Chapter 15
‘I can’t believe they’ve only left one guard here at night,’ whispered Elver.
Lucian leaned in close, so that his mouth was only an inch away from her ear.
‘I imagine he’s just here to make sure the cages don’t spontaneously collapse. Who would be unhinged enough to be breaking in here to steal monsters?’
‘A dark spirit trapped in the body of a monk, for one. And step away from me. There’s no need to be that close—I know what you’re up to.’
Lucian grinned in the dark. He was unbound.
He had walked under the night’s sky, had seen the stars, had felt the gathering wind on his cheek.
And now he was crouched behind a wall of crates that smelt suspiciously like spoiled meat, next to a jih girl who was ready to stab him if he so much as brushed her hand with his, while they watched a beefy man in his early middle age tease a monster in a cage.
For the first time in a long while, it felt good to be alive—even if he was trapped in a borrowed body.
‘Did you have a plan, monster girl?’
‘The beginnings of one. Do you see the creature in the pen right at the end of the row?’
Lucian did. It looked like the last possible thing you wanted to stumble across in a dark wood.
It resembled a large, armoured lizard, orange leathery skin covered in hard plates like giant thorns.
It had a sizeable crest ringing its head like a halo, and even in the gloom, Lucian could see the muscles on its broad chest and legs.
Yet it was curled up on itself as though it hoped no one would notice it.
Outside, the wind was growing louder, and somewhere a flap of tent hadn’t been tied down properly—it snapped like a boat sail caught in a gale.
‘I see it. Quite a brute.’
‘The Coshod. They’re docile enough, and very social—they live in big groups, and when they hunt, they have the ability to grow much larger. Bigger than that cage, certainly.’
‘Ah.’
‘He hasn’t done it himself because he’s alone, and they are always in packs when they hunt. Maybe I can tell him he’s not alone.’
‘So the monster breaks out of his cage—and then what?’
The guard had a long staff with a hook on the end, which he was reaching through the bars with. He prodded at a furry blue creature that was already crouched at the very back of the cage. Lucian felt something sharpen inside him. Meanwhile, Elver shrugged.
‘It’s a distraction, isn’t it? One monster out. While the guard deals with that, we can find the keys for the rest of the cages. Open them up.’
‘Chaotic, full of holes. As plans go, I like it.’
She shot him an angry look. ‘Do you have any better ideas?’
Annoyingly, he didn’t. He nodded to the cage in question. It was in the deepest shadows, and furthest from the guard at that moment, but that could change very quickly if the man got bored of tormenting the blue monster.
‘You’d better get to it. I’ll watch your back.’
Elver crept behind the crates and over to the Coshod cage.
She moved silently, without even the slightest rasp of boot against the sawdusted floor, and with her dark hood up she was almost invisible.
All that gave her away was the flash of a pale hand or a section of her still, unsmiling face.
When she was close to the cage, she reached out and carefully slid her arm between the bars so that she could place the flat of her hand against the leathery hide of the monster.
Lucian saw the creature shift with surprise at the touch and raise its head cautiously.
He saw Elver’s lips moving as she spoke, but could not hear what she was saying over the sound of the wind.
He glanced back at the guard, still too absorbed in tormenting his own monster to notice them.
It wasn’t long before Lucian’s anger began to rise, as it always did.
He thought of the cell at the monastery, so many years spent staring at the same four walls, watching the face of the monk change in the mirror, grow older, his hair growing longer, the shadow of stubble at his jaw appearing.
All while being unable to remember his own face, until this face—this hated image of the person who kept him prisoner just as much as the Brothers and Sisters did—this face became…
his own. It was a vicious kind of torment, not so dissimilar from being poked with a stick when you had nowhere to escape to.
Elver was still talking to the animal, a desperate expression on her face.
The Coshod had shifted towards her, big wet eyes blinking in the low light, but as far as Lucian could see, it didn’t look any larger.
The guard, though, had straightened up and was moving to the next cage, the hooked staff at the ready.
Lucian thought they had a handful of minutes before they were discovered, at best.
Hurry up, monster girl.
Yet, despite himself, he realized he wanted them to be discovered. There was a power within himself, as yet untapped, that he needed to reignite. He knew it. And he wanted to use it on this guard. He wanted to make him pay.
Lucian half rose from where he crouched, and he saw Elver glance at him in alarm.
She shook her head slightly. The Coshod, Lucian now saw, had in fact grown—its head was closer to the ceiling of its cage, and its broad shoulders looked even more threatening.
It’s working , Lucian thought, a perplexing mixture of relief and frustration washing through him.
The guard was at the next cage, his staff worrying at a creature that looked like a large, winged cat, its fur covered in dark spots.
The jih batted at the staff with one heavy paw and, in retaliation, the guard thrust the hooked end into the creature’s soft underbelly, causing it to hiss.
Elver looked up at the sound, an expression of pain flickering over her face.
That was enough. Lucian stood up and walked out from behind the crates, not troubling to move silently as Elver had. The guard spun to face him, withdrawing the staff from the cage. Lucian smiled. That was a start.
‘Who are you?’ demanded the guard.
‘I suppose you’d say I’m a concerned citizen,’ said Lucian. ‘What have those creatures ever done to you?’
‘They’re monsters. Jih.’ The guard half laughed, shook his head. ‘Evil, wretched things. Dangerous things.’
Lucian nodded, delighted. Yes. This was what the monks called him and his kind too.
‘They don’t look so dangerous. Locked away in these cages, they look pretty sorry for themselves, actually.
Yet here you are, poking them with a stick, tormenting them for kicks.
’ He moved closer to the guard, making sure to keep the man’s eyes on him.
