Close your eyes, he warned me. I had just enough time to squeeze them shut before I sensed the overwhelming light of his transformation. But where I’d been standing back last time, I’d not felt the rush of power that now danced along my flesh.
A moment later, I felt small fingers slip through my own. “You can open them now, Lena.”
I did and smiled down at him, and we turned and walked hand in hand through the woods. After several long minutes he asked, “Did I frighten you?”
“No.” I shook my head. “I thought you to be the most wonderful sight I’ve ever beheld, devil boy.”
I could see his chest puff up just a little. Ahead I saw the end of the line of trees that hid us. Soon we’d be out in the open, and I would be forced to drop his hand and not speak as I walked the rest of the way home.
“Ragoth?” I said his name, wanting to know my friend a little better.
He glanced up at me.
“How old are you?”
“Ten.” He beamed. “And you?”
“Thirteen. Very nearly fourteen.”
Sharp little teeth smiled back at me. “I always did like older women.”
Shaking my head, I couldn’t help but chuckle. “Don’t be ridiculous, devil. We are naught more than friends, and will never be more.”
He sniffed. “If you wish to believe that nonsense, then so be it. But I’ve marked you as mine tonight, Lena.”
“You did what!” I twirled on him, dropping his hand in an instant and planting my hands on my hips. “You are a child. And I very nearly a woman. You cannot mark me; I never gave my consent.”
“I am dragonborne.”
He said it as though that were answer enough. But I merely rolled my eyes. “I am already betrothed. To a king of this kingdom. He merely awaits my blushing.”
Visibly gnashing his teeth, curls of steam frothed from his nostrils. “You are mine. And thus it will always be.”
He was but a child. When he grew, he’d learn the truth of it. And whatever temporary fancy he held for me now would vanish someday. I patted his foolish little cheeks then leaned over and kissed one of them.
“There, devil boy, now I have given my consent,” I said it in jest, to make him laugh.
But instead of smiling as I’d expected him to, he seemed contemplative and deep in thought. “When is a maiden’s blushing in Kingdom?”
“On my seventeenth birthday,” I said, feeling the tears prick at the back of my eyes. I should be proud to be betrothed to a king, or at the very least grateful, but I was not. I wanted no part of that dubious honor, but my fate was sealed, and not even Ragoth had the power to break that binding.
Wanting to speak of other things, I turned and very slowly began to walk once more. I was in no haste to return to the cottage or to Zerelda’s tender mercies.
“How is it that you do not get caught sneaking out of Olympus, boy? Prince and all, should you not be surrounded by a bevy of guards? Hm?” I felt my eyes sparkle with laughter as I asked it.
He chuckled, running fingers through his dark, wavy hair and mussing it. Then with a single shoulder shrug said, “I put them to sleep with a bit of dragon’s blood.”
I lifted a brow. “You are not guarded by dragons?”
“Oh, I am.” He swatted his wrist. “My brother and I are constantly guarded.”
I pursed my lips. “Brother? How old is he, and is he devastatingly handsome?”
He glowered at me. “He is nineteen and a pig-headed fool. He is impossibly good, and I detest him.”
Hip-bumping him, because it seemed like the thing to do in that moment, we suddenly broke out in laughter. I couldn’t help but wonder just how much more beautiful that mysterious brother was; surely he must be twice as handsome as Ragoth, and already a man.
I imagined him to have eyes like his brother, skin and hair in much the same shade, but more mature. More adult features. My heart trembled violently. I knew if I ever met him, I’d probably fall completely in love with him.
But we were now at the edge of the forest, and in the distance I could just barely spy the golden wash of light glowing from my room. My laughter died on my tongue.
I did not wish to ever leave this magical place. Stopping, I looked at the boy and sighed.
“You say you will meet me here every night? Are you sure that you should not be sleeping, boy? I do not wish to alarm your parents.”
“Dragons sleep in the day. Not much really. Mostly just in the early afternoon. We are most alert at night. I should currently be with my Art tutor.”
