Sophia, Princess Among Beasts Page 9

  “This cannot be,” I said, louder now. “You are—I don’t understand—I refuse to—”

  “Come, come,” Florence urged, leading me to a heavy carved chair to the right of Ares’s throne.

  I felt as if all the air had been sucked from the room. There was no way to breathe. Standing before me, a goblet of wine in his hand, was the man who had vowed to destroy my castle, my family, and my entire kingdom.

  And perhaps he already had.

  I swayed on my feet. Was I dead, but Ares alive? Did he exist in two worlds at once? Would this nightmare ever stop getting worse?

  “Sit, Sophia,” Florence said, as if I were a dog.

  Ignoring her, I stared at my captor, hoping in vain that his stony features would offer up some answers. Ares held my gaze, his own look so triumphant and cold that I shivered as if I stood in snow. Finally I could look no longer. My eyes fell to the long, oaken table before me, the surface of which had been scarred by knives and stained with wine. Or blood. Though the table could have accommodated fifty men, there were only two place settings: one for me, and one for my enemy.

  “I thought we might enjoy a fine meal together,” he said. “As proof of my hospitality, fair princess.”

  “I am queen.” I tried to put iron in my voice, but I heard it falter at the last word. I did not want to be queen—I wanted my father to be alive and for this nightmare to be over.

  Ares smirked. “What is your pleasure, Princess?” he asked.

  I shook my head, my mind still reeling. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Florence backing away. I tried to grab her sleeve. “Don’t leave me,” I pleaded.

  But she curtsied, turned, and hurried out of the hall.

  Ares hardly gave her a look. “Well?” he asked me.

  I gripped the back of the chair for strength and steeled my will. I would not give into him, I promised myself. I would fight back if I could—even if it was just with words. “There is no pleasure for me here,” I said quietly.

  “Oh, don’t be so quick to judge,” Ares said. “I’m sure you’ll find my keep very hospitable.”

  “If you are to show me hospitality, then let me go,” I said, my voice stronger now. “Set me free from this hellish place, in whatever world this is. Send me back to my home, so that I may look after my people.”

  Ares pressed his hand against his heart and smiled. “You are the most charming creature when distressed,” he said. “Your cheeks grow so pink! And indeed, you may ask me for many things. But that, my dear, is not one of them. I cannot let you go back to your charming little castle by the River Lathe. I have brought you here for a very special reason, which we will shortly discuss. In the meantime, have a seat.”

  I hesitated.

  “Now.”

  His tone warned me that I should not disobey. So I sank down to the chair—but not before I swept my place setting to the floor, where it landed in a heap on the rushes. A childish act, I knew. But wasn’t I as powerless as a little girl?

  Ares looked on with chilly amusement. “I see your father didn’t teach you basic civilities.”

  I stiffened. “Don’t speak of my father,” I said.

  Ares shrugged, unperturbed. “Another time, then. He was an interesting man, wasn’t he? A warrior king who suddenly set down his swords, all for a silly girl. Did you know it would doom him, Princess?”

  The words hit me like stones. So he knew it, too: my girlish wish had killed my father. And if Bandon fell, that fault was mine. I bowed my head. What could I say to him? We both understood my guilt.

  Ares stepped close to where I sat, bringing with him the chill smell of snow. “So you don’t want to talk, my pretty guest? I was hoping for a pleasant chat to learn more about you. But if you will not cooperate, there are others to entertain me.”

  He rang a huge brass bell, and the great iron doors shrieked open again. An army of knights poured in, shedding battle armor as they came and throwing their weapons down to the floor.

  “Of course, they are not as pleasant to look at as you are,” Ares said.

  My mind reeled as I watched them advance.

  I knew them—every single one.

  CHAPTER 31

  Welcome, friends!” Ares cried. He turned back to me, and his voice grew confidential. “That’s a term I use loosely, of course. When one consorts with monsters and murderers, the bonds of friendship are weaker than a thread of spider’s silk.”

  I couldn’t speak, so overwhelmed was I by whom and what I saw. And I couldn’t say who produced the bigger shock—Ares, or these fictitious monsters.

