Sophia, Princess Among Beasts Read online

  Ares held up a hand. “I can make you do anything I want, Princess. But we won’t let it come to that. Bandon Castle needs a ruler on its throne, and having you joined with him will likely spare us from any pesky revolts your farmers may plan otherwise. I prefer my subjects working obediently for me, not wasting my time with ridiculous loyalties. So. You may choose your husband from these fine candidates. I would rather not pick for you, as you seem to have a mind of your own. I regret to acknowledge that Zozo is out of the running. I’m sure you would have had a nice time being silent together, and no doubt he could have taught you table manners as well as anyone. So which of my brave knights will you choose?”

  Reiper stood. His cruel, beautiful mouth held the flicker of a smile. “She chooses me. I have won her.”

  I, too, rose trembling from the table. “You have done no such thing. I may be a captive, but I am not a prize! You cannot win me the way Mordred wins an emerald ring.”

  “You may feel that way now,” Ares said. “But everything can be won, whether it is a ring, a kingdom, or a girl.”

  “I choose to leave this cursed place,” I said. “That is my choice!”

  Ares put his hand on my shoulder, and my skin felt as if it were being burned with a cold, raw flame. “What’s so fascinating is that for all your faults, you are growing on me. I hardly know why!” He turned to his men. “Maybe Sophia should be my ninth queen. It is so unfortunate, what happened to the others. Perhaps, though, she would have better luck than her predecessors?” His fingers tightened their grasp. “For a little while, anyway.”

  The knights—all but Reiper, that is—laughed and shouted their approval.

  But Ares turned back to me. “No,” he said, “your teary blue eyes would soon bore me. So—the choice is yours, Sophia. You have until the new moon to make it.”

  “No!” My voice echoed against the stones, and I shook off Ares’s hand and started running. I raced toward the far end of the hall and flung myself against the huge iron doors. To my shock, they swung open, and I stumbled, collapsing with a gasp onto the flagstones in the corridor.

  CHAPTER 35

  Florence sat waiting on the other side of the great iron doors—as if she’d expected me to burst through them. She gave me her hand, helped me stand up, and briskly brushed the dust from my skirts.

  “Did you have a nice meal?” she asked as she led me through gloomy, labyrinthine halls back to my bedchamber.

  I stared at her. “How could you even ask such a question? I watched a man die, and Ares tells me I must marry one of those monsters.”

  Florence sighed, and when she spoke her voice held a note of reproach. “There’s nothing to be done about that, but you should have at least filled your stomach.” She reached into the pocket of her apron and gave me the heel of a piece of bread. “Here,” she said. “I won’t have you starving to death on my watch.”

  Numbly, I ate it. It was dry and stale and tasted like dust.

  After what must have been a mile of hallways, we arrived back at my bedchamber. I immediately removed my jeweled satin slippers and rubbed my pinched feet.

  “I need a pair of boots,” I said.

  Florence looked startled. “Whatever for?”

  “I wish to go outside,” I said.

  “Ares has strictly forbidden that you leave the castle,” she said.

  “I’m sure he has,” I said. “And yet he calls me a guest.” I opened the doors to the great wooden wardrobe and combed through its contents, finding nothing but satin gowns, embroidered cloaks, and opulent, fur- and jewel-trimmed tunics. “Am I a guest? Or a prisoner?”

  I knew she wouldn’t answer me, but I didn’t need her to—I knew the truth.

  She laid a calming hand on my arm. “Child,” she began.

  “Do not call me a child!”

  She sighed, and when she spoke again her voice was full of regret. “I don’t want to lock you in this room again, Sophia, but I will if I must.”

  I pulled my head out of the wardrobe and turned to face her. I was several inches taller than she was, and I also knew that I was stronger.

  “You will not,” I said quietly. “I have no way of returning to my home and Ares knows it. I will go outside and you will not stop me.”

  Florence shrank back ever so slightly. “It’s dangerous outside,” she said urgently. “Storms may come without warning. Half-wild creatures roam the cliffs. There isn’t even anywhere for you to go, unless you fancy a swim in an ice-cold bay—”

  “I will leave the castle,” I said. “And I will go to the village.”

