Sophia, Princess Among Beasts Read online

  But a moment later, Raphael staggered to his feet and stood, half hunched in agony, but still holding his blade.

  “Raphael,” I shrieked. “Leave him to me.”

  He shook his head and pain twisted his features. “Run, Sophia,” he commanded.

  Do not enter the fray too early, he’d said to me in Ares’s courtyard. Run, he said now.

  But I was done listening to him. I was his queen.

  I went at Ares like an animal, my scream bloodcurdling and horrible. I struck him from behind with my sword, and when he turned to face me I hit him across the face with a smoldering branch from the night’s bonfires. Then I darted away, daring him to chase me.

  Ares paused, and his icy eyes bored into mine. Behind him, Raphael, chest heaving, swayed toward him. He could barely even lift his sword.

  “You’re surrounded, Ares,” I said.

  Ares threw back his head and laughed. “By a princess and a peasant,” he spat. Blood trickled from the cut on his cheek, and he wiped it away with the back of his hand. “This is the most fun I’ve had in years.”

  He advanced upon me and I gripped my sword, bracing myself for his attack. Don’t think. Let your wrists tell you what to do. But then Ares turned and ran toward Raphael.

  Shouting with rage, I chased him, my head blazing with pain.

  We were two against one, and despite the strength of our foe I thought we had a chance. But we were like gnats worrying at a hawk. Ares wasn’t clumsy like Balor or slow like El Cuchillo. He fought with a cold, quiet brutality, his blade fast and his step light.

  Suddenly the air was full of wild, piercing shrieks. I looked up and saw huge black wings unfolding in the sky above Raphael. The harpy swooped over him, then turned and came back, plummeting downward, her outstretched claws raking Raphael’s shoulders before she shot upward again.

  Ares used that moment to attack. His sword slashed across Raphael’s chest, opening a line of red, and Raphael went down to his knees. His head bowed, and he did not lift it up. It looked like he was praying—perhaps begging—for his life. And I knew how Ares felt about mercy.

  CHAPTER 72

  Ares towered over him, a ghastly smile on his face. The shadow of the harpy passed over me as I ran toward them. I ducked, but her claws caught my hair, yanking a black coil from my head. My scalp burned as I jumped up, swinging my sword in an arc over my head. I felt the blade make contact.

  The harpy shrieked as dark, iridescent feathers swirled down through the air. I’d shorn off part of her tail. Rudderless now, she swerved as she descended, nearly crashing into Ares, who sidestepped out of her path. The harpy, scenting blood on Raphael, landed and advanced on him. Struggling to his feet, he looked quickly between her and Ares, not certain who in that moment was the worse threat.

  “Blood,” the harpy cawed. “Blood, hot blood.”

  Raphael swung wildly at the creature, who lifted a few feet from the ground and then landed again, still shrieking. Forced to continue his retreat toward the banks of the River Lathe, Raphael breathed in awful, ragged gasps. His face was red with blood, his ripped shirt stained with it. Soon he’d come to the river’s edge, and there would be nowhere else to go.

  Ares watched thoughtfully. “Only a fool would come between a harpy and her breakfast,” he said, almost to himself. “I suppose I shall let her do the killing for me.”

  I charged. Ares heard me coming, and he turned, lifting his sword to meet mine with a clash that shook me to my bones.

  I quickly retreated, hopping from foot to foot—a moving target. “Come on, then,” I jeered, “worry about the work of killing me.”

  Ares’s lips parted in a slow, ugly smile. “Why are you suddenly prancing around like a pony? Is that how you queens think one is supposed to fight?”

  I didn’t answer; I kept up my mad dance, my sword and dagger scissoring in the air.

  When I’d first begged Odo to teach me to use a sword—and when he had at first refused—I’d grabbed a broom from the courtyard and brandished it at his face. How crazily I’d slashed, leaping back and forth like a lunatic rabbit, and Odo had laughed until tears came to his eyes. If that’s the way you attack, he’d said, trying hard to compose himself, your opponent will chop you in half before you can say Bandon Castle.

  But my ploy had worked. He’d shown me how to hold a weapon, how to keep my stance steady, how to strike hard with a simple, well-timed blow. How to aim for flesh, not armor.

