Chapter Twenty-One
CHAPTER
TWENTY-ONE
LYSSA STARED AT the scars on Alderic’s chest, the world going pale at the edges. It felt like her entire body was vibrating, and she realized distantly that she was shaking.
“Lyssa, I’m sorry.” He took a step forward, reaching out like he wanted to steady her. “I never meant for this to happen.”
She staggered back, away from him, thudding up against the wall of the memorial park.
“Why do you have that on your chest?” she croaked.
He didn’t answer, and she dragged her eyes from the glyph that had plagued her nightmares for nearly thirteen years to find that his face was racked with sorrow.
“Why do you have its mark carved into you, Alderic? Answer me!” She shouted the last, and he flinched violently, tears spilling down his cheeks.
“Once upon a time, a careless knight was cursed by a faerie, in payment for breaking her heart.” Every word trembled. “‘As the seasons turn, so, too, shall you.’”
“No,” she said, shaking her head hard enough to hurt. “No, you can’t be—”
“I am,” he said, his eyes haunted. “Every solstice and equinox, until I find either someone who can love me for the beast that I am, or someone who can kill the Beast that I become.”
“Fuck,” she spat, as the truth sank its claws into her—he is the Beast, HE is the Beast. Fury was building within her, but it wasn’t the good, clean, righteous rage she was used to.
There was despair in it, too. Betrayal, and something dangerously close to heartbreak.
She curled her hands into fists, clenching so hard that her nails pierced half-moons into her palms. “Why didn’t you tell me? ”
“I have tried the truth before,” Alderic said, so softly that she almost didn’t hear him over the frantic beat of her own heart in her ears.
“I have turned myself in for murder dozens of times. I have endured the hangman’s noose and the firing squad, guillotines that never seemed to cut deep enough to separate my head from my shoulders, angry mobs with flaming torches.
I have been released by baffled judges after my death sentences were served.
I have been hunted by distraught families seeking justice they can never attain.
” His cheeks were glistening with tears, but he didn’t bother to wipe them away.
“The truth stopped mattering, after a while. And by the time I realized that you, of all people, deserved to know it, I was afraid to tell you. I couldn’t stand the thought of losing you.
Couldn’t stand the thought of you looking at me like I am a monster.
Better for you to make the connection after I was already dead. ”
“You are a monster,” she said through gritted teeth, satisfaction blooming hot and sour in her gut at the wounded expression on his face.
“Lyssa.” He took another step toward her and she shoved him away, hard.
“What were you doing at a fucking circus?” she snarled. “Was it just something to pass the time? Or did you and that asshole in the stripes laugh when you thought about all the people poking you with a spear, desperate for a payout they could never win?”
“No, I—”
“You tore my brother open, Alderic. You destroyed the one person I loved most in this world, and then you … you made me…” You made me care about you.
She choked on a sob, feeling herself spiraling wildly out of control.
But she couldn’t hold back the guilt, the self-hatred, the despair tearing her to shreds from the inside.
She may as well have spit on Eddie’s grave, allowing herself to feel any affection, any fondness at all, for this … this thing.
“I didn’t mean for this to happen,” he insisted. “All I wanted was to pay you and be done with it. I never wanted to involve myself any further than that. If it weren’t for Ragnhild’s stupid bones…”
“You hired me to kill you,” she said, her voice breaking. It felt like her heart was breaking, too. Because some small part of her resisted the anger burning away her compassion. Some small part of her remembered how she had felt about him, only moments ago.
That he was her friend.
That she loved him.
“Fuck,” she spat again, covering her face with her hands. How had she let this happen?
“I didn’t know about your history with the … with me,” Alderic told her. “All I knew was that you can kill the unkillable. That you were my only chance at ending this.”
“You want me to end this?” She unholstered her pistol, aiming for the glyph carved into his chest. Alderic kept his hands at his sides, widening his stance as if ready to take whatever blow she dealt him.
“Shoot me if it’ll make you feel better. It’ll cause as much pain as it would to a mortal, if hurting me is what you want. But it won’t kill me—you know that.”
“I don’t care,” she said, cocking the pistol.
But she couldn’t do it.
Killing Hound-wardens was one thing. They were enemies of the Crown, and their bounties specified that the reward was valid even if they died resisting capture.
