Sophia, Princess Among Beasts Page 19

  I felt the prickle of tears in my eyes. “You can walk me to my doom,” I whispered, touching his warm head gratefully. “I will be glad for the company.”

  I looked back at my castle for what was possibly the last time. A few torches flickered along its battlements, and they seemed as distant and as cold as the stars.

  I had to keep going. If I hesitated any more, I could not trust myself to go on. I skirted the perimeter of the camp, waking no one. Ahead of me I saw a large tent, and I felt that dark, familiar, terrible pull.

  For a moment I was still, taut as a bowstring, outside Reiper’s tent. Then I went in.

  CHAPTER 68

  Reiper was sitting on the edge of a low cot, his back to me. As I entered, a candle guttered and then flared back to life, and my shadow flickered on the musty cloth wall like a ghost.

  Reiper didn’t turn his head, but I could tell by the hard, tense line of his shoulders that he knew I was there. Maybe he’d even been expecting me.

  I could feel my heart’s wild thrumming and I willed it to slow. I understood what was necessary. My own mother had been given to my father—like a chest full of gold, or a herd of prized steeds—as a way to ally two kingdoms. Though their marriage was not born of love, they found it together. That was the great, astonishing gift of their luck.

  I knew that I would not be so fortunate, but I, too, would marry for an alliance. If my worst enemy—the man who killed my beloved father—would have me.

  I closed my eyes, steeling my nerve. And then I spoke. “Once you wanted me and I refused you.” My voice sounded strangled, as if the words were being wrenched from my throat.

  “I was wrong,” I went on, a little louder this time. I could see a vein in Reiper’s neck, pulsing quick and savage. “I was childish and I was wrong. And now I’ve come to say that I am yours if you still wish to have me. I will marry you this instant—we can go wake a priest. All I ask is that you stop the battle. Tell Ares that he has greater treasuries to plunder, grander kingdoms over which to stake his claim. You know this to be true.”

  Reiper still didn’t turn around. His breathing had changed, growing harsh and ragged. Was it rage—or was it desire?

  Either terrified me, but I would not run. My choice had already been made, and so I bowed my head and waited for his reply.

  I heard Reiper exhale sharply, and the candle blew out, plunging the tent into darkness. In another instant, he was behind me, and his hand was tight at my throat. I gasped as I felt the prick of the knife in my neck. It was a tiny point of white-hot pain, like the sting of a wasp.

  “I seem to remember this position,” Reiper whispered. “Holding you like this, just outside your bedroom…”

  I could actually hear him smile. A narrow trickle of blood began to slide down my skin, staining the pale silk of my mother’s gown.

  “It was right after I’d killed your father,” he went on. “What a fine night that was, to gut a king and then prick his daughter. Do you remember it as fondly as I do, Sophia?”

  I clenched my teeth together, willing myself to stay calm. This was what I had come for: to give myself to him, so that I might spare everyone else.

  This is what a queen would do.

  “I remember it,” I whispered, “though with sorrow rather than pleasure.”

  Reiper pulled me tighter against him. He wasn’t wearing his tooled leather armor, and I felt the heat of his body pressing against the whole length of mine. His free hand grabbed at my gown and pulled it up along my legs, and his fingers were hot and insistent against my skin.

  Then he whirled me around and flung me to the cot. I screamed but just as quickly clapped my hand over my mouth. I managed to sit up, but I couldn’t stand because he was in my way. He loomed over me, a darker shadow in the dark tent, pulsing with lust and malice.

  His calloused fingers tugged at the neckline of my gown. The fabric didn’t tear, but I heard the clatter of opals spilling to the ground. “I will have your dowry now,” he said.

  “You must promise,” I gasped. “You must promise to stop the battle.” I felt tears streaming hot down my cheeks. I wanted to leave my body, but I had to stay here, I had to do this.

  “Or what?” he said mockingly. He pushed me, hard, and I fell back along the cot again, and then he was above me, his weight crushing me. I’d never thought of hate having a smell, but it did. Hate had the smell of a murderer’s sweat, the scent of iron thrust into a forge, sharp and metallic, hot and cold at the same time.