  And that day I learned a lesson Odo hadn’t even meant to teach me: though warriors praised a show of strength, the appearance of weakness could serve its own purpose.

  Ares took a step toward me, and I sliced at the air with my dagger. Then I feinted, making a fake sword thrust at his chest and leaping back again. My legs felt as heavy as lead, but I kept up the hopping, skittering footwork, a weapon in each hand. Despite the cold air, sweat ran down my forehead, stinging my eyes.

  “You’re going to wear yourself out,” Ares said. He sighed. “It’s a pity to kill you, really, when no doubt you could be taught a thing or two. You’re quite quick for a girl. You’ll never make a decent swordsman, of course, but you could be an excellent court fool.”

  I heard another shriek from the river’s edge, and I dared but a quick glance toward Raphael. The first harpy had been joined by her ravening sister, and Raphael now made his stand between them, cutting at their feathered breasts, holding them off but not driving them away. There was a new bloody gash along his brow.

  Hold on, Raphael, I thought. This time I’m going to be the one to save you.

  “Pay attention,” Ares said, swiping at me. “Death is coming.”

  I dodged the strike, but barely, and as I did I turned my ankle. A new flash of pain shot through me, but I ignored it. I slashed at Ares’s face and missed. No matter: I wasn’t really trying yet. I wanted him to think me weak. To think he could kill me with his eyes closed.

  He swung with the flat of his sword, and it slammed into my ribs, staggering me backward. “That hurt, didn’t it?” he asked.

  It did. Everything hurt. I gave him more ground, stumbling backward. This was nothing like fighting Raphael or Odo, and I didn’t know how much longer I could last.

  Just get him close, I thought, and then strike.

  Ares circled me slowly, his face half smile, half scowl. His sword came swinging at me, but I parried the blow. My head was ringing, my vision blurred.

  Now. I had to attack now.

  I lunged forward, my blade slicing through the air. I felt it connect with flesh. But Ares, too, had struck, and his sword sliced deep into my stomach. At first I felt nothing but surprise. I dropped my dagger and pressed my hand over the wound, just as pain began searing through it. Blood soaked through my dress. I fell to my knees and looked up at Ares in shock.

  He stood over me, triumphant. And though he could have killed me right then, he didn’t. Instead, he watched me gasp, cry, and try to hold the blood inside me, knowing that it wouldn’t work. This wasn’t mercy—this was sadistic pleasure.

  “Don’t you remember what I told you about your little friend the pig?” he asked softly. “We do not hide from suffering, girl. We embrace it. We relish it.”

  My only weapons now were words. “Speaking of suffering, I killed him,” I panted. Scalding waves of pain radiated up and down my entire body. I felt like I was burning.

  Ares frowned. “Who?”

  “Reiper.”

  “You couldn’t have.”

  Proudly I lifted my head. It felt as heavy as a boulder. “And yet I did.”

  His face twisted in anger as he stepped toward me. “That is unfortunate,” he almost whispered. “But I’ve done the same for you, haven’t I?” He gestured toward the wound in my stomach.

  The world spun around me. The pain burned, but the rest of me was cold, and the sticky wetness of my dress repulsed me. The black spots had almost taken over my vision. I pitched forward and landed on the ground.

  Maybe h
e had killed me, but I had one last hope: I’d fallen over the dagger, lying where I’d dropped it just moments before. Looming above me now, Ares seemed as tall as a mountain.

  “It is unfortunate that things had to end this way,” he said. But his tone was not of regret, but of relish. “I had hoped to see you wed to one of my men, and now I will watch you slowly die, alone.”

  My heart was pounding harder than any drum. “Have mercy,” I sobbed. “It hurts. Please—kill me now.”

  Ares hesitated.

  “I’m ready to die,” I gasped. “I’ve done it before.”

  Leering, Ares stepped closer and lifted his sword over my head. But before he got to the top of his swing, I rolled quickly to the side, crying out as my wound twisted, and I flung my knife hand out. I made a mad, desperate slash, and my blade severed the tendon at the back of Ares’s heel.