  And maybe, just maybe, I’ll find Raphael.

  Florence fell silent. I peered into the wardrobe again, seeking something warm, something woolen. I pulled out dress after beautiful dress and tossed them to the floor.

  The dark-eyed attendant who had been making my bed gasped. She picked up a velvet cloak and clutched it to her breast.

  “Do you like it?” I asked. “Take it—it’s yours. But give me your dress and your boots.”

  She looked at me as if I’d gone mad. And who was to say that I hadn’t? Maybe I had lost my human mind when I lost my human shape. Maybe I was now more beast than girl. Well, so be it.

  Her eyes never leaving my face, the maid began to disrobe, taking off her humble shift as carefully as if it were made of cloth-of-gold.

  I shook off my velvet gown and flung it onto the bed. “Take that one, too,” I said as I slipped her dress over my head. “I never want to see it again.”

  Florence no longer tried to stop me, though she made sure to collect the jewels I removed, tucking them away in a fold of her apron. Then she sank down to the stool beside the dreadful harp and watched me, fear in her eyes. And I saw a flicker of something else, too. It was sorrow, I thought, or maybe… guilt.

  Had she waited on other prisoners, in other grand rooms? Had she kept them locked up tight? Maybe she had served Ares’s eight queens. And maybe, somehow, she had played a role in their demises.

  Dressed in a servant’s rags, a princess no more, I stood before Florence. When I touched the strings of the harp with my small, sharp claws, she grabbed my wrist and held it tight.

  “If you don’t come back, he’ll kill me,” she said.

  I felt myself softening. I didn’t want another death on my conscience. And what I’d told her was true—there was no road home to Bandon.

  “I’ll come back,” I promised. Adding, in my mind, this time.

  CHAPTER 36

  After I offered her a few other bits of finery, the dark-eyed attendant agreed to show me a secret way out of the castle. I followed her through servants’ passages so narrow and dark they seemed more like tombs than hallways, at every turn stopping to listen for Ares’s guards. By the time we emerged in a small courtyard, where a two-headed bear-man was polishing swords, I was dirty and frightened and disoriented. I looked up to the square of gray sky visible above the castle walls. The sun was so pale and cold it looked like the moon.

  The girl gave me a quick shove. “Go through the postern there,” she said, pulling the cloak I’d given her tighter around her shoulders, “and you’ll see the path down to the village. Hurry.”

  I darted out and slipped between the rusting bars of the small back gate—and then just as quickly, flung myself back against them. I was now balanced, just barely, on a tiny, craggy outcropping in the middle of a sheer wall of stone. One wrong step, and I’d plummet into the gray, frigid waters of the bay. Was the servant hoping I would die?

  But then I turned around, still clinging to the bars, and I saw them: tiny, serpentine stairs, carved into the vertical face of the cliff itself. Heights terrified me, but I couldn’t turn back now that I was so close to being free. And so, ever so slowly, I picked my way down the crumbling steps, as rocks slipped from underneath my boots and went spinning into the bay.

  The going was torturous, vertiginous; I had to remind myself to breathe. My hands—my ugly, lavender hands—were scraped an
d bloody by the time I leapt the final feet down, to land on a marshy plain near the water’s edge.

  And where to now? I almost laughed. What did it matter? I was alone, I had not plummeted to my death, and, for a moment, I was free. The wind whipped my hair around my head and my warm woolen skirt flapped like a flag. I turned away from the water and began to walk.

  I passed underneath stunted trees, then hurried through tall, waving grasses, hoping that my escape had gone unnoticed. I’d begun to breathe easier when I felt a sudden sharp rush of wind. An instant later, a ridge of grass next to me burst into flames.

  I whirled around. Crouching not twenty feet away was a tatzelwurm. It looked exactly as it had in the pages of my beloved book, except that it was infinitely more terrifying. Its giant cat’s head was a dark, tawny yellow, its body scaled like a snake’s. Flames licked around its lips and fangs, and, as I watched in shock, another ball of fire burst forth from its throat, missing me by a hand’s breadth.