  “Have I managed to silence that viper tongue of yours?” His hot breath was in my ear, and I tried not to grimace. His knee pressed its way between my legs while his other hand pulled the hem of my skirt again, shoving it up over my thighs.

  I gripped the sides of the cot so I wouldn’t push him off. This was my duty, I knew.

  Reiper pressed his fingers against my cheek. “Do you remember what I said to you that night?”

  Of course I did. But I kept my mouth shut, and I turned my face away from him.

  “Look at me,” he demanded. “Look me in the eyes.”

  When I stared into their dark emptiness, I felt my soul shriveling up, blackening, like paper tossed into a fire.

  “You must promise to stop the battle,” I said again.

  “I will make no such oath,” he hissed, working at his breeches with one hand, the other gripping my neck and face cruelly.

  Fear clawed at my heart. Stupid girl, I thought, you should have known this. For a terrifying moment, despair overwhelmed me.

  But I could not resign myself to this fate.

  I was queen.

  I need submit to no one.

  My hands moved as if of their own accord, and suddenly I was reaching into the bodice of my dress, and I was pushing him away. My fingers found the little dagger I’d placed close to my breast and tightened on the handle.

  “I will never be yours,” I whispered, as I thrust it up and slashed it into his chest.

  Reiper sprang back, cursing, a red gash open just beneath his collarbone. He looked at me in shock for a second, and then he lunged. I scrambled backward, but he caught my foot and yanked me toward him. I kicked as I fell, and I felt my boot smash into the side of his face, but he didn’t even seem to feel it. He picked me up off the bed and threw me to the ground. Then he started kicking me.

  I curled up protectively as the blows rained all over. Somewhere in the back of my mind I was aware of how much it hurt. But all I could think of was how badly I wanted to survive. I didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of killing two of Bandon’s rulers.

  Blindly I slashed at Reiper’s legs with my dagger, and I must have made contact because the blows stopped and he took a few steps backward. I managed to get to my feet and run for the tent opening. I knew he was right behind me; I could almost feel his fingers in my hair.

  And so I turned around and threw myself at him, and as I did, my right hand arced up from below, and the blade I held plunged into the hard curve of his neck.

  For a moment, we both held utterly still in shock. And then Reiper’s lifeblood began streaming down on my hand. There was so much of it, and it flowed out in throbbing spurts. He staggered backward, clutching madly at his gushing wound. His body convulsed and he gasped. Then he fell over onto the ground, and I heard the wet, gurgling sounds of dying. I held the knife, slick with blood, above his chest for a moment. “You like a dull knife,” I said. “I prefer a sharp one.” I plunged the weapon into his heart, and I then twisted it. “That was for my father.” Reiper moaned, and I stabbed him in the stomach, ripping the blade across. “And that was for Raphael.”

  This time he made no sound at all.

  CHAPTER 69

  At first light, I went to Ares’s tent unarmed. As the sun rose pale and cold over the distant hills, I knelt on the rocky ground and waited. The chill seeped into my bones, and my knees began to ache. I didn’t move, though: I wanted Ares to know that I came in abjection. Supplication. Not a queen so much a
s a beggar, in a torn and bloody wedding dress.

  A harpy stretched her vast black wings and rose heavily into the bleak blue air. I heard a horse whicker and a soldier curse. Otherwise the camp was quiet; the men still slept. And then, like an evil whisper, I heard a blade drawn from its scabbard.

  The hairs rose on the back of my exposed neck. I held my breath and did not move. I knew that Ares stood above me, but I didn’t dare look up at him.

  “Look me in the eye so you can watch me kill you,” Ares said.

  This was harder than anything—to keep my eyes on the ground, to quell the rage I felt. I wanted this fight. But I knew I couldn’t have it, not without destroying all that I knew and loved.

  “Once, you must have understood compassion,” I began.

  “I am unfamiliar with the word,” Ares said. “And though I do know what patience is, I have little of it at the moment. Not when a head is simply begging to be severed from its small, white neck.”