  “I do hope you’ll begin to develop and nurture the art of conversation while you’re my guest, Sophia,” Ares said. “Otherwise you will not earn your keep. Now, shall I make the introductions? Everyone is very eager to meet you.”

  He pointed first to a giant: a man nine feet tall at least, with hulking shoulders, a brutal slab of a face, and a massive closed eye in the middle of his forehead. “That’s Balor—we call him the Smiter—and you’d better hope he keeps that eye shut, or else we’ll all burn like twigs.”

  Balor bowed solemnly at me. He looked just as if he’d stepped from the pages of my book of monsters.

  “And next, meet Hasshaku Sama, whose pastime is kidnapping children. We don’t know what she does with them, but I expect it’s unpleasant.”

  A pale, willowy woman, dressed all in white and almost as tall as Balor, glanced disinterestedly in my direction. “The girl is too old for my taste,” she hissed. Her voice was like wind over dead grass.

  “Then, of course, we have Seth, god of violence, Mordred the Traitor, and El Cuchillo, whose hands sprout knife blades upon his command. Have you met him before? He seems to like you.”

  Seth’s jackal head inclined in my direction as his forked tail lashed. Shifty-eyed Mordred ignored me completely—but at least he looked human. So did El Cuchillo, who tossed his cape to the floor and blew me a lewd kiss.

  I looked away—I didn’t want to see any more of them. I knew all of them from Myths: Demons and Monsters. I knew their histories, their secrets, their deceits. But I had never imagined that I would see them in the flesh.

  Is this what life after life would be for me? Kept like a pet in a castle full of villains?

  “Pay attention now, Sophia,” Ares said, snapping his fingers. “Why are you shivering? No one’s going to bite you… not today, anyway. And we’re not done meeting everyone. The Ekhidna’s outside—we don’t let her in; she’s not housebroken—but here is two-headed Hesia. Make sure to say hello to both of her faces, or else one will get jealous, and that never ends well. And here’s the demon Zozo—don’t worry, I won’t let him sit next to you.”

  Zozo, whose eyes were pools of blackness in his ghastly white face, slid into the corner of the room, silent and malevolent.

  “And of course we have Reiper.”

  When I turned toward him, a terrible chill passed through me. Though in appearance, Reiper was no different than any other man, I could feel a pulsing, inhuman evil emanating from him, filling the air like a stench. He was handsome—beautiful, almost—with chiseled cheekbones and a cruel, sensual mouth. He bowed low, his body rippling with hard muscle.

  Ares clapped his hands sharply. “Now that we are all introduced, let the servants bring us meat!”

  The knights cheered as a hunched lizard in a bloody apron skittered forward from the shadows. In his arms he held a wriggling young pig, which he held out to Ares.

  Ares produced a knife, the gleaming tip of which he pointed toward me. “Ready, Sophia?” he asked. And then, in a movement so quick I didn’t even have time to cry out, he plunged the knife into the animal’s stomach. He hoisted the poor thing, squealing in agony, high into the air.

  “I don’t know how much you know about cooking,” he said. “Probably nothing at all, since you are a princess and not a scullery maid. So let me enlighten you. The best way to keep meat fresh, my dear, is to keep it alive until you want to ea
t it.”

  CHAPTER 32

  Ares swung his arm down and thrust the stuck pig into the licking flames of the fireplace. Its piercing squeals grew even more excruciating. I tried to cover my ears, but Ares shook his head at me.

  “In this castle we do not hide from suffering, girl,” he said darkly. “We embrace it.”

  His terrible knights were deaf to the animal’s screams. They found their seats and drained their wine goblets as if they’d not seen a drop of liquid for weeks.

  I was crying now, hot tears streaming down my face.

  “She weeps over a pig!” Ares exclaimed to his knights. “When her own villagers squirmed on their deathbeds like maggots in dung—oh, the irony is rich indeed. Did you cry for your people, Princess, or were you busy having your cheeks powdered and your hair plaited? Were you writing a pretty song? Were you trying and failing to play the harp?”

  Furiously, I wiped my tears on my sleeve. The pig’s squeals were growing weaker.

