Page 73 of Kill the Beast
They shared a glance, a wry smile. It was the same reason the two of them had become friends, after all.
“Eventually, that friendship flowered into something else.” Lyssa had told Honoria things she’d never told anyone before. About her parents. About Eddie, and the way he died. Not even Rags knew who, exactly, she had lost to the Beast. But she’d been in love, and desperate to share herself after so many years of feeling alone.
“What happened?” Alderic asked.
“We found an aelf.”
He frowned. “I thought all the aelfs were dead.”
“So did we. I had never seen one before, nor have I seen one since. We were tracking a Hound in the woods outside Hayview, and when we finally found it, there was an aelf trying to coax it through a Door like the ones I can make with Ragnhild’s chalk.” Hair like spun gold, her skin glowing faintly like she was reflecting the sun itself. No wonder some humans had thought of them as gods, radiant as they were. But Lyssa had seen that beauty for what it was—a lure. Honoria, on the other hand, was transfixed, her eyes wide with reverence. “When the aelf saw us, saw the spear in my hand, she seemed to understand why we were there. She got between me and the Hound, screamed that the creature didn’t deserve to die—that there was another way. When I went in for the kill anyway, Honoria stopped me, and both aelf and Hound vanished through the Door.”
Lyssa remembered the fury she had felt. The shock of that first betrayal. Looking back, she supposed she should have known that Honoria would switch sides someday. She seemed to feel none ofthe elation that Lyssa did, whenever they had a successful hunt. Was repulsed by Lyssa’s brutality, her “lack of respect” for their quarry. As if human-murdering monsters deserved respect. It was a frequent point of contention between them, but at the time Lyssa hadn’t thought much of it. People had always been shocked by her viciousness, ever since she was a kid. It had stopped bothering her a long time ago.
“After that, Honoria was not the same,” she told Alderic. “She became obsessed with what the aelf had said, obsessed with the idea that we didn’t need to destroy the Hounds. Ragnhild and I both urged her to let it go, but she refused to listen.”
At first they thought it was some faerie-spell poisoning her mind, but Honoria swore—with a piece of iron in her mouth and salt dusting her lips—that she wasn’t ensorcelled. She confessed that she had always hated killing Hounds, that the only reason she kept doing it was because Ragnhild had given her a home in her time of need. Honoria’s father had been a hunter, and taught her to respect and value all life. To kill only when necessary. This mission, she said, was beginning to feel like spitting on his memory.
Killing the Houndsisnecessary,Lyssa had argued.
Killing them might be,Honoria had argued back.But enjoying it the way you do is not.
She might as well have slapped Lyssa in the face. She knew about Eddie, knew about Lyssa’s oath. Ifshehad lost someone to a Hound, she would have enjoyed killing them, too. But the grief that had brought Honoria to the Wood was not a grief forged by the faeries or tempered by revenge. It was an ordinary bear that had killed her father. A bear they had provoked during a hunt, when they accidentally got between a mother and her cubs. Honoria hadn’t even killed it afterward. She had no idea how good it felt to slay one of the monsters that had taken everything from her.
Lyssa thought Honey’s obsession would wane, eventually, but it only became stronger. “Honoria decided to track down the aelf, to find out what she knew,” she told Alderic, the old hurt resurfacing.
“I imagine you didn’t take that well?” Alderic asked.
She winced. “No. I didn’t.”Stupidwas amongst the nicer words she had used. But nothing could dissuade Honoria, and Lyssa’s anger had darkened into jealousy.
She remembered watching Honoria pack her things.Are you really going to choose that faerie over me?she’d demanded, arms crossed, lip curled in contempt, eyes blazing.Over what we’ve spent all these years working towards?
I am,Honoria had said, slinging her single pack over her shoulders and looking Lyssa in the eyes.Just like you will always choose your oath over me.
You’re right. I will. Because the oath means more to me than you do,Lyssa had spat.
It wasn’t a lie, and Honoria knew it.
“The next time I saw her, she had the geas on her,” Lyssa told Alderic. Honoria had cornered her in a tavern in Reedshollow a few months after leaving the Witch’s Wood for the last time. The locals had been plying Lyssa with free beer all night, in thanks for killing the redcap that had been terrorizing them, and she was drunk beyond reason. Drunk enough that when Honoria slid into the booth across from her, Lyssa didn’t even lift her cheek from the sticky tabletop to glare at her.
The Hounds,Honoria had said without preamble, as if she knew Lyssa would only humor her for a few minutes.They’re—She stammered and stuttered the rest, entirely unable to speak.
Lyssa remembered very little through the drunken haze. She recalled asking Honoria if she’d been kicked in the head or something, her own words just as slurred and unintelligible. And she remembered Honoria holding out her hand to show Lyssa the faerie-geas carved into her palm.
It won’t let me explain,she’d said with a nervous laugh,but if you come with me—
Fury had overtaken Lyssa at the sight of the faerie mark. Without another word, she had stabbed Honoria through the palm, pinning her to the table.
“The spell kept her from spilling her new mistress’s secrets,” Lyssa said, “so I have no idea what foul lies that aelf bitch told her to get her to betray her own kind. To betrayme.But we’ve been enemies ever since.”
“Is that why you cut off her hand?” Alderic asked.
Lyssa looked at him aghast. “I what?”
“Her geas-hand. You cut it off right before you realized that I…” He trailed off, wincing. But it was too late. The words unlocked something within her, the fog lifting from her brain just enough to glimpse a shadow of memory. Alderic, swaying in the cemetery, easing an arrow out of his own heart, his fingers slick with blood.
“Before I realized you weren’t dead.” She blinked herself back to the present and glared at him. “You’re immortal,” she accused.
Alderic flinched. Let go of her hand and staggered to his feet. “Erm. Ragnhild said to go get her as soon as you were awake, so—”
