He halted halfway. He smelled the Beast.
The smell was intense, that contrast of immortality against all the mortal surroundings. Not the immortality of Rudiobus, of Bebo and Iubdan; no, this was a different scent altogether. It was full of the blood of this stolen demesne.
The cat’s ears flattened and his tail bushed to twice its size. Growling in his throat, he backed down the hill, staring at the house as though any moment he expected the Beast to emerge. He was just another Faerie. Not a queen or a king. But this Faerie had been drinking in the fear of enslaved subjects for generations, and this had made him powerful. Eanrin crawled back down the hill and took shelter in the shadows cast by the nearest hut. He disliked the notion of meeting this self-styled god face-to-face.
“How did you get caught up in this wretched affair?” he muttered to himself. “And for what purpose? None of this is your business. The girl is nothing—”
But that wasn’t true. Eanrin closed his eyes, and across his memory flashed the light of a silver lantern in a dark place, and the deep eyes of the Hound. He cursed and tried to shake the images away, to smother them back.
How long he crouched there debating his next course of action he could not guess. But suddenly his nose twitched as he caught a familiar scent. “Imraldera?” he whispered, sitting upright, his fear of the Beast momentarily forgotten. Was it her scent? No, it couldn’t be! She had remained in the mountains, far from here. It was dangerous for her to come so near to the Beast. Paths of the Lumil Eliasul aside, he was sure to sense her!
Footsteps drew near, bare feet treading softly on the dirt. She was coming this way! Did she think to climb the hill? Did she think to face the Beast here, in the center of his realm? No!
The cat leapt out of hiding, springing into the middle of the road, his back arched and his ears back. A gray dog, its face whitened with age, snarled at him, but he hissed and darted at it with his claws. It drew back, surprised.
A girl stood just behind the dog. She looked down on the cat, one eyebrow raised, then put a gentle hand on the dog’s back. “Shhh,” she murmured, though in her muteness she could scarcely make the sound.
Eanrin stared. This girl was not Imraldera. But she was the same age and the same height, and she looked enough like Imraldera to be her . . .
“Lights Above us!” the cat swore, though to the girl and the dog, it sounded like a growl. The dog showed its teeth, its ears back.
“Shhh,” said the girl one more time, gently patting the dog’s shoulder. Then she proceeded on her way, carrying a heavy skin of water up the path to the house on the hill. The dog gave Eanrin a last snarl, then fell into place behind the girl, moving arthritically, for it was old.
“A girl and her dog,” Eanrin said, watching them go. “How strangely Time moves here in the mortal world.”
Keeping his body low and straining every sense for any warning sign of the Beast, he followed the girl up the hill. He found her around the side of the house, emptying her waterskin into a large trough. It was uncanny how closely she resembled Imraldera! The same cheekbones, the same nose. The mouth was different, though. It had a distinctly downward turn, as though she had never smiled and perhaps did not know how. And her brows were drawn together in a line that looked as though it would never soften.
Imraldera, though run-down and worn to the bone with fear and sorrows, was free in her heart and spirit. This girl was a slave through and through.
She drew a sharp breath and looked up, her frown deepening. A shadowed form appeared in the doorway. The smell of immortality was stronger than ever, and Eanrin saw the Beast for the first time.
He wore a man’s shape, but his wolf nature was impossible to disguise. It was in his face, in the way he moved, in every breath he took. Rapacious and wild, but cunning as well. His eyes were sharp as ice but yellow as fire. They were familiar eyes. Eanrin shuddered as he recognized the Black Dogs in that face. The resemblance was remarkable. But while the Black Dogs were mindless save to obedience, this man—this wolf—was a master of many fates.
He stepped from the house and approached the girl as she finished emptying her skin. “Fairbird,” he said, and Eanrin saw the girl tremble. “I enjoy watching you as you work. Does this bother you, child?”
What could she answer? This man was her god. But, Eanrin wondered, did she know? Did she realize that this person was the Beast holding the land captive? Or had the Faerie kept his true self secret? After all, mortal eyes do not penetrate so far. She might not be able to recognize the wolf in that face.