  “I live even now because of your mercy,” I said, trying not to flinch. “And I beg you to find more of it within you. When I came to you before, on behalf of my own life, you rightly sent me away. Now I come to you as a ruler of many, on behalf of their lives. They have no quarrel with you. What right have I to tell these people to die?”

  A laugh bubbled up from his sinewy throat. “Do you not know, Your Highness? That is precisely what rulers are supposed to do! Certainly your father had no trouble marching his men into combat. He always left a good portion of them behind, too, their guts spilling onto the battlefield as they cried for their mothers like lost children.”

  “But the lion should not bother with the mouse,” I said. “You are too powerful to—”

  “I am not interested in metaphor and poetry, girl,” Ares said roughly. “You’re the one who likes books so much. Need I remind you that you lived as my guest? You ate my bread and meat. And with every breath you took, you deceived me. This is not a game. You may not simply begin again. You set us upon a path, and we will follow it to the end.”

  My desperation grew. Everything hung on this moment. “All that you seek will be yours,” I said. “I will open the gatehouse to the castle. You may have our gold, our silver, whatever spoils you seek. I will give it all to you, so you do not have to take it by force.” I gestured toward Bandon Castle, squatting dark and gray on the other side of the moat. It had seemed so grand to me once. And now it seemed but a small stronghold, one man’s insufficient attempt to keep the night and wilderness and violence at bay.

  Ares leaned upon his sword as if it were a walking stick, and then he picked it up and looked at it fondly. “Steel needs blood to keep it strong,” he said. “Didn’t your father teach you that?”

  I said, “That’s not what he believed.”

  I felt Ares’s gaze on my skin, as cold as crackling ice. “Oh, really? I think you’re wrong. But he’s dead now, so no matter.”

  “I ask not for myself,” I said. “I beg for everyone else. I do not think fathers should see axes cleave their sons in two. I do not want a man to watch his neighbor shot through with an arrow. I will not have the head of a child soldier, in insufficient armor, bashed in by a flail. Your men fight for gold and they seek blood. But my people do not wish to fight. All the villagers want is to live.” The tears flowed down my cheeks now, and my throat ached with sorrow. “All they ask for is the chance to plant seeds in the spring and to harvest them in summer; to raise animals and children and to sleep at night in peace. To dream something beautiful and to rise in the morning, and to work all day to make that dream come true.”

  Ares’s gaze flicked away from mine and traced the silvery line of the River Lathe.

  Follow that river back home, I silently urged. Turn around and go, laden with every jewel from our coffers, every last piece of gleaming gold.

  I sensed a shift in the air around us—a loosening. I watched, holding my breath, as Ares’s hand fell away from the hilt of his sword. And I waited, as Florence had, for his words of mercy. I sensed them on his lips. I bowed my head.

  When I could bear the silence no more, I dared glance up at him. I was still on my knees.

  And I saw that he was staring at me. I watched in horror as his lip curled and his face contorted itself in dark and infinite hatred.

  “I would sooner rip the heart from your chest with my fingers,” he said.

  I pulled down the bodice of my dress, revealing naked skin that prickled with gooseflesh in the cold. “Do it, then,” I dared him, “if it means you’ll leave my people alone.”

  He took a step toward me, livid, deadly.

  I braced myself for the pain—it was the only thing I could do. But then Ares started, looking up and behind me, and I watched his expression change from rage into disbelief.

  Turning, I staggered to my feet. A hundred yards away, with only open meadow between us, was another army. An army of men—beasts—villagers.

  And Raphael was at its head.

  CHAPTER 70

  There was no time to shout. No time to wonder—or rejoice—that Raphael was alive. In that moment of Ares’s surprise, I struck, stabbing at him with a metal tent stake I had yanked from the ground.

  Dodging my attack, he stumbled, and for an instant the advantage was mine. I thrust again, trying to sink the spike into the gap beneath his breastplate. But as I pulled back, he kicked the stake from my grip and sent it spinning behind me. I faced him, my teeth bared in fury, with nothing now but my bare hands.

