Chapter Twenty-Four #2
Lyssa sprinted forward and then veered sharply right, toward a thicket of the thorned trees, spaced far enough apart that she could squeeze her way through, but not so close that the Beast could do the same.
She hacked a narrow path between them, biting back a cry of pain as the stray thorns she had missed sliced open her skin.
The creature yowled behind her, and she knew that it had gotten a taste of the murder-trees as well.
When she got to the heart of the thicket, she whirled around.
It was like there was a spiked wall between her and the Beast, with more fortifications at her back and sides.
The monster paced at the edge of the thicket, clearly agitated, its face already latticed with cuts.
She let out a ragged sigh, satisfied to have bought herself a little time to catch her breath and think.
At least until the monster lost interest in prey it couldn’t catch and ran off to find something easier to kill.
But then she shifted her weight, the leaves beneath her boots rustling, and the Beast stopped pacing, its eyes locking onto her general location. Lyssa shuddered.
It hadn’t been agitated because it couldn’t get to her without hurting itself—it just thought she had gotten away.
And now it knew that she was still in the thicket, still within its reach.
The Beast charged at the murder-trees, impaling itself on the thorns in a wild attempt to get at her. The thicket shook as the trees cracked and splintered from its frenzied onslaught, and its bloodied maw strained for her as it snapped its slobbering teeth.
“Fuck!” she spat, staggering back and almost stabbing herself on the thorns circling the trees behind her.
She hacked her way through the rest of the thicket as fast as she could, the thorns slicing into her arms as she waded between the murder-trees, the Beast making its own path right behind her in a shower of splintered wood and flying thorns.
She cursed herself the entire time, her anger more powerful than her fear.
Stupid. She was stupid to think that would work.
The fucking thing was nothing but a mindless creature of death and rage that would stop at nothing to get at her now that it had scented her blood.
Of course it wouldn’t care about a couple of thorns in its face.
Superficial pain like that wouldn’t have stopped her, so why had she assumed—
Understanding slammed into her, cracking something open inside of her. As she emerged from the thicket and turned to watch the monster from her nightmares force itself through the thorns after her, it was like seeing herself clearly for the first time.
This was what Alderic had witnessed at the lake. A brute in thrall to her bloodlust, willing to ruin herself if it meant killing the thing she wanted to kill.
He had seen the part of himself that he was desperate to destroy, reflected in her.
Alderic had spent centuries trying to control that side of him, while Lyssa wore her monstrosity like a crown.
And yet he had still managed to see the good in her, regardless of the horrific choices she made again and again.
Because he, of all people, knew what it was like to have something vicious at your core—and that it was possible to wrestle it into submission.
To become something better than what your circumstances had made you.
Lyssa had been so quick to accept that there was nothing of Alderic in the Beast, after the creature had driven its tusk into her shoulder, because the Alderic she knew would never hurt her.
But what if that feeling she had gotten in Liedensham—that the man she knew was only one facet of him—was truer than she’d realized?
She had been scrambling to figure out a way to kill the Beast without killing Alderic, but …
There wasn’t one.
Because monster and man were not separate entities—they were pieces of a whole.
The Beast was as much a part of Alderic as Lyssa’s rage was a part of her.
It was his worst self made manifest, amplified a thousandfold, and no matter how hard he had worked over the centuries, that part would always lurk inside.
Lyssa knew better than anyone that steel always retained some of what it had once been, even when it was hammered into a new shape.
That didn’t negate the transformation—Alderic was not a monster, despite having something monstrous within him. But if Lyssa couldn’t kill the Beast without killing him, too, then she was going to have to choose: between the oath she had sworn, and the friend she would lose if she fulfilled it.
The Beast was almost to the edge of the thicket now, its muzzle a shredded mess, its fangs slick with bloody saliva that spattered the trees around it as it snapped and snarled.
Lyssa thought of all the people it had slaughtered, her brother amongst them. The death and destruction it had wreaked over the centuries, the families it had ruined. She thought of everyone she would be avenging, the moment she drove her sword through its glyph and ended its foul existence.
And she thought of Alderic, desperate to be held accountable for what he had done. A man who had been punished for his original transgressions a thousand times over, and still thought he deserved to die—even if he didn’t want to anymore.
“I can’t do this!” Lyssa screamed at the creature she had been dreaming of killing for the last thirteen years.
At her friend. “So, you’re just going to have to deal with it, Alderic.
You’re just going to have to chain yourself up every few months for eternity, or go live with Honoria and Faunalyn, because I can’t fucking do this. ”
She threw down her sword.
“You said there was no way I could keep loving you, if I knew what you really were,” she said, her voice cracking, “but you were wrong. Because I see you now. All of you. And I still—”
The Beast burst from the thicket, its fur stained pink with blood from the thorns lodged deep in its hide. It tossed its head and crouched, getting ready to lunge again with a rumbling growl.
Lyssa was sluggish with pain and shock, and when the Beast sprang at her, she wasn’t fast enough to dodge it. It slammed into her, knocking her off her feet.
She landed on her back, the breath rushing out of her in a groan. She squeezed her eyes shut, her body tensing in anticipation. She didn’t want to see her own guts pulled out of her, didn’t want to watch herself die the way she had watched Eddie die.
“I love you, Alderic,” she managed to gasp as tears streamed down her cheeks. “Please don’t blame yourself for this.”
The Beast howled, and there was a crack of bones that made Lyssa flinch violently and cry out.
But it wasn’t her bones that had snapped.
The horrific scream that followed didn’t come from her, either.
Her eyes flew open, and she looked up at receding fur and shrinking fangs, the monster’s thick hide becoming tattered ruffles, a curtain of white-blond hair, a pale throat marred by a pink scar.
A pair of blue-gray eyes blinked down at her in disbelief. “W-what happened?” Alderic stammered.
“You’re … you’re you again,” Lyssa breathed. Her heart was pounding; adrenaline still pumped through her, urging her to fight or to run.
Alderic scrambled off her and sat back on his heels. Stared at his hands. Turned them over and stared at the backs of them, too. His shirt was torn open, and Lyssa could see the smooth expanse of his chest.
The glyph was gone.
He seemed to realize it at the same moment she did; he brushed trembling fingers over the place where it had been, a look of wonder on his face. A shaky laugh burst from his lips. “You broke it. How … how did you break it?”
“I don’t know,” she said with a laugh of her own, as disoriented as he was baffled.
She tried to sit up, grunting with pain.
Alderic watched her struggle for just a moment before lending his aid, as if he knew she would be insulted if he jumped in too quickly.
Once she was upright, she heaved in a breath and let it out slowly, trying to steady her still-racing heart.
It all felt so surreal, and she was having trouble making sense of the fact that she wasn’t dead.
“You’re hurt,” Alderic murmured, brows furrowing. His gaze swept from her bloodied shirt back up to meet her eyes. “Did … did I…?”
Lyssa waved her good hand dismissively, trying to dispel the guilt gathering on his face like storm clouds. “I hesitated,” she said. “After you turned, I … I couldn’t…” She shook her head, still not sure how to put everything that had happened into words.
“Is that why…?” Alderic gestured to the place where the glyph had been, the hush of his voice still tinged with disbelief, and a good measure of awe.
“I think so,” she said. “All I could see when I looked at the Beast was … was my friend.” She wasn’t ready to tell him all of the things that had gone through her mind in those moments.
The realizations about herself, about him.
The darkness that lurked within them and maybe always would.
“I couldn’t hurt you, Alderic. I … well, I…
” Her cheeks went hot. Telling him now felt weirder than saying it to the Beast, somehow. “I love you.”
He looked aghast. “But I did something unforgivable. I—”