  “Anyway,” Ares said to me, his voice almost gentle now, “the fellow in the fire won’t be ready until dinner. By then you’ll be over your sadness and you can slice right into him. He’ll be delicious.”

  “I’ll do no such thing,” I said.

  “Oh, delight, our guest speaks again.”

  I hunched my shoulders and turned away. I would neither eat nor speak on his command.

  “Here—have a sweet,” Ares said. “What, you won’t take it? That is a strategy that works only on children.” He laughed. “Of course, you’re practically still a child yourself, which is a large part of your rather limited appeal. The older queens get, the more ornery they become. By twenty they are good for little but target practice.”

  I shivered, and someone—or something—draped a fur coverlet around my shoulders. Pride told me to shake it off, but I was too cold.

  More beastly waiters shuffled in, bearing great golden platters of meat. The knights stabbed the giant slabs of flesh with their daggers, bringing bloody hunks straight to their mouths without even bothering to make a stop at their plates.

  “And he talks to me about my manners,” I muttered, watching Seth gnawing on gristle like a dog and grease rolling down Balor’s chin.

  “What’s that, my blue-eyed captive?” Ares said. “Speak up.”

  But of course I would not.

  “You are an unwilling enchantress, I see that. Well, you will come to like us yet,” Ares said. “Or else…”

  I spoke through clenched teeth. “I would rather be starving in Bandon’s dungeon than fed in your finest hall.”

  Ares sighed and turned to his army of monsters. “Would anyone else care to try their conversational luck with this she-cat? She is not pleasing to me at the moment.”

  “Come sit beside me, pretty thing,” called El Cuchillo. “I promise you, I am very charming.”

  Hasshaku Sama whispered, in her voice of dry leaves, “Tell us a story, Princess.”

  Zozo gazed at me with eyes as black as space and beckoned me toward him with a long, skeletal finger.

  Mordred’s eyes glittered. “You are fairer than an angel. Perhaps you sing like one. Come sit on my lap and sing me a song.”

  Through force of will, I had managed to stop shivering. I drew the cloak closer around me and remained silent. I would not go to anyone.

  Then Balor rose, stalked over to my side of the table, and placed a bowl full of brandy in front of me. “A game, then, Princess,” he said. “Look into the bowl. Do you see the gold coin?”

  Because he was nine feet tall, with fists bigger than my own head, I thought it wise to answer him. “Yes,” I said. A fat gold coin, embossed with a raven’s claw, shimmered brightly at the bottom of the bowl.

  “Good.” Then he opened his great eye, just one hair’s breadth, and the brandy burst into flames.

  “That’s a nice trick he does,” Ares said, “always entertaining.” But Balor ignored him.

  “The rules of the game are only this,” the giant said. “If you can reach through the fire to take the gold, then it will be yours to keep.”

  I felt the flame’s heat warming my cheeks.

  Beside me, Mordred cackled and held up a hideously scarred hand. “I won an emerald ring this way. It was painful.”

  I held my breath. The flames licked and danced and the coin glittered. The pig had finally gone silent.

  With a sudden swipe of my arm, I sent the whole thing flying into the hearth, where it exploded in a ball of white-hot flame.

  Ares sucked in his breath. He narrowed his icy eyes at me. “I grow tired of the way you throw things, Princess,” he said. “I will have to train you in matters of gratitude and decorum.”

  “No,” said a deeper voice. “I will.”

  CHAPTER 33

  I turned to see Reiper, who had risen from the table. His handsome face was unmoving, as if it had been cut from living stone. “I will take her as my wife,” he announced. “Under my tutelage, she will learn what she must.”

  His what?

  I looked wildly around the table. What was Reiper talking about? Ares laughed low in his throat, but his knights—even Balor—ate and drank as if my life had not just been claimed by one who had no right to it.

  “I will nev—” I began.

  My voice faltered when Zozo came out of the corner, drifting toward the table like a shadow carried on the wind, his eyes black and hollow. He pointed to me and rasped out but one word: “Mine.”

  Ares’s laugh became a cruel bark. “That’s the first sound I’ve heard from those ghastly lips in decades. Zozo the Nightmare is even worse at conversation than you are, Princess.”