  Ares’s knights and soldiers streamed past us, rushing forward to meet Raphael’s army. Shouts rang out, metal clanged, body thundered against body.

  “Before I join the fun,” Ares said, his eyes glittering with cruel pleasure, “let’s see about that heart of yours.”

  “Sacrifice does me no good now,” I said, backing away from him. “The battle I sought to avoid has begun. So will you kill me, unarmed, as a coward would? Or will you give me a weapon?”

  A faint smile seemed to twitch at the corner of his mouth. Keeping his eyes locked on mine, Ares reached behind him into the tent and produced another blade, which he tossed onto the ground in front of me. The scabbard, encrusted with rubies and onyx, was more ornate than any crown. I began to reach for it and then stopped.

  Ares sensed my misgivings. “Go on,” he said. “I’m not going to hit you while you’re reaching for it.”

  My hand darted out, and Ares’s sword flashed down, missing my arm by a hair’s breadth.

  “I lied,” he said.

  I glared at him. “If you want a fair fight, let me pick up my weapon.”

  “You could have all the weapons in the world, and it still wouldn’t be fair,” Ares said. “Considering your size, your inexperience, and your sex.”

  “Are you going to let me get the sword or not?” I asked through clenched teeth.

  Ares bowed mockingly. “Of course, Your Highness.”

  I bent down and took up the sword, pulling it from its scabbard. It was too long for me and far too heavy. But there was nothing to be done about it. I would have to fight with what I had, and with a desperation like I’d never felt before. I tightened my fingers at the hilt. I’d practically need two hands to even lift the blade.

  Ares watched my struggle with amusement.

  Do not think, Odo had always said to me. Let your wrist lead you; let it tell your body what to do. How well he had trained me in flinging knives with the safety of distance, and how little he had taught me of killing up close.

  I ran at Ares, slashing maniacally. My blade rang off his armor, and he fell against the tent—he’d not been expecting such a sudden attack. But in falling, he swept a leg underneath mine and knocked me off balance. I stumbled and went down to my knees, catching myself before I sprawled flat. He was already upright, and as I tried to scrabble out of the way, he brought the hilt of his sword down onto my temple.

  Blinding white light flared in front of my eyes and pain exploded in my head, tearing through every
inch of my body. I rolled over and curled into a tight ball of agony. I tried to get to my hands and knees, but the movement made me dizzy. Chest heaving, blind with pain, I heard Ares laughing above me.

  I knew then that I was going to die. It’s all right, I told myself. You’ve died before. You can do it again.

  I heard Ares’s blade whistling down. I braced myself for it to fall on my neck. But it didn’t strike my body. It rang against another sword.

  CHAPTER 71

  A dagger dropped to the ground in front of me. Through streaming eyes I looked up and saw Raphael thrust his chin at me—pick it up! the gesture said.

  “Watch out,” I gasped, as Ares swung at him and Raphael leapt back. The blade sliced only air, and Ares cursed under his breath.

  Grabbing the knife, I crawled out of the way and, holding on to the front of the tent, I pulled myself to standing. Black spots swam before my eyes and everything around me pulsed and glowed as if ringed by fire. But I took a deep breath and gathered my strength.

  Only a few arms’ lengths away, Raphael struck at Ares like a madman, his sword swinging so quickly my eyes could barely follow it. His shirt was torn to rags and blood flowed from a cut on his brow, streaming down his face. Ares, who was neither tired nor wounded, barely moved to defend himself; with just flicks of his wrist, he deflected each of Raphael’s blows.

  I lifted my sword and staggered forward, lurching toward them, so dizzy I had to use my sword to help me stand.

  “Raphael, this is my fight,” I shouted.

  “Actually,” Ares called, “it’s mine. But it’ll be over in just a moment.”

  Then he began his attack. His flashing blade pushed Raphael backward, past the edge of the camp and into the high dead grass that bordered the river.

  I screamed as Ares struck Raphael on the side of the head with the flat of his sword, and Raphael crumpled to the ground. Unsteady still, I ran toward them as fast as I could. Was I to watch him die again? I couldn’t bear it. I wouldn’t bear it.