Sophia, Princess Among Beasts Read online

  Reiper lifted his sword for another blow just as Raphael pitched to the side and disappeared from sight. Desperately I tried to climb the stones back up to the walkway, but my hands couldn’t find purchase. I fell back to the roof, just in time to see Raphael struggling to his feet. He lifted his hand to me, as if to say, Everything will be fine!

  But this was so clearly not true.

  “Go,” he shouted. “Run!”

  Reiper tossed his sword aside. “You are brave, boy,” he said, “but you are also stupid. I could kill you with my bare hands.”

  And then Reiper cuffed him on the side of the head, as if Raphael were nothing but a stray dog. Raphael stumbled and nearly went down. Reiper brought up the curved, gleaming blade of his knife. He paused, waiting for Raphael to regain his balance. “On the other hand,” he said, “a knife is so much more efficient. Ready?” But he didn’t wait for an answer. He plunged the blade into Raphael’s chest.

  I heard myself screaming, a horrible, piercing shriek that collapsed into a sob.

  Raphael stood still, his fingers grasping helplessly at the hilt of the knife, and then he swayed.

  Staggered.

  Fell.

  CHAPTER 60

  Still screaming, I crawled to the edge of the roof and heaved myself off, onto the ground. When I stood up from the mud, I grabbed an axe from a dead man’s back and ran blindly into the center of the courtyard, swerving every which way. First Reiper had killed my father, and then he had killed my only friend.

  Mad with grief, I was ready to cleave in two whoever came within reach of my weapon. But suddenly Ares’s men weren’t fighting anymore—they were running away.

  A woman with scaly lizard skin stood beside me, a broken sword in her hand. Her right eye was swollen shut and a lattice of blood tracked down her face. She slipped on the slick mud, and I grabbed her arm to keep her from falling. “What’s happening?”

  She let her breath out in a rush. “They’re retreating. There are too many of us.”

  “Is it over?” I felt a surge of hope.

  Wearily she shook her head. “Ares has a hunting lodge two hours’ ride from here,” she said. “He’ll rest. And when he chooses, he’ll return to attack the village.” She looked me up and down, and then she smiled grimly as she removed her arm from my grip. “It is far from over.”

  But for now, at least, the fighting had stopped. Exhausted villagers laid down their arms and the air filled with weak cheering. They clapped one another on the back as they staggered toward shelter. The rain had turned to mist, and our enemies had fled.

  I stood frozen, unable to feel any relief. Grief weighed on me like a stone. I wanted to collapse right where I was. But I needed to go see Raphael. I had to prove to myself that he was really gone.

  And so I trudged up the tower steps, back to the wall walk where he had saved my life a final time. Where, if I hadn’t cried out, he might have won the fight.

  No more war, I’d begged my father. Revolution, I’d whispered to Raphael. In both cases, I’d thought I was doing the right thing. But somehow each time I’d been wrong, and they had both paid the price for my errors.

  I felt like I’d been gutted, the way Ares suggested I should be, but I was somehow still alive. There was nothing left inside me but pain.

  The wind had grown stronger, and it drove against me as I walked along the stone path. Below me, the courtyard was slick with blood and mud. Bodies of the dead lay where they had been struck down. Flames devoured the empty stables.

  Wiping my streaming eyes, I came to the place where Raphael had fallen. I felt the blood drain from my heart.

  It was empty.

  CHAPTER 61

  I stared at the stones in shock until I felt a hand on my shoulder. The villager with the crown of eyeballs stood behind me, his cap clenched in his hand. My mouth opened and closed without sound. Where was Raphael? Had Reiper thrown his bleeding body into the waves? I peered over the edge at the black water, churning and crashing against the cliff. Even if the knife strike had not been fatal, Raphael could not have survived the fall.

  Wearily the man shook his huge head at me. “I am so sorry, Princess,” he said. He pulled me toward his chest, dark with dirt and blood, and wrapped his arms around my shoulders. “Florence cared so much for you.”