My lips twitched. He had that effect on me; I always seemed to want to laugh when in his presence. “And do you not like the Arts?”
He snorted. “I do not care a fig when it comes to the difference between a Van Gogh and a Michelangelo; it all tastes the same to me.”
“Good gods, devil boy, you are ridiculous.”
He grinned then glanced off to the side. “Is that your home?”
I nodded, nibbling on the inside of my lip. Stomach sick and twisting up inside me, the moments I spent with him were so magical, that to return to the nightmare that was that cottage made me want to scream and rage and hurt something.
Pulling me into his arms, he gave me a tight squeeze, and I must admit, I melted into it. His hugs warmed me to my very core.
“I will watch over you tonight, Lena. Go, and be well.”
Chapter 3
Zelena
The moon was full this night and hanging at its place in the sky that I knew the boy awaited me. I’d found him a treasure this morning while out foraging. I’d stumbled upon the find quite by accident—a set of four dragon stones.
A magenta-red stone with veins of deepest red cutting through it, that, if consumed by a fire dragon, helped increase the intensity of their flame. I rolled the marble-like stones through my fingers, heart speeding as I waited to hear Hagar’s first heavy snore of the night. I’d given him twice the normal dose of bane. In the three years since Ragoth and I had first met one another I’d never once been caught sneaking out.
I’d always been careful, patient, never too quick to jump into action until I was certain the house had well and truly fallen asleep.
Sitting on the center of my threadbare mattress, with my knees pulled up to my chest, the echoing silence of the house moved through me like a dark chill.
The weight of the stones in my pocket made me feel sick to my stomach. Dragon stones were worth their weight in gold. If Zerelda discovered I’d found them and not turned them in to her, I’d be beaten and locked in the well again.
Shifting, I tried taking several deep breaths to ease the nerves tunneling through my gut. Something was wrong. I knew it. I’d given Hagar his nightly cup of tea an hour ago; the herb should have already knocked him out.
I stared at the bare mud plaster walls of my room as my pulse boomed like cannon in my ears.
“Zelena!” The shrill screech of my mistress had me jumping immediately to my feet. I could hear the heavy pounding of her wood staff cane as she walked to my room, the floorboards creaking as she came.
“Oh gods,” I hissed, snatching the stones out of my pocket and shoving them directly under the mattress. My heart sank when I heard the heavy thwack of one of them landing on the floor beneath my bed.
My room was dark. Zerelda had accused me of wasting too much oil and cut my weekly rations by half. Frozen with fear and indecision, I stared at the shadow beneath my bed, praying mightily that she walked to my room without the benefit of a lamp.
I had just enough time to jump back into the bed and muss up the sheets so that it would appear as though I’d just been woken up, when my door was tossed open.
The hag—as I secretly thought of her—was a bent over, withered old woman with silvery hair that trailed down to her ankles in thin wisps. Her face was lined with deep grooves, and she had a hooked nose with a wart at its tip.
She wore a cloak of hunter green that covered her from her neck to her
feet. The hand clutching onto the cane was tipped with large, black claws.
“Why is it so bloody dark in here?” she snapped.
I clutched the front of my tattered dress in my hands. “I’m sorry, ma’am. I used all my rations already.”
“Cost me a fortune, you will! I should ave left you to the tender mercies of the witches, you ugly, ignorant fool!”
I swallowed hard. A part of me always wished she had. At least if she’d left me with the witches, I would have been eaten and dead long ago. Zerelda had no soul; she’d not offered the caravan a swap for me out of the kindness of her heart. She’d recognized in me what the witches had not. The blood that’d run through my veins, the coin she stood to inherit when my blooming finally came upon me.
Zerelda sniffed, and I wanted to vomit. She had the nose of a bloodhound. “What is that I smell?” she asked in the dry, creaky voice of a hag.
Swallowing hard, I kept my head down, never looking her in the eye. There was a soul-sucking void of darkness in them.
Zerelda was far more than what she seemed.