  Bellowing in pain and rage, Ares fell, cursing, to the ground, and I scrabbled forward on hands and knees to meet him where he landed, and with the last ounce of strength I had in me, I shoved the thin, sharp tip of my knife deep underneath his left arm.

  Ares’s eyes went wide as blood began pouring out from beneath his armor.

  “You were right, Ares,” I gasped. “Death is coming, but not for me. How does it feel to be struck down by a mere girl? You can’t fix a mortal wound—what was it you said about embracing suffering?”

  Ares was trying to take off his chest plate to better reach his wound. “A lucky strike,” he grunted. “Better than I would have expected from the likes of you. But I’ll recover—”

  “You won’t,” I said firmly. “Odo taught me.” My eyesight had become a tunnel, and I could hear blood rushing through my veins, spilling out of my own wound. “But don’t worry, it won’t take you too long to die. I’ll keep you company while you go.”

  Ares’s skin had gone very white. The color seemed to have drained even from his eyes. “This should have been you,” he whispered. “Soaking the ground with your lifeblood. I don’t understand…”

  I felt my own strength fading. “You don’t have to understand. You just have to believe.” I lay down in the dirt not far from his prone body. “My mother told me that,” I whispered.

  He turned to face me, his breaths coming quick and shallow.

  I looked in his eyes, once ice-blue and now glazing to gray. “You once told me that Bandon Castle needed a ruler on its throne,” I gasped. The burning was starting to consume me. “What you didn’t realize was that it already had one.”

  One last spurt of blood. One last exhale. His gaze, now fixed on nothing.

  “Me.”

  I closed my eyes.

  CHAPTER 73

  First, I was aware only of darkness. After that came the pain—an insistent, pulsing ache deep in my stomach, burning like I’d swallowed coals. Moaning, I struggled to open my eyes. When I did, it seemed as if the darkness had barely abated. I was lying in a bed, in a small room, with a flickering fire and the smell of smoke from damp, green wood.

  Again, I thought. It seemed I was always waking somewhere, weak and confused. And where was I this time?

  “Hello?” I whispered.

  I heard the sound of feet swishing through rushes, the rustle of fabric, and a sharp intake of breath.

  “Sophia,” someone whispered.

  I saw only a shadowy human outline. “Who are you? Where am I?”

  “Oh, my dear, one moment—” The shadow moved away, I heard more rustling, and then bright light struck me in the face like a blade.

  I gasped, blinking in the sudden brilliance, and then I saw my own Jeanette, beaming down at me in a room now lit with golden morning light. She placed the tapestry that had been covering the window onto a low wooden bench and hurried to my side.

  “Where am I?” I asked again. “What happened?”

  “You are in Sacheverell’s chambers. There was a battle, Your Highness,” Jeanette said softly. “Do you remember? Here, take a draught of this.”

  She held a cup to my lips, and I tried to raise my head enough to take a sip. It was warm and extremely bitter. I coughed, a white-hot burst of pain shot through me, and I cried out, clutching my stomach. “What is that?”

  “I’m sorry, Your Highness, but it will help. It’s mulberry juice, betony, and henbane.”

  Henbane—this was what they’d given my father on his deathbed. “Am I dying?” I asked.

  “No, you are healing,” Jeanette said. “The henbane eases the pain.”

  I spoke through clenched teeth. “It’s not working.”

  “You must give it a moment,” Jeanette said, smiling in sympathy.

  I closed my eyes against the pain. But the moment I did, awful images rushed in: my hands wet with Reiper’s blood, the tip of Ares’s sword slicing into my stomach. I saw the harpies, too—shrieking, hungry, and closing in on Raphael. Quickly I opened my eyes again.

  “Am I truly alive?” I whispered.

  “That you are,” Jeanette said firmly.

  “And is Ares truly dead?”

  “Yes, my Queen,” Jeanette said. “You yourself killed him, don’t you remember?”

  “I don’t think I was awake for the last part,” I admitted.

  “You are a hero,” she said. “And to think I used to worry you for not playing the harp! You wield a sword as well as your father did, it seems.” She gave a little hiccupping cough and began to cry. “Oh, but you gave us such a terrible fright.”

