He smiled. The night was heavy, but it could not hide that smile. My stomach heaved with terror, and I twisted around, my arms pulled painfully to one side, pressing my back against the jutting stone.
“You are so beautiful,” said Wolf Tongue. “So beautiful when you stand before me, unafraid, defiant. You make me think of the one I loved and lost. She too was brave and strong. But so much more beautiful when I had her cowering before me, submitted to my will! Just as you, my lovely Starflower, will be more desirable when at last I have broken that spirit of yours. Then, and only then, can you be mine.”
I could not breathe. The cords chafed my wrists until they bled.
“Tonight,” said Wolf Tongue, “I shall make you what I want.”
The moon peered over the rim of the mountains, breaking through the thick clouds.
See the truth, Starflower!
“Tonight,” said Wolf Tongue, “I shall do more than kill.”
Moonlight reveals the truth of things. So my mother taught me. It streamed down upon the Place of the Teeth, covering me, covering him. It was cold and terrible, scattering shadows, showing the world for what it was.
See and speak!
The change came upon him. The shadows of spells that surrounded and shielded him during the day fell away. The High Priest threw back his head, his face contorted in a scream. His hands reached to the air, claws lashing at the night. His throat stretched and thickened, his face lengthened, and a wild, black fire leapt from his eyes and mouth. At last a howl—like a wolf’s but human, like a man’s but animal—burst from him and filled the air.
And I knew the secret of the terror that had long held the Land captive. The Beast, half wolf, half man, stood before me.
I screamed. It was agony, like teeth tearing me up from the inside out. I should not have been able to make the sound. But I looked upon that monster’s face, and no curse could bar my screams.
A shout rang out, a battle cry such as I had heard many times from my father’s warriors. The Beast stopped and turned, and I, my fear slashed into silence once more, struggled to see around his hulking body.
The Eldest leapt upon the slab.
He stood, armed with only a flint dagger, small before that monstrous form. Their eyes locked. What silent words passed between them, I do not know. I could not see from where I was tied. But I heard the Eldest, my father, shout his battle cry again, and he sprang forward. He was a man alive once more, not the living corpse he had been since the night of my mother’s death. The Beast swung a huge arm at him, but he ducked and was only touched upon the shoulder. It was enough to knock him flat, and for a terrible moment, I thought he would not rise.
The Beast turned to me. I felt the brush of his teeth against my neck. I felt the heat of his breath upon my skin. But the Eldest was up again, throwing himself against the monster. He wrapped his arms about his hairy body, and the two of them rolled in a mass of snarls and shadows. I saw the spark of the Panther Master’s flint knife striking against stone. They fell off the slab into the darkness below the Place of the Teeth, where I could not see. Then I heard the roar of the Beast.
The knife had found its way home.
I startled and struggled when a dark figure jumped back onto the slab. Even when I realized it was the Eldest and not the Beast, I writhed in terror at his approach.
“Easy, Starflower,” my father said as he strode quickly to the stone. His knife and hand were soaked in dark blood. “Easy, my child.”
He knelt and swiftly cut the cords. Released, I fell to the stone, gasping for breath. My father’s hands were on my shoulders, lifting me up and leaning me against him. “Can you stand?” he asked, his voice urgent. “Can you walk?”
With his help, I got to my feet. My limbs were numb from the hours of kneeling, my head light with fear. His arm was around me, however, and he half carried me two steps.
But it was he who collapsed.
Horrified, I fell to my knees beside him. Only then did I see the gaping wound in his side. Father! My hands, hampered by the remaining cords still clinging to my wrists, flew over his body, feeling for his heart, his pulse. He lived! Only just, but there was life. He lay headlong upon the stone, drawing shuddering breaths. I pulled him and tugged, desperate to get my arms around him, and his blood mingled with the blood Wolf Tongue had poured on me.
I heard him speak. His words were slurred, and I bent my head to his mouth. He gasped as though this would be his final breath. As he let it out, he said only:
“Run.”
I heard the Beast moving down below the slab. My heart beat in my throat as I sat up, as I stood.
“Fool!” I heard the snarl from the darkness. “Decaying, mortal fool!” He panted with pain, but his voice was full of enraged life. “You cannot kill me! Only my own children have the power to end my life! You are nothing, you insect, you crawling little maggot!”
The Beast would be upon us in a moment. He would finish my father, if he was not dead already. And then, he would finish me.