“I...I”—I nibbled my tender and still slightly swollen bottom lip. I’d displeased Hagar this morning and received a cuff to the face for it—“did not bathe tonight, mistress.”
It wasn’t true; I had bathed. But the stones smelled of peat and moss, scents I commonly smelled of since I had to bog through the swamps most every day to gather Zerelda’s herbs.
If she walked to me and sniffed my neck, she’d know I’d lied.
I swear I could taste bile on the back of my tongue.
Holding my breath, I waited to see what she’d do, releasing it very slowly when her lip curled and she turned her face to the side.
“You smell of waste. Ye’ll ruin my sheets! Get out and bathe, now!” She stamped her cane on the ground.
I wanted to defy her, wanted to rant and rail at her, swear that I would never again do as she bid. That I was soon to be my own woman and I would not forget the torments she’d leveled on me, but Zerelda was not what she seemed to be, and I had no power against her.
“Yes, ma’am,” I mumbled, already dreading the icy cold waters I’d be forced to step into.
Zerelda took another step into my room, her eyes immediately shooting down toward the lumpy shadow on my floor.
“Girl, I—”
The rocks belonged to the boy; I would not let her find them. Reacting purely on instinct, I closed my eyes, bit down on the inside of my cheek, and made as though to walk toward her.
But instead, I fell. Hard. My knees scraping against the wood, ripping a chunk of flesh out as a large splinter drove through my shin.
Hissing, tears squeezed from the corners of my eyes.
“You stupid, foolish girl!” She slammed her cane down onto the center of my back.
The pain was exquisite. Blooming outward like a tight bud opening to the first kiss of morning sun. She hit me again, harder the next time, so that I lost my breath.
“You nearly tripped me. You tried to hurt me. You did that on purpose,” she screamed, punctuating each sentence with yet another snap to my back.
I said nothing, only whimpered with each swipe of her cane. She was right. I had done it on purpose. But not for the reason she’d imagined.
My only consolation was that in her fury, she’d forgotten all about the odd lump on my floor.
“Get outside now! Bathe this filth off you, and bring me back some wild turnips, my bones are aching. Go!” With one final slam of her cane that struck against my neck and had me seeing stars, she finally relented.
My arms trembled, and it took me several halting tries before I was finally able to push myself up from the floor. I felt the tackiness of blood at my back and winced with each step I took that caused the dress to rub up against the wounds.
“Yes, ma’am,” I muttered, every inch of me screaming in pain. I walked painfully slowly toward the front door.
Hagar, I noted, was sitting at the kitchen table with a glazed look in his eyes when I passed him. He was mumbling incoherently and slightly drooling from the corners of his lips.
After years of ingesting wolfsbane, I worried that he was beginning to develop a tolerance for it. The dosage should have knocked him out; instead he was little more than a drooling wastrel covered in his ridiculous skins and furs.
Being half ogre and half man, he was a thick and powerfully built male. But his features were horrifying to look upon for one not expecting the sight of him. He had a thick brow ridge like that of his ogre ancestors, a heavy jaw, and a flat blunt nose. With yellowed teeth and patches of reddish fur that he called a beard lining his cheeks and jowls. He weighed at least a ton and moved slow enough, which made escaping him easy when I could put him down. But he was a power to be reckoned with when awake.
I’d have to gather more bane on my way back in.
Creaking floorboards had me scurrying out the front door. The absolute last thing I wanted was for Zerelda to catch me dawdling.
The night was cool when I finally got to the water’s edge. I tried not to but couldn’t hold back my whimper of pain when I took the dress off. The blood had already begun to dry, causing the filthy rags to stick to my flesh; the mere act of taking it off caused the lacerations to tear open again and seep fresh blood.
Ragoth would be in a fury if he saw me this way. The thought of my boy made me quiver. I should not go see him today, not like this. He hated to see me hurt, and each time he did, his temper only got worse.
My boy was hardly a boy anymore. His powers grew more immense with each day that passed. I did not like my captors, nor did I wish them well, but I desperately wanted Ragoth to remain my secret from the world.
