursed with a different fate.
No, this was my path. And if I must walk it, I would walk it with my head high.
I suited myself in my white tunic, thick leather pants, and corset, then secured the leather arm covers. Finally, I laced up my boots and secured the belt of elixirs over my shoulder. I had two more for energy, one for heightened sense, and three for quick healing. It wasn’t as many as I’d like to have on hand, but it would do.
I flinched at the thought that I’d have to revisit the citadel soon for a fresh set of elixirs. But with the money from his hunt, I at least wouldn’t be returning to beg.
I sheathed my silver short sword at my hip, my daggers on my thighs and threw the rest of my sack over my shoulder. As I strolled down the stairs, I knew I was a very different picture than the red-skirted woman who danced on this same floor just a few hours before. None of the few patrons paid me any mind, and it seemed my suitor had disappeared from this place. I thanked the token of luck around my neck for that particular gift as I waved to Henrick without looking up. I didn’t want to see the look of concern that was sure to be on his wrinkled face.
Outside, the streets of the village were alive with the daily activity of folks who’d been freed from terror. Children ran after stray cats, lovers strolled arm in arm, and the hard-working folk ignored them all as they toiled.
My stomach tightened, and I turned away from the world I could never truly be a part of, no matter how many monsters I slayed. No matter how prettily I smiled. No matter how many suitors I took to bed. My fate lay elsewhere.
I entered the small stable behind the tavern to be greeted with the soft nicker I knew by heart. My roan, Neera, pushed her head past her stall door and tossed her mane in my direction. I patted her neck as she pushed her snout around my pack, looking for a treat.
I laughed, pushing her muzzle away and leading her from the stall.
“Not yet, Neera. But if we get this one right, you’ll never want for treats again.” She stamped her hoof in an impatient answer. I was still smiling as I readied her for the ride and took my seat on her back. The River Kine was a few hours' ride from town in the direction of the veil. If we rode hard, we could make it before the sun went down.
My heartbeat matched the pace of Neera’s gait as she walked through the village, then picked up as the road opened before us.