  “Prop me up,” I said, but I gasped in anguish as she did so.

  “I will call for Sacheverell,” she said. “He is right—”

  “I don’t need him,” I said. “I’m fine.”

  But Sacheverell had heard us somehow, and suddenly there he was, his ghastly gray face triumphant. He bent, put his long-fingered hand on my forehead, and smiled proudly. “The fever is gone, Your Highness, and the wound cauterized,” he said. “You need only rest now.”

  A familiar red beard appeared over Sacheverell’s shoulder, and then Odo was pushing him out of the way, followed by Elodie and Adelie, who rushed into the tiny chamber.

  “Out,” Jeanette yelped. “She is hardly fit for such company!”

  But I had thought I would never see any of these beloved faces again, and I could not bear to have them sent away now. “Let them stay,” I said, smiling. “Please.”

  Jeanette sighed and acquiesced, but she hurried to shut the door so that no one else could enter.

  I turned to my father’s most loyal knight. “What happened, Odo? How am I saved?”

  I did not ask about the fate of Raphael. It seemed impossible that he could have cheated death again. But until I was actually given the news, it did not have to be real. “Are we victorious?” I asked.

  Odo smiled through his beard. “So you would like me to tell you of your great feats, is that it? Well, you have certainly earned your praise. You slew Reiper in the dead of night and Ares the following day.” Then he shook his head in seeming wonder. “I cannot have taught you that well, so how you managed it—how you bested such warriors—well, you will have to tell me someday.”

  I felt myself flush at his words. “But what of the armies?” I asked.

  “When news of Ares’s death spread to his troops, they scattered,” he said.

  “Like sheep,” Adelie crowed.

  “They lit the fields on fire,” Elodie said. “The trees burned like torches.”

  Jeanette whirled around. “Hush, girls,” she hissed.

  “Ares’s men were mercenaries,” Odo went on, “and suddenly the man who’d promised to pay them was dead. So Elodie is right. They lit what they could on fire, and they vanished in the smoke.” A flicker of a smile twitched in the corner of his mouth. “And, seeing that Ares’s throne suddenly stood empty, no doubt there was a rush to find out who was strong enough to claim it.” His smile grew fuller. “May they all kill one another off in trying,” he added.

  “And how am I saved?”

  “It is a m
iracle that you are alive,” Odo said. “Your father’s hound, Dogo, found you, and then he led Sacheverell to you.” He shot a grateful look at the old doctor. “There are few but he who could have saved you,” he said, and Sacheverell bowed to us both.

  I took a long, careful breath. My wound still throbbed, but less so now. I couldn’t believe that it was over. That we had survived, almost all of us.

  But what of Raphael?

  The door began to swing open, and Jeanette jumped up to shut it again. I saw her place her hands on the wood, and then I saw her face go white with shock.

  CHAPTER 74

  Who—,” I began, just as Jeanette sank to her knees with a sharp cry.

  At first I thought she’d been struck. Did an enemy somehow remain in the castle? I tried to get up, but I fell gasping back against the pillow. It took me a moment to gather myself, and when I opened my eyes again, I saw—

  My mother, standing over my sickbed. Alive. Smiling. Right here, in real life.

  Odo dropped to his knees, and Jeanette nearly fainted. And Elodie and Adelie looked at her in wonder: they didn’t know who she was. I heard the sound of weeping.

  But suddenly I felt afraid. Maybe Sacheverell and Jeanette had lied to me, and I really was dying. Maybe my mother was a ghost, and she had come to take me back to her cottage in the endless forest. To life after life. To the Beyond.

  “Are we going, Mother?” I said, reaching out to her. “It’ll be all right if I get to stay with you.”

  The sun, shining through the window behind her, seemed to gild her dark head like a crown. “We’re not going anywhere, Sophia,” she said firmly, grasping my hand in hers. With the other, she gestured to the meager room, to all my attendants who still knelt in the rushes. “This is where we belong.”

  I reached out to touch her dress. I could feel its soft fabric, and even now, Odo was bringing over a stool so my mother could sit. How could this be true?

  “You are really, really here?”