  I flattened myself against the grass, but a spark flew up and landed upon the sleeve of my dress, burning it through and singeing my skin. “Stop it!” I demanded without thinking.

  The tatzelwurm roared, and then it blinked at me with a dim, wordless apprehension. Absurdly, it reminded me of my own cat, Cotton—a thousand times larger and more threatening, but with the same look of worry when it knew it did something wrong. The beast is not cruel, my book had said, merely wild.

  “There’s nothing to be afraid of,” I said, uncertain if I was talking to myself or to the fire-mouthed monster. I took a step toward it. It watched, still and wary, as I approached. Flames crackled at my back, and the salt wind blew smoke around us in swirls.

  When I drew close enough, I reached out my trembling hand and touched the tatzelwurm’s fur. It was bristly, rough, and warm. The creature held itself motionless—not even its huge eye blinked. I could feel it, tense and waiting, as I began to stroke its cheek.

  “No one has ever been nice to you, have they?” I whispered, as my fingers brushed its dusty face. “They’re not particularly friendly to me, either,” I added, “if it makes you feel any better.”

  Smoke billowed from the tatzelwurm’s nostrils. I knew that if it wanted to, it could char me like that poor pig. But somehow, I felt that it wouldn’t.

  “You’re just a big cat,” I said soothingly, “aren’t you? Yes, I know, there’s something a little odd going on with your back half, but look at me—I’ve got horns instead of plaits, and claws where I used to have fingernails. Nobody’s perfect, isn’t that right?”

  Still my hand moved gently along its great cheek. I felt, first, a vibration beneath my palm. Then came a thrumming, rumbling sound.

  The tatzelwurm was purring.

  There on the barren salt marsh, I pressed my forehead against its fur. I felt its awful loneliness, and I understood it completely.

  “I would love a pet,” I told it. “But you’re too large for the castle. And anyway, I won’t be staying. I’m not going to let Ares keep me here—somehow I’m going to find my mother again.” I leaned against the tatzelwurm’s side and felt the deep vibrato of its purr in my bones.

  But then, suddenly, came shrieking voices I recognized.

  “Prey, pretty prey!” called the biggest harpy. Her smaller sisters cackled, echoing her. “Pretty, pretty, let us eat!” They circled above us, diving low, spiraling up on salty gusts of wind and then swooping down again.

  Frightened, I pressed myself closer to the tatzelwurm. I cursed myself for not listening to Florence—I should have stayed safe in my castle prison!

  “The egg is out of its shell,” shrieked the green-haired one, and her sisters squawked, “Feast, feast, pretty feast.”

  “Don’t leave me,” I whispered to the tatzelwurm. “Please.”

  As if it understood, the tatzelwurm coiled its tail around me. It bared its teeth, lifting its heavy head, and the harpies raked its scalp with their claws. It roared, sooty smoke pouring from its mouth.

  “Feast, prey, eat!” the harpies cried, plunging toward us.

  I screamed and ducked. Bellowing in rage, the tatzelwurm sent a huge blast of fire skyward. The harpies spun higher, dodging it, their huge wings beating like drums. One of them dove down again, claws extended, then swooped up as her sister dove. Summoning my courage, I picked up a rock and flung it, but it merely grazed the tips of her feathers.

  The tatzelwurm’s tail tightened around me, knocking against my legs and sending me sprawling. As a harpy plunged toward me, I scrambled forward on hands and knees, then dove underneath the tatzelwurm’s belly. As I lay on the ground, panting with fear, I realized it had knocked me to the ground on purpose. I was safest here.

  Still roaring, the tatzelwurm shot another fireball into the air, and then another, as the harpies continued their attack. I was sure it would run out of fire or give up, leaving me to be torn to shreds by their beaks and claws. But then the tatzelwurm launched a huge orb of flames skyward, and this one found its mark, engulfing the biggest harpy and holding her in the air inside a red-hot cage. I watched in horror as she burned, blackened, and plunged to the ground.

  Her sisters flew screaming into the distance, and the dragon resumed its purring.

  CHAPTER 37

  I crawled out from beneath the tatzelwurm and planted a grateful kiss on its rough, furred cheek. “That was my second death of the day, but I cannot entirely be sorry for it.”