  I pulled away from him in shock. “What?”

  His eyeballs rolled nervously in his head. “She was killed,” he said.

  “In battle? Did she fight?”

  He didn’t answer right away, and so I grabbed his collar and shook him. “What happened?”

  “She let us in,” he said quietly. “She raised the platform.”

  Stunned, I let my hands fall, and he straightened his filthy jacket. And then he told me how she had been found: near the platform, murmuring something about bargains, stabbed—

  “Stop, I cannot bear it,” I said.

  Gone: first Raphael, and now Florence. How could it be? The world wasn’t big enough to hold my sorrow. My knees buckled.

  I am on your side, child.

  But this strange, beastly man lifted me up and steadied me. “Go rest, Princess,” the man urged. “We will tend to the villagers.” He paused. “The tired, the wounded, and the dead.”

  Someone began to lead me away. I didn’t know what I’d done to deserve such kindness.

  “Raphael told me to look after you,” the man called.

  In my room, the fire had died down to just a few embers. No attendants would come bearing wood tonight, and so I broke the little writing table into pieces and threw them into the fireplace. They quickly caught. I would have thrown the harp in too, but I wasn’t strong enough to break it. I touched its strings; a mournful trill sounded. A single, shivering note lingered in the air like a ghost.

  Without thinking, I began to sing:

  I met you first in my old life—

  I found you again in the new.

  Though bid to become a demon’s wife,

  I long to be with only you.

  My voice broke off. It was only now—now that it was too late—that I understood how much Raphael meant to me. Why did I have to keep losing everyone close to me? Everyone that I loved?

  I could hear the hiss of rainwater outside my window, pouring down from the gaping mouths of the castle gargoyles and splashing to the wall walk below.

  Ares and his knights were gone, Raphael and Florence dead. The castle belonged to the people now.

  Which meant that I could leave it—for good this time.

  I thought back to my first wild journey, when I woke to darkness inside a speeding carriage. I hadn’t known if I was being kidnapped or rescued; I didn’t know if I was alive or dead. I still didn’t know the answer to that last question.

  Thunder rumbled overhead, reminding me of the Bells of Death, sounding their grim notes over the sleeping world. How had I heard those bells, if indeed they rang for me? What if they had rung only within a dream?

  There was so much I didn’t understand.

  When I met my eyes in the wavering glass of the mirror, I cried out at my final transformation. No longer golden-eyed and silver-toothed, I was blue-eyed and black-haired, the way I’d been born. In the room’s cold half-light, I saw a human princess with a dirty, tear-streaked face and a ripped, ruined wedding dress. It was yet another thing I couldn’t explain. But there I was, shocked and blinking. Alone again.

  I met my gaze, wiped the tears from my cheeks, and steeled myself. It was time to go.

  CHAPTER 62

  In the dank cavern beneath the castle, the darkness was so thick it threatened to suffocate me. I felt along the cold, slimy wall, unsure if I was moving toward the cave’s mouth or deeper into its lightless chambers. Around me water dripped ominously and the air whistled and whispered; I jumped at every sound. What if one of Ares’s knights hadn’t fled with the others? What if Reiper waited in the shadows, that terrible curved knife in his hand?

  My footsteps resounded against the
stones no matter how softly I meant to tread. I fell over a pile of rubble, and the sharp rocks cut deep into my palm. Stunned, I lay on the wet, gritty floor.

  Just get up. Keep moving, I told myself. I squinted in the blackness, as if it would help. I could see just as well with my eyes closed.

  I was bone-tired, but every time I stopped to rest I began to shake in grief and anger. This was not over.

  Then something exploded above me. The air was filled with shrieking, clawing, thrashing bodies. I covered my head with my arms and felt claws rake my skin. Was it the harpies? I screamed, and the sound ricocheted through the darkness as high-pitched squeals echoed all around me. Something tore at my hair and I threw myself back to the ground.

  Wordless chittering, and the appalling, cold touch of leathery wings: I realized what was happening only as the myriad tiny bodies twisted and flapped away into the blackness. I had frightened a colony of bats.