But shooting Alderic would bring the groundskeeper running.
There would be questions, and constables, and time in a cell—even if the man she’d shot was an immortal who couldn’t be murdered with a simple bullet.
Lyssa didn’t have any more time to waste, if she was going to forge ahead as planned.
She told herself that there was nothing more to her reluctance to hurt him than that.
Something dawned on her as she lowered her pistol. “So, Honoria…?”
“She was trying to protect me from you.”
“But her geas—”
“It doesn’t prevent her from speaking freely to a Hound,” he said.
“Why didn’t you go with her?” Lyssa asked, her voice a hoarse rasp barely above a whisper. “Why didn’t you let her save you?”
Alderic’s face hardened. “Because she can’t save me,” he said.
“Her faerie mistress can’t break my curse any more than Ragnhild can.
All she can do, according to Honoria, is hide me away somewhere I can live in peace, away from humans—away from you.
Until recently, all I wanted was to die, so it was easy to decline her first offer of other options.
The second time she offered … well.” He refused to meet her eyes.
“I was committed to you, by then. You never would have forgiven me for switching sides, therefore defeating the purpose of doing so.”
She gaped at him, stricken by what he was implying. “Does that mean…?”
The wretched look on his face was answer enough.
After centuries of being desperate to die, he finally wanted to live.
“I swore an oath that I would kill you,” she said, her vision blurring with tears, “and I intend to keep it.”
“I know.” There was no mistaking the sorrow on his face. The resignation in his voice.
Lyssa had killed for him, and now he would die for her.
For her oath.
She turned her back on him, hating that she still—still, even now—felt something for him. “I expect you to be in Bleakhaven for the equinox,” she said stiffly, trying to draw a Door on the wall; the lines were so shaky that she had to do it over again.
“I’ll be waiting for you at my manor,” he promised as she drew the knob. “Down in the dungeon. I … chain myself, now, to prevent any more accidents. I imagine you’ll have to get quite close in order to stab me, so you’ll need to be careful, but—”
“Don’t insult me.” She shouldered her pack, refusing to look at him as she knocked on the Door. “I’ve been waiting a long time to kill you, Al. I don’t want it to be too easy.”
Lyssa barely made it through the stone archway before she sank to her knees and started screaming, releasing all of the rage and hurt and betrayal pent up inside of her until her throat was raw and her voice gave out.
A crow shot out of the trees, its edges blurring as it somersaulted into Nadia. “What happened?” the little witch asked breathlessly as she staggered to her feet.
“What’s going on?” Ragnhild shouted, the undergrowth rustling as she materialized from it, a basket of mushrooms in the crook of her arm.
Lyssa ran her hands over her tearstained face and glared at the old witch. “Did you know?” she rasped.
“Know what, girl?” Ragnhild said, but there was trepidation in her eyes. “You’re going to have to be more specific.”
“That Alderic…” She had to force the words out past the lump in her throat. She still couldn’t believe it. Didn’t want to believe it. “That Alderic is the Beast of Buxton Fields.”
The witches exchanged a panicked glance.
“You knew!” Lyssa snarled, arms wrapping around her middle as if she could somehow keep herself from falling apart. Betrayal after betrayal, lies upon lies.
“We knew he was a Hound,” Nadia said quickly. “We didn’t know he was the Beast.”
But Ragnhild was quiet, and the look on her face …
“Tell me,” Lyssa demanded. “Tell me the truth.”
“I knew he was the Beast,” Ragnhild said, breaking Lyssa’s heart anew.
“At least, I assumed he was. His magic felt tethered to you, somehow, perhaps because of that oath you swore. And while it is not unheard of for a Hound to want to kill another Hound, more often than not they want to kill themselves.”
“Rags,” Nadia breathed, her eyes wide with disbelief.
Lyssa glared at the old witch. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“The bones—”
“Fuck the bones!” she screamed, and it turned into a sob. She curled in on herself, pressing her forehead to the ground. It felt like she was drowning, like she was being dragged out to sea in a current too strong to fight, and there was no one left to save her.
Eventually, she regained some semblance of control. Drew in a ragged breath. “How is Alderic a Hound?” she croaked, numb. “He’s a human.” Her shock was ebbing now, bewilderment crashing in to take its place, and it felt like there were a thousand questions all clamoring to get out of her at once.