  The creature blinked and uncoiled its tail, freeing me.

  “Goodbye, my wild friend, and thank you,” I said.

  The tatzelwurm settled down onto its front paws, as if to wait for me to return, and I found the path again and began to walk.

  The land soon became so featureless and barren it looked like the white face of the moon. But, in the distance, I could see the walled village shimmering in and out of the mist.

  Suddenly, I was nearly overcome by sadness. I thought of our own little village, which I’d visited every week. I wished there were any way to know how it fared, now that neither my father nor I was there to protect it. Did the families have enough food? Did funeral pyres burn? Did Fina still live?

  I fretted for miles, but eventually the slow monotony of the walk calmed my thoughts. As the ceaseless wind whistled its high, lonely notes, I began to hum along. And after another little while, I started to sing—a song that seemed plucked from the wind itself.

  Above a cruel and fallow land

  A dire castle looms.

  I try but cannot understand

  Why monsters haunt its rooms.

  Some dread spell its master speaks

  To make such beasts as these:

  Maids with tails and wolves with beaks,

  Purring dragons, mammoth bees…

  Ares named me the honored guest

  At his splendid, deadly feast,

  But I am a prisoner, I protest—

  And worse, I am a beast.

  By the time I reached the walled village, my throat was parched and my boots were gray with dust. The gate stood open, and the two troll-like creatures guarding it hardly glanced at me as I passed through.

  At the nearest inhabited cottage, I smoothed my hair and stepped into the barren yard. “Hello?” I called out. “Please—I beg your pardon—may I have some water?”

  There was no answer.

  I tried not to recall how in my old life, I had wanted for nothing at all. Anything I desired was brought to me, almost before I even had to ask for it. The accusation Raphael had flung at me—what stung more than the manure—was true: I’d never known hunger or thirst or deprivation of any kind. And such luck that had been, back in my old, entitled life, when I did not even know enough to appreciate it.

  A loud crash came from inside the cottage, and a hulking man peered out of the doorway. I gasped at the sight of him. He had eyeballs, dozens of them, circling his brow like a crown, and when he saw me the expression in each turned to loathing.

  He spun on his heel an
d went back inside. I turned to leave. But before I’d gone two steps he reappeared with a pewter mug of water, which he thrust at me as if it were a weapon.

  I took it carefully, gratefully, from his hands. “Thank you,” I said.

  He bowed low, but I could see his shoulders shaking with rage.

  I drained the cup and hurried away. Why did he hate me and yet bow down before me? Did he know me? Who did he think I was?

  As I followed the rutted road toward the heart of the village, a gray, six-legged fox began to follow close on my heels. And everyone who watched me pass by, whether they were beast or human, looked at me with that now-familiar blend of deference and abhorrence.

  In the village square, several dozen sheep grazed, and I was comforted to see that they were perfectly average sheep, white with black legs and faces. An old man juggled apples listlessly by a dry fountain. He, too, looked human, though for all I knew his dirty shawl hid the stubs of wings. I was very hungry but afraid to ask him—or anyone—for food.

  The fox darted forward and began worrying the sheep, and a voice called from somewhere, “Call off your animal!”

  I turned around and saw a woman with a pinched, rodent-like face shaking her fist at me.

  “He’s not mine—I’ve never seen him before!” I said.

  The woman’s eyes went dark. “Forgive me, I did not know who you were.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked. “Who do you think I am?”

  She didn’t answer, but she bowed low, just as the many-eyed man had. And then I saw her spit quickly into the dust.

  I could not imagine who she thought I was, or why she seemed to hate me, too. I might have asked her, but then I saw something that made me catch my breath.

  Not another terrifying beast. But Raphael, for certain this time.

  Human.

  Beautiful.

  Alive.

  CHAPTER 38

  Part of me was still convinced that this could not be real—that it was somehow a dream inside a nightmare. But hadn’t I seen him here last night, during that mad carriage ride to Ares’s castle? And Raphael seemed so substantial now, striding across the far side of the square with an armload of sticks.