  And they, I realized, would lead me to the mouth of the cavern. I followed their shrieks in the blackness, creeping forward, falling, and then creeping forward again, until I could make out the yawning opening that led to the salt flats.

  I was free.

  But I wasn’t alone. The pus-fleshed ogres who had first borne me away from Bandon Castle crouched at the entrance to the cave, peering toward me in the darkness.

  I stopped and pressed myself against the wall. There was just enough moonlight to see that the carriage, too, stood behind them. The wild-eyed horses pranced in their harnesses, almost as if they were waiting for me.

  Then a torch flared, and the nearest ogre turned to me in its fiery glow. “Get in,” it rasped.

  I shrank back from the light. Did I dare? It could be that this was a trap. Maybe Ares had ordered them to bring me to his hunting lodge. But what if he hadn’t—what if the carriage and its drivers were somehow mine to command?

  It was like deciding to jump out the window: maybe I’d survive the journey, and maybe I wouldn’t. And there was no way to know until it was too late.

  I opened the carriage door and climbed in.

  The ogre slammed the door behind me and then hoisted himself up to the bench. I heard a shout and the crack of a whip, and the carriage surged forward, flinging me back against the cushioned seat.

  I shouted, “Take me to my mother!”

  I felt a quick stab of guilt as we picked up our pace. Maybe it was wrong to leave an uprising I myself had inspired. But this was not my world, and I told myself that it was better to run away after victory than after defeat.

  Or maybe I couldn’t bear another day here, not with Raphael gone.

  As Ares’s castle receded behind us, I pulled the satin curtain from the window and tore it into long strips, which I wrapped around the palm I had bloodied in my fall. My dress was stiff with mud and gore, and I smelled like the pit at the bottom of a privy.

  The horses settled into their gait, moving quickly over the sand. Exhausted, I lay down on the bench. I didn’t cry—I couldn’t. I felt as if my heart had been carved out of my chest. But I slept then, as dreamless as the truly dead.

  Later I awoke to the lurching rattle of carriage wheels over rough road. We were in a forest of dark and numberless trees. Were these my mother’s woods? They looked different somehow. Grimmer, more desolate.

  I leaned my head out the window. “Are you going the right way? Take me to my mother!”

  The forest seemed to swallow up my voice, but the standing ogre, the one who swung his torch like a flail, turned back to me and sneered, his yellow teeth gleaming deadly sharp. “Shut up, stupid girl,” he hissed.

  The driver yanked the reins, the carriage swerved, and a branch slapped me hard in the face. I yelped and ducked back inside. As I wiped my bleeding cheek, I almost welcomed the pain. It was better than being wracked by grief.

  Far off thunder rumbled. The horses leaned into their harnesses, and thorny underbrush tore at the sides of the carriage. We swerved again, then turned down an even narrower track.

  We had been traveling for what seemed like hours, but the woods were endless. The night, too, seemed never-ending, and despair threatened to overwhelm me. But then we rounded another curve, and up ahead I saw bright squares of light, beaming golden through the trees.

  The windows of my mother’s cottage.

  CHAPTER 63

  The driver pulled the reins to slow the horses, and I leapt out of the carriage before it even stopped. In another moment I was at the cottage door, and then I was flinging it open and rushing inside.

  My mother stood shocked in the middle of the little room. “Sophia!” she cried. “I thought—”

  She broke off, hurrying toward me, her face so bright with relief that it glowed like a candle. She pulled me tight against her soft, strong body. “I can’t believe it, my precious daughter, you’ve come back.”

  She smelled like summer, like warmth and sunshine, and suddenly I was laughing and crying at the same time. Exhausted, dazzled, I said the first thing that came to mind. “I didn’t get any soup.”

  She wiped the tears from my filthy cheeks and looked at me in wonder. “Whatever do you mean?”