A shuffling behind me broke me from my thoughts. If I dawdled much longer, Zerelda would come snooping around.
Bracing myself as best I could for the shock of the icy waters, I still cried when I stepped in and it covered me up to my small breasts.
Even the dancing lights of fairies in the skies above failed to bring a smile to my face tonight. It hurt when I turned my neck to the side, and my ribs ached fiercely. Each breath was a labor; she’d probably broken a rib. But she’d broken them before.
The beauty—Zerelda had once told me—of my morphism was that at the point of my blooming, I was like new. Any pains, any hurts I’d received before the change would simply vanish. Forever altered to become the perfect companion to a future mate.
It was for that reason that I knew she took gleeful delight in hurting me. She was the more powerful of the two of us, and yet somewhere deep down inside in an ugly, spiteful place in her heart, I knew she resented my beauty. Resented who I was, a mere product of happenstance.
Skin crawling with goose bumps, I swallowed two deep breaths and then sank beneath the waters to retrieve the wild turnips she’d requested.
By the time I pulled myself out, I was wheezing from the cold and feeling as though I’d never again know warmth.
I’d tarried as long as I’d dared. Zerelda wouldn’t sleep without her turnip poultice in place. Moving as fast as my feet could carry me, I made a very quick detour to my small garden. I’d seeded the soil years ago with wild wolfsbane, making sure to keep it well away from Zerelda’s watchful eye.
Snatching up another handful, I frowned at my pitiful yield. I’d already run through half of the bane this season. Too much more of this, and I’d be unable to slip out to see my friend.
Thankfully, I was mere weeks away from my seventeenth year and soon to be out from under the witch’s evil eye.
Tucking the plant beneath my left armpit, I kept that arm firmly glued to my side and raced back as quickly as I could with Zerelda’s turnips. Wild turnips were small and difficult to peel.
By the time I’d finished crafting her poultice, my fingertips were bleeding. She lay in the middle of her bed, a withered old hag with her shift rucked up around her skeletal hips.
“C’mon then,” she snapped, “put it on. The rains
are coming, and this hip is paining me.”
“Yes, ma’am.” I tipped my head and zoned out, going to my happy place.
The only place in all of Kingdom that I could still find any happiness in. The only place that never failed to lift my spirits. The copse where Ragoth awaited me even now.
I layered the greasy, smelly concoction onto her hip, placed a bit of moss over the top of it to pack it in good, smoothed her shift back down, and nodded.
Her nose curled. I knew I’d get no thank you for it. “You still smell of filth,” she snapped.
I could have told her that it was the pig lard, turnip, and mud mixture she’d forced me to make her that made me smell so, but I didn’t.
“Yes, ma’am.”
Rolling her eyes, she pointed a gnarled finger at the door. “Go away, and do not disturb me. Tell Hagar to set before your door.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Turning swiftly on my heel, I walked from the room, keenly feeling the lapse of time. He’d leave me. He’d leave. Of the times I was able to show I’d never caused him to wait longer than twenty minutes at most. I was sure at least an hour had passed.
Moving down the hall, I peeked into the kitchen and frowned when Hagar was no longer where he’d been. I was just about to go in search of him when I noticed him sitting before my door, one leg sprawled out, and snoring like the groaning of a banshee’s wail.
It seemed I’d be able to save what bane I still had left for another night. He might be growing a tolerance to the herbs, but for tonight, at least, I was free to go find my dearest, and only friend.
Blowing out a heavy breath, I eased into my room, snatched up the stupid rocks that’d caused me such pain, and brushing my fingers over the heart-shaped pendant nestled against the hollow of my throat, whispered, “Nyx, Goddess of the Night, embrace me.”
Immediately I felt the dark tug of shadow wind around me. The magic was not my own, but an enchantment woven through the locket itself.
One morning, five years ago, I’d woken up to find the bauble threaded through a leather thong and wrapped around my neck. Laying on my chest had been a roll of parchment with the words I’d just whispered written on them.