Page 75 of Kill the Beast
“I…” She looked down at her hands. They were still faintly pink with blood, and her nails were ragged.
“You care about him, too,” Rags observed.
“I tried not to,” she said, and maybe it was the fact that she had almost died, or the knowledge that there were people willing to sacrifice blood and bone to keep her alive, but Lyssa started to cry.
Ragnhild looked horrified. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.” She pressed the heels of her hands into her eyes, so overcome that she couldn’t speak for a moment. “It doesn’t matter if Alderic and I care about each other. It doesn’t change anything.”She dropped her hands to find that Ragnhild’s face had gone soft with sympathy.
“Love can change everything, if you let it,” the witch said. “It is more powerful than magic, more powerful than the Beast. More powerful, even, than your rage.”
“That’s not what this is,” Lyssa argued. “I’m not inlovewith Alderic. He’s my friend.”
“There can be love between friends. And I hate to say it, girl, but Alderic told me that you went berserk because you thought he died. I’d say that’s your brand of love.”
The words brought more memories out of the fog. Alderic, arrows thudding into his chest. The devastation of losing him—him,and not just Lyssa’s only chance for revenge. The sword, the Beast… none of that had even crossed her mind as she watched him crumple to the ground. All she could think about was destroying whoever had killed him.
Because he had the kindest heart out of anyone she had ever known, and they’d shot a fucking arrow through it.
Because Alderic was her friend, and they had taken him from her.
He treated her like more than a weapon, despite having hired her to be exactly that. He treated her like someone who deserved to be saved, even if the thing he was saving her from was herself.
And her dog liked him.
“Fuck,” she said. “Okay, fine. Maybe I do love him. But it still doesn’t change anything. I’m—”
“Still going to fight the Beast,” Rags finished for her. “I know, my little brute. Nothing will keep you from the path you have chosen.” She chucked Lyssa under the chin with one gnarled finger. “But who knows? Maybe love will make you stronger. Think on it, while you rest.”
Lyssa struggled to shove her emotions down. “I’ve rested enough. The equinox can’t be far away, and we still have to collect Alderic’s personal concern so that I can forge the sword.”
“Nadia has been keeping an eye on what day it is, out there,”Rags said, stacking a few pillows behind Lyssa in order to prop her head up. “As of this morning you still had time.”
“Even so, we should—”
The rest of her words withered beneath the witch’s glare.
“If you even so much astryto get up,” Ragnhild warned her, “I will knock you back out with the most potent concoction I can muster up. Don’t test me.”
Lyssa lay back in the pillows and sighed. “Fine. But I want to talk to Alderic first. He has some explaining to do.”
She could wring the truth out of the frilly bastard lying down, at least.
“You lied to me,” Lyssa said the moment Alderic walked back into the kitchen.
He froze with his hand still on the doorknob, as if deciding whether to stay and get this over with now, or run away again. “You’re looking much better, Carnifex. How are you feeling?”
“Stop stalling.”
He sighed, his shoulders drooping as though a massive weight had slipped from them. “It wasn’t alie,as you never directly asked me whether I could or could not die,” he argued, flopping into the chair beside her. “It was simply… an omission.”
“Youromissiongot people killed.” She tried to cross her arms, but it hurt too much, so she settled on glaring at him, instead. “If I had known you couldn’t die—”
“Oh, yes, clearlyI’mto blame for your violent tendencies,” he snapped. “You’ll have to forgive me, but three hundred years of telling people the truth has resulted in a lot of them trying to test exactly how immortal I am, and just because I can’t die doesn’t mean being run through with a javelin doesn’thurt.”
“Three hundred years?” she breathed, blinking.
His expression was unreadable. “Give or take.”