  I smiled. “Remember? The night I first saw you. You made soup, but they came for me before I could eat any.” I laid my head on her shoulder and tightened my arms around her. How could I explain what had happened, and what was still happening?

  “Are you all right?” my mother asked. “You’re bleeding.”

  The words came out in a rush. “Ares kidnapped me, and he said I had to marry one of his men, but I refused. Then there was a great battle, and the villagers stood with me against him. But Raphael was killed and I ran away, and somehow here I am again, and, Mother, I really don’t understand anything.”

  She held me for a long time before gently stepping away. “You will, child,” she said reassuringly. “We will talk. But first…” With a smile, she handed me a square of warm, damp linen, which I used to clean my face and hands. Then she took the cloth back, now bloody and dark with grime. “There, that’s better, isn’t it? And here, you must have something else to wear.” She draped a garment over the back of a chair.

  I disrobed and slipped into the homespun dress. The fabric was a soft gray wool, plain, with neither ornament nor lace. But it was comfortable and it fit me well. I held the ornate, stinking wedding gown over the fire. “May I?” I asked.

  “Even the pearls?” my mother asked, looking wistfully at the shimmering line of them.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Forgive me,” she said, smiling. “It’s been a long time since I have seen jewels of any sort.”

  “These are cursed,” I said. I let the dress fall from my fingers, and I watched as it turned black in the flames. “May the memories burn with it,” I said fiercely.

  “What need have you of jewels anyway?” my mother asked. “You are so beautiful the moon gleams white with envy.”

  I felt myself flush. My cut cheek burned. “Mother, please—”

  “Does it embarrass you to be so fair?” she asked, her smile even bigger now. “You must get used to it. I fear you have a lifetime of loveliness ahead of you.”

  My own smile was more wry. “If indeed I am alive,” I said.

  “Oh, child,” she said. Then she laughed. “Why am I still calling you child? You are grown now.” She brushed a strand of hair from my forehead. “And you have seen much—perhaps too much.”

  I thought of Reiper’s cruel eyes and the knife plunging into Raphael’s chest. “Things I wish I could unsee.”

  “You can tell me everything, my darling, and I will listen. But now is not the time.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked. “Why not?”

  “I wish you could stay,” she said. “I wish we could talk forever. But you must go home, Sophia. You are needed there.”

  “Home? Where is that, and how am I to get there? And if I must go, then come with me,” I begged. I couldn’t bear to leave her again.

  �
��I’m sorry,” she said. “But I can’t. Please, don’t look so sad, love. Please.”

  How could I hide my sadness? I had seen monsters, plague, and murder; I had watched the one I loved stabbed through the heart. And now I was supposed to say goodbye to my mother again, having been with her for only a matter of moments.

  My mother straightened up, her eyes bright, as if something had just occurred to her. “Wait a moment,” she said. She ducked outside the cottage, and when she came back in, her arms were full of flowers. Huge, perfect blooms of pink and yellow roses glowed as brightly as a sunset gathered into a bouquet. She placed the great pile of them on my lap, and I touched their velvety petals in awe.

  “They’re beautiful,” I exclaimed. “But how do they grow in a forest in winter?”

  “There is beauty—and there is hope—in wholly unexpected places,” she said. “That’s what these flowers tell us. And that is what you must try to remember.”

  “But I don’t understand,” I said stubbornly.

  “You don’t have to understand it,” she said. “You just have to believe it. Remember it. Trust it. Life is impossible to understand, isn’t it? And so, my child, it must simply be lived.”

  “But is this life?” I asked. “Or life after life? Or is it a dream? If it’s a dream, I want to stay sleeping. I want to stay here.”

  My mother took my hands in hers. “It is not a dream.”

  “But how can I be sure?”

  My mother’s smile grew wistful. “I see now. You don’t know if you can trust me. And why should that be surprising? When you were first born, I held you in my arms, and I promised you that no harm would ever come to you. And yet much harm already has. So why would you believe me when I tell you anything? The first words I spoke to you were a lie.”

  “Oh, Mother,” I began.