Page 89 of Kill the Beast
He’d been upset when she stabbed her father. Had seemed taken aback that she’d punched someone’s teeth out over a coat. All he had ever done was do his best not to hurt anyone.Shewas the violent one, the brute, the beast. A living weapon whose entire life was devoted to destroying things. And yet Alderic was the one who turned into a monster and murdered innocent humans whenever the seasons turned.
It didn’t make sense.
It wasn’tfair.
“Fuck!” she shouted, startling a crow into flight.
“Having second thoughts?” it said when it landed and turned into Nadia.
Lyssa scowled at the apprentice. “Go away.”
But the little witch put her hands on her hips, standing her ground. “Ragnhild was right, you know. You see the world as black and white. Good and evil. It’s a childish way of looking at things. No wonder you’re so ill-prepared for this.”
“I said go away.”
Nadia shook her head, her dark eyes defiant. “Not until you listen to what I have to say.”
“I don’tcarewhat you have to say.”
“You will when you see this.” The apprentice lifted her dress, exposing her stomach—and the Hound-glyph carved into her skin.
Lyssa stumbled backward, falling on her ass, shock tumbling away from the swift strike of anger that followed. “Iseveryonea fucking faerie around here?” Her face darkened at the apprentice’s smirk. “Does Rags know?”
“Of course she knows.” Nadia plopped down on the ground beside Lyssa. “Did she ever tell you what brought me to this place?”
“No.” Ragnhild hadn’t told her and Lyssa hadn’t asked. Hadn’t cared, if she was being honest. She’d come back from hunting ogres to find that Rags had a new apprentice—a sullen, bitter girl who refused to speak to anyone for the first few months after she came to the cottage. There had been more important things to worry about at the time. “It didn’t matter to me then, and it doesn’t matter to me now.”
“You’re an asshole, you know that?” Nadia spat. “You thinkyourpain is the only thing that matters? That you’re the only one with a past that rules you? No,” she said when Lyssa started to get up, yanking her back down by her belt, her grip surprisingly strong for someone so small. “Ragnhild told you her story, and now I’m going to tell you mine, whether you like it or not.”
“Why?”
“Because, if you’re going to kill Alderic, I want you to know exactly what you’re doing.” She took a breath and studied Lyssa with her dark eyes. “I came here because I accidentally killed my whole family.”
Lyssa gaped at her. “You what?”
“My glyph showed up when I was twelve. It was my grandmother’s, I guess, and when she died it got passed down. There’s no immortality, with ours—not like a lot of the other curses. Instead, it goes from generation to generation, seventh daughter to seventh daughter. Nana only had three children, trying to stop the curse from spreading, but my parents loved each other too much.” She wrinkled her nose. “The knowledge of what it meant died with Nana. She never bothered to tell Mama, thinking that she would be the last to bear it—not knowing it could skip a generation if need be. So, when it showed up, I had no idea what to expect. That if I couldn’t control my emotions, I would… change.”
“Into a monster?”
The little witch nodded. “I got into a fight with Mama. A really bad one. I had just become a woman, officially, and I was all over the place, crying one minute, angry the next. She said something to me and I just… snapped. And the next thing I knew, I was covered in blood, and everyone was dead.” She let out a long, shaky breath. “I ran outside, and showed up in these woods. Ragnhild said that she would try to help me—”
“But she’s the one who wanted to kill the Hounds to begin with,” Lyssa argued. “Why would she help you?”
Nadia shrugged. “I was a child, and she is merciful. You were away on a job, thank the Lady, and Ragnhild told me not to tell you what I was. That you would kill me on sight. Since I am very much capable of being killed, I listened to her.”
“Then why are you telling me now?”
“Because Alderic and I are the same. We didn’t ask to be monsters. I never meant to kill my family, and I would bet good coin that Alderic never meant to kill anyone, either. However badly hebroke that faerie’s heart, he doesn’t deserve this fate. Ragnhild has been teaching me to control myself, you know—my emotions, my powers. She says that I’m lucky. That my glyph is weaker from being passed down, and that’s why I can control it at all. I turn into the crow to use up some of the shifting-magic inside of me, which keeps me from changing into anything more dangerous when I’m upset. I can’t even imagine what it must be like for Alderic, being forced to—”
“I don’t care if he meant to kill anyone or not,” Lyssa said sharply. “It still happened.”
The little witch got to her feet, dusting off her backside. She held Lyssa’s gaze with her own, her stare intense. “When you face your friend and draw that sword you’re forging, I want you to think of me. Would you have slain a scared little girl who slaughtered her family because she didn’t understand what was happening to her?” She didn’t wait for Lyssa to answer. “Maybe you didn’t know the truth before, about what the Hounds are. But you know now, don’t you? Ask yourself if what you’re doing is right. Ask yourself if you can kill Alderic and still think you’re a hero.”
“You want me to show Alderic mercy because of what you did,” Lyssa said, feeling the fury building within her. Who was this girl to judge her for her choices? Nadia didn’t know anything about her, or what she had lost. “But he didn’t just kill his family. He killedmine.And I cannot forgive him for that. I don’t care about being a hero—or whether I’ll forever be a villain in your eyes, after this. All I care about is avenging my brother.”
“Is that what your brother would want?” Nadia asked quietly, and all at once Lyssa’s anger reached the boiling point.
“Fuck off,” she spat. Nadia turned back into a crow, soaring out of reach as Lyssa grabbed a stone from the forest floor and chucked it at her.