‘Does it make you feel powerful, little man? I’m genuinely curious. ’
‘Cheeky little swine. You’re not supposed to be in here, you know that?’ The guard squared up to him. ‘You can visit the monsters during opening hours, same as everyone else. And you can pay the fee, same as everyone else.’
Lucian laughed. He could sense the shape that was Elver, her eyes on him.
‘What I’m going to do,’ he said, ‘is take that staff from you and find an inventive new place to store it. How about that?’
The reaction was everything he’d hoped for.
The guard scowled and came at him, and when he was close enough, Lucian yanked the staff from his hands, surprised at the strength in his own arms. He lifted the staff, too slowly, as it turned out, and the guard punched him squarely on the jaw—hard, but not so hard he went down.
Lucian staggered back, his free hand going to his face. His eyes were watering.
‘You’re going to regret that,’ he told the guard.
At that moment, there was a shattering, splintering noise, and barely a second later the Coshod crashed into the older man, sending him flying.
There was an unpleasant crunching sound as he hit the wooden boards that served as the floor.
Elver appeared, her hood pushed back. Her yellow eyes looked like a pair of moons in the half light.
‘Is he dead?’ she asked. She didn’t look particularly concerned. Lucian went and stood over the guard, who was groaning. The Coshod, meanwhile, was stomping around the tent in what Lucian assumed was a victory lap.
‘No, more’s the pity. He’s broken his wrist though, and given his head a good knock. Ah.’ He crouched and went through the man’s pockets. ‘I’ve got the keys to the other cages.’
They made short work of it, releasing all the monsters and unlacing the main entrance so that the larger creatures had space to leave.
Once, the jih that looked like a spotted cat rounded on Lucian, fangs bared, and Elver spoke to it in her quiet, considered voice—quite different to the voice she used to speak to him, Lucian noticed—and it turned away, mollified.
‘That’s quite a skill you have, monster girl,’ he said as they were walking back over the fields to their camp. The wind had died down, leaving a strange hush to the countryside. ‘Speaking to jih. And they listen to you.’
‘A gift from the Queen of Serpents.’ She was taking care to walk with a sizeable gap between them.
‘And not your only one.’ He held out his hand to her, palm turned towards the sky. ‘Will you let me have a glimpse of my past, Elver?’
‘When we get back to the camp. I’m still not sure how all this works, and I don’t want you keeling over into the grass. I don’t fancy dragging you back to camp.’
‘Then you’ll tell me why the monk is spending his days with a monster girl and not a bunch of yellow-robed fools.’
‘I don’t see why I should.’
Lucian felt his anger rising again, and smothered it with some effort.
‘I’ve helped you free your monstrous siblings, and received a punch in the jaw for my efforts.
And I could have run to the hills at any point.
I could have turned you in to that monster jailer, and they could have had a new exhibit the next day.
’ He raised his hands, as if framing a sign.
‘Monster girl from the Jih Forest, touch her and die! Eyes like a snake, an abomination—’
‘I’m curious. Is this how you get what you want from people?’ She cocked her head towards him, as though she really wanted to know. ‘Does this usually work?’
Lucian stopped, gritting his teeth. For a few seconds, there was a tense silence between them.
‘I claimed to be a gentleman earlier,’ he said eventually. There was a need to be careful here, after all. The monster girl could give him access to his past life. He couldn’t throw that away just because she was unbelievably irritating. ‘Clearly I have forgotten what one of those is.’
‘Yeah, I thought that. I thought, this evil spirit is remarkably rude.’
To his own surprise, he smiled.
‘Quite. Elver, I don’t expect you to be my friend.
I know what I am.’ She glanced up at him, a new expression on her face.
Yes, he knew this would work. A monster girl had to be lonely, and she’d naturally have sympathy for the isolated and the unwanted.
He gave a sigh, and set his features into a faintly wistful expression.
‘I only want to know what’s going on. I’ve spent years locked away, Elver, and this is my first glimpse of the wider world.
Of course I want to know why I’m suddenly here. ’
For a long moment, Elver didn’t say anything.
When she did speak, she didn’t look at him, as though by staring out across the shadows she wasn’t giving in to him.
‘Look. There is a mage called Mother Maura. She wants the jih cub for a sacrifice to the Bloody Claw, and she kidnapped the other novices to force Artair to steal him from the forest. We’re going to get an illusion spell from a mage of Tisk so that he can get them back without giving up the cub. ’
Lucian raised his eyebrows. He had the strangest feeling that these names should mean something to him, and yet clarity danced just out of reach. Perhaps the next memories he unlocked would reveal something. There had to be more to it.
‘Ah. That is… quite the quest. Have you come of your own accord, desperate to please our young monk, or did the Queen of Serpents order you to track down the monster cub?’
Elver didn’t answer for a moment, and when she did her voice was colder than it had been.
‘That’s enough questions.’
Later, after Lucian had consented to be tied up again, he’d turned onto his back to face the stars and considered what he had seen, his jaw throbbing faintly.
A glimpse had truly been all it was, yet it was still an unbearably tantalizing thing.
When she had taken his hand in hers, he had seen a room full of books and the faces of other young people, fierce with concentration.
They were studying something, he knew, the same thing he was studying, and in that memory he had felt the sharp edges of his own ambition.
He would be better than them. He would beat them.
And then it was gone, and all he had was the cold hand of the monster girl held in his.
But it was something. If he could gather enough pieces of his fragmented life, he could build them into something that gave him sense and meaning, and eventually, a path. All he had to do was keep travelling with the girl until he had enough pieces, and then he could discard her.
He smiled to himself in the dark and closed his eyes.