Page 87 of Kill the Beast
That was new. “Of what?”
“Hush.”
She began chanting, and the air in the room shifted. Lyssa could feel the sudden thrum of magic pressing in on her, and when she squinted she could almost see it, like the undulating heat belching from the forge when she was working on a weapon.
“There is a powerful oath in your blood,” Ragnhild said, her voice somehow different. Gone was the warbling rasp of the old woman Lyssa knew, replaced with something rich and clear and steady. “A vow to kill the faerie-made creature they call the Beast of Buxton Fields. If this is true, speak it aloud.”
“It is true,” Lyssa said, her own voice sounding small and hesitant in comparison. She squared her shoulders, straightened her spine, and tried to summon some of the certainty she had felt only a few days ago. Breathed in deep and let the scent of the incense ground her.
Ragnhild raised both arms, holding the broom aloft. “Would you give your lifeblood to see the Beast slain?”
“I would,” she said, satisfied with the steel in her reply.
Ragnhild placed the broom on the floor to the south, at a particular angle. Next, she fetched an old ceramic bowl from the table, the bottom crusted with old blood. Most of it was Lyssa’s—they had done this spell before, binding her hatred and anger into something Rags could use, but never had it been so personal before. This time, it wasn’t simply righteous anger over the innocents slaughtered by the Hound in question, but something Lyssa hated with her whole heart.
It was, once.
She shook her head to clear it of the unwanted thought, tryingto force herself back into the proper mindset.This is your purpose. You have been working towards this for a long time. You are finally going to fulfill your oath.
Ragnhild frowned. “Focus,” she warned, and bent to set the bowl on the floor in front of Lyssa, careful not to smear the chalk circle. “Roll up your sleeves.”
Lyssa obeyed, hitching up both sleeves and resting her wrists on her knees. She gazed down at the tattoos on her forearms—Ungharad’s flaming sword on her right, and a butcher’s cleaver crossed with a blacksmith’s hammer on the left.
Rags handed a ritual knife to her, hilt first. “I am going to build power, while you focus on your intention to kill the Beast,” she said. Lyssa had done this before, but the routine explanation was a comfort, a reminder that as unstable as things felt, some things would always be the same. “Let the emotions build to a crescendo within you. Let them overpower you. The stronger the emotion, the stronger our spell will be. When you can no longer contain what is within you, speak your reason for wanting the creature dead—the reason for your oath—and cut into your arm, letting your blood run into the bowl. Do you understand?”
Lyssa nodded.
“I will then soak a cord in your blood, and we will use it to wrap the hilt of the sword once it is forged. Are you ready?”
“I’m ready,” Lyssa said.
“Then let us begin.”
Ragnhild lit another stick of pungent, earthy incense, and began chanting again, wafting the smoke with the owl-feather fan this time. The air seemed to pulse with power, quiet at first but building quickly. Lyssa unscrewed the lid from her rage, letting it fill her as she thought of her brother’s mangled body, his entrails spilling out of him into the dirt. The Beast towering over them, roaring as it burst from its cage.
Understanding slammed into her so hard she flinched.
The cagebroke.Alderic didn’t want it opened. He wanted to seeif someone in the crowd could kill him, but he tried to do it without hurting anyone.
The thought wrestled its way into her mind out of nowhere, but once it was there, she couldn’t get it out. She shook her head, trying to nurse the hatred she had felt for the Beast over the last thirteen years.
He didn’t want to hurt anyone,the thought persisted, so she tried to bury it with anger instead.
But he did. He hurt the one person you loved most. He hurt Eddie. Killed him, tore his insides out, left you with your brother’s blood on your hands and a hatred in your heart that you will never truly be free from.
He ruined you.
Finally, the fury crawled over her skin, giving her goose bumps, and she clenched her teeth as she let it consume her. When it was about to boil over, to explode out of her in a flurry of fist and teeth, she opened her eyes. Grabbed the knife and sank its edge into the crook of her arm.
“The Beast killed my brother,” she said, and for a moment she heard it in Alderic’s voice, not her own.The Beast killed my brother at Bellgaard, the place we were happiest as children.
She blinked, her anger faltering. Alderic had killed his own brother. Why had she not realized that until now? He had killed his own brother, and then his father had trapped him inside their summer home and tried to burn it down.
Did Alderic’s father know that the Beast was his son when he did that?
“Focus!” Ragnhild screamed between chants, and Lyssa quickly set the knife down next to her and grabbed the ceramic bowl, letting her blood drip into it. As it leeched out of her, her head spun with its loss, and she felt unmoored for a moment, unreal.
With a jolt, she remembered Alderic slapping her awake while she bled out, choking on a sob as he begged the Door to open.