  “Not that conversation matters much in a fight,” Mordred whispered to me, trying to slip an arm around my shoulders.

  I pushed him away as I looked from Reiper to Zozo in horror and confusion. Would they really fight—now, right here in the hall? The knights suddenly looked expectant, almost cheerful, like spectators at joust.

  And for a moment, the whole hall was still. The only sounds were the crackling of the fire—the hiss of dripping fat from that poor piglet—and the wind, crying outside the walls like something begging to come in.

  Reiper drew his sword and pointed it at Zozo. The demon seemed to flicker and grow fainter for a moment, but then he drew his own weapon: a morning star, with a six-foot wooden haft and a spiked iron head.

  Reiper moved. He swung his sword so quickly that I saw nothing but a flash of shining steel. Zozo darted sideways and the sword tip hit the wall with a ringing clang. The demon swung his morning star at Reiper and caught the fabric of his cloak, ripping it open. A faint trickle of blood bloomed on Reiper’s shoulder.

  Reiper struck again; Zozo slid away, then countered with a fist to his combatant’s cheek, splitting it open. Reiper let out a growl of pain and shook his head in fury. Blood spattered Hasshaku Sama’s arm and she furtively licked it off. Reiper stepped backward, as if retreating, but then suddenly he lunged toward Zozo, bringing his sword from behind him and swinging it upward.

  Zozo’s left hand went flying into the air.

  By reflex, Zozo looked down at his bloody stump, and in that moment Reiper advanced again.

  He thrust his sword so deep into Zozo’s stomach that half its length came out on the demon’s other side. Zozo dropped his morning star and gripped the sword hilt with his one remaining hand, straining horribly, without any sound, to pull the sword out.

  “That’s not going to work,” Ares said. “Poor Zozo.”

  Zozo stood, wavering, swaying a little. Slowly, he turned toward me, and my heart thudded in my chest. “Mine,” he gasped, and then he fell down dead.

  Reiper returned to his seat and took up his goblet.

  I turned to Ares in shock. “Your knight killed his comrade!” I said. “Do you do nothing?”

  “As I already explained, Sophia, we use words like ‘friend’ and ‘comrade’ very loosely in this kingdom,” Ares replied.

  “I ag
ree with you, pretty thing,” Mordred whispered. “A murder such as that one is bad table manners. But don’t you find it exciting?”

  “Stop speaking to me,” I hissed.

  Reiper raised his goblet to me in a toast as his eyes bored into mine. “I killed him in your honor, Princess.”

  “And anyway, what is a feast without bloodshed?” Ares asked. “It would be poor entertainment for a princess if she did not see something lively on her first day with us. Thank you, Reiper, for the show.”

  Zozo’s body still lay on the rushes, his blood staining them black.

  Ares spat on the ground near the corpse. “Pig food,” he said, as the lizard came to silently bear Zozo’s corpse away.

  CHAPTER 34

  Why have you brought me here?” I demanded. “What is this world, and what makes you think I belong here among blackguards and beasts? I am not like you! I’m not one of you!” But then I saw my hand—a purplish fist—clenched on the table, and I remembered that I was more like them than I thought.

  Still, I was a queen, kept against my will. “You have kidnapped me,” I said, “stolen me from—” I stopped. I still didn’t know what I’d been taken from: My life? My death? And what did it even matter? “I demand to know why I’m here!”

  “Oh, pretty thing,” Ares said liltingly. “Dear Sophia, dear Princess, dear Queen. I will tell you. It is time you were betrothed, isn’t it? I expect your father wasn’t wild about the idea, but his opinion no longer matters, does it?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  Ares sighed. “You are here to marry one of my brave knights, I should think that would be obvious. We can’t fight and kill all the time. Occasionally we must stop and celebrate beauty. Love. Lust.” Then he smiled lasciviously. “And we must birth more knights, of course. To replace those who leave us, whether on the battlefield or in the Great Hall.” His eyes flicked toward Zozo’s empty place. They held not a hint of remorse.

  I could hardly comprehend what I was hearing. The same man who sought to destroy my castle also desired to arrange my marriage? “You cannot make me—”