Page 91 of Kill the Beast
At the edge of the forest, Lyssa stepped on a twig, and Alderic stiffened at the snap it made. She braced herself as he whirled around to face her.
It wasn’t Alderic, though.
It was Honoria.
Lyssa’s pulse spiked, fear gripping her belly in its cold fist as they stared at each other in disbelief. Were the remaining Hound-wardens here, too? Had they already gotten to Alderic, whisked him away somewhere out of her reach?
“I thought I killed you,” Honoria said finally.
“You almost did,” Lyssa admitted.
“Too bad it didn’t take,” she snarled. “You know, you’re lucky the king hates us as much as you do, or else you’d swing for what you did to Ash and Oak. Fucking murderer.”
Before Lyssa could argue, the Hound-warden spat on the ground and plunged into the forest, her cloak snagging on one of the thorned trees that populated the wood.
Lyssa caught up with her easily. “What are you doing here?” she demanded as they strode down the dirt path that wound through the trees. She couldn’t be here to protect Alderic—Honoria was clearly intoxicated, and she wasn’t wearing her leather armor beneath the cloak. It didn’t look like she had her bronze sword on her, either.
“I’m trying to gohome,” she growled.
Lyssa blinked at her, confused. “You live in the woods?”
“No, you idiot.” She waved the bandaged stump that used to be her geas-hand. “Part of the sigil’s magic was like your Door-drawing chalk. Without it, I can’t get back to Faunalyn. My faeriewhore,” she spat, when the name didn’t elicit any sort of reaction.
“Faunalyn?” Lyssa said flatly. “You can say her name now, can you?”
“The geas is gone,” Honoria said, pushing back her hood and running her remaining hand over her face. Her hair was a wild, greasy tangle. “I can speak to you as freely as if you were a Hound yourself.”
“If I’d known it was that easy, I would have lopped it off sooner.”
“As if that would have changed anything,” Honoria said, a sneer twisting her lips as she swayed on her feet. “I was a fool to think that I could make even a dent in the iron heap of hatred that lies at your core. You always were more in love with it than you were with me. In fact, I think your hatred is theonlything you’re capable of loving anymore. You will always choose it, over everything else.”
Lyssa scowled, but there wasn’t much she could say in her own defense—and the realization that Honoria was right hurt worse than any physical wound the Hound-warden had ever dealt her.
Honoria put her hand on her hip, looked around at the forest, and blew out a frustrated breath. “Anyway, now that the geas is gone, so are the other spells that were woven into it, like being able to get back to Faunalyn. I never even thought to ask her how to find the glade without it, just in case something like this happened. I didn’t expect you to chop off myfucking hand.So, now I’mstuckhere unless I can find that damned barrow mound.” She glared at Lyssa, a frantic look in her eyes. “Do you know where it is?”
A barrow mound. Lyssa had heard there was one hidden in these woods, somewhere. They could act as passageways between this world and the faerie realm, if you got the timing right. It wasn’t certain, but it was something, if you were desperate—like so many of the remaining faeries were. It was why they tended to cluster around the mounds, hoping for a way home.
“No,” Lyssa said. “I don’t know where it is.”
“Fuck.” Honoria stormed off down the path.
“So, you really aren’t here to try to stop me?” Lyssa asked her, keeping pace with the Hound-warden. “You don’t have an army hidden in the trees, waiting for me?”
“No. I don’t,” Honoria snapped. “The other Hound-wardens abandoned me, after what happened at Liedensham. They decided that a Hound who refuses to be saved isn’t worth losing their lives over, and that a leader who resorts to abduction isn’tworth following.” She tripped over a root, glaring at Lyssa as if it had been the Butcher’s fault she’d lost her balance, and not the alcohol she’d consumed. “They were right. I should have let it go. Wassupposedto let it go—Faunalyn’s rule is that if the Hounds decline our offer, we leave them be. But I couldn’t. Not this one. Not knowing how much it would hurt you.” She shook her head and almost tripped again. “I’m done, though. If Alderic is so eager to die by your sword, then die by your sword he shall.” Honoria stopped abruptly, as though she just realized what she had said. Looked at Lyssa, as if waiting for some kind of horror to creep over her face. When it didn’t, the Hound-warden started laughing. “You don’t seem surprised by that—you’re aware that Alderic is the Beast of Buxton Fields, I take it?”
“Yes. I am aware,” she said through clenched teeth.
“When did you figure it out? After our little tussle at the cemetery, Mr. Back-from-the-Dead’s miraculous recovery?”
Lyssa tried to keep her face impassive, but Honoria seemed to read the truth in her eyes and started laughing harder, the sound edging toward hysteria.
“Youdidn’tfigure it out, did you? Oh, Lady Bright, I wish I could have seen the look on your face when he finally told you!” Her eyes darted to the hilt of the sword peeking up over Lyssa’s shoulder. “And now here you are, withthat.Lyssa Carnifex, the heartless bitch who doesn’t care about anything except her oath. You killed to avenge him, when you thought he was dead, and now you’ll put him in the ground yourself. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. You threw me away easily enough, after all we had been through together. Why not him?”
“I didn’t throw you away,” Lyssa snapped. “You betrayed me. And so did Alderic.”
“Ragnhildbetrayed you,” Honoria snapped back, “by keeping you in the dark. By not giving you a choice. I wanted to explain it to you, to bring you to Faunalyn so that she could at least tell you the truth, but the second you saw the faerie-mark on my hand, youstabbedme, like I never meant a fucking thing to you.”
“I—”
