The Great Hunt (5 page)

“I’m so sorry.” Aerity’s voice shook.

Her cousin’s words came out garbled and nearly unrecognizable. “It can’t be real, Aer. Tell me it’s not real.”

“Oh, sweet Wyn . . .” The princess’s heart swelled with grief.

An anguished moan rose from Wyneth, and her whole body rattled, making Aerity break out into gooseflesh at the mournful sound. Wyneth fumbled weakly for Aerity’s fingers. The princess reached out and grabbed her cousin’s searching hand, lifting it to her cheek.

Together, they held tight to each other and cried.

Breakfast in the formal dining room was a drab affair. The room felt stifled by the dead air, and the heavily embroidered curtains hung limp without the sea breeze. Aerity doubted that opening the castle windows during the day would lure the beast, but her father and his men weren’t taking any chances.

Princess Aerity glanced around at the somber faces of her parents, aunts, and uncles. Everyone but Wyneth was present. Her young cousins seemed to have caught the grim mood of the room, which further plummeted as a messenger arrived and whispered in the king’s ear.

Her father’s face fell into stern lines as he sent the messenger away. His jaw muscles tightened. The adults and Aerity
set their utensils down while the children continued to fuss among themselves, pushing their food around.

“What’s happened now?” whispered Queen Leighlane.

Fury burned underneath the king’s response. “Two of the royal guards were killed during their night hunt.”

Aerity’s stomach constricted. She thought of Harrison and was glad he was part of the navy and not the guard.

The queen and Aerity’s two aunts shared troubled glances, and her uncles pushed away their plates. Breakfast was over.

Rumors flew through the castle all day.

Princess Aerity didn’t know either of the victims or their families, but it still grieved her. Panic rose as the restless energy around the castle grew. Aerity eavesdropped on the adult conversations, wishing her parents would include her. She was seventeen, after all, and she’d be queen someday.

She heard one of the guards had still been alive when they found him, but not for long. His injuries had been too grave for the royal doctors. Even Mrs. Rathbrook could not repair a body when its internal organs had been haphazardly ripped out.

Aerity wished she hadn’t sought out the gruesome details.

How had the great beast gotten past the castle wall to attack? The wall was incredibly tall. If it somehow climbed over, it would have surely been spotted by the myriad of guards stationed at the perimeter. The only other way in or out was to swim the waterways, which were deep and wide, with powerful currents.

The thought of the great beast being able to swim sent a shiver zinging across Aerity’s skin.

Even worse, what if there was more than one beast? Animals didn’t simply appear from nowhere as lone entities.

Her breakfast churned in her stomach. She stood and motioned Vixie to accompany her to the High Hall while the others finished.

In the echoing High Hall, with the doors shut, Aerity stepped out of her layered skirts, wearing only her overblouse and leggings. She coated her hands in powdered rosin from a bowl. Vixie sat on the floor cross-legged and watched as Aerity ran her hands down the flowing red silks. She bundled each strand in her hands, breaking them in two. This was where she could clear her mind, letting her body and the silks work together as one. She’d been working on a routine all summer in preparation for the fall gala, and though plans had been stopped, Aerity continued to practice.

She used the curves of her body and her limbs, twining the silks like ropes about her, testing the strength of each move with gentle tugs to make sure she was prepared to move to the next position. Aerity climbed as high as she could, the silks wound tightly around her feet, then leaned back and spun a bit to circle the fabric around her waist. She heard Vixie gasp as she let go with her hands and leaned back, glorifying in the stretch of her arched back, grabbing hold of her pointed foot.

“You’re so high . . .” Vixie’s fearful whisper filled the room.

Aerity smiled to herself and moved to hang upside down fully, suspended with the cloths pinching her thighs and hips securely. She grasped the hanging silks and waved them at her sister below. Ironically, they were both frightened of the other’s talents—Vixie was afraid of heights, and Aerity couldn’t imagine performing on the back of a moving horse.

“Come up and get me,” Aerity teased.

“Not on your life. Come down here and be my horse. I miss riding.”

Aerity swiveled, repositioning, and rolled downward at top speed, stopping herself just below the bottom, tensing all her muscles as she hung perpendicular to the floor.

“Show-off.” Vixie, the master of showing off, leaped forward in a handspring, then dived again and walked on her hands in a circle around the dangling Aerity. “Come on, Sister. I need a horse.”

Aerity let go of the silks and gracefully stood. “You’re too tall for us to do that now.”

“Oh, let’s just try. Please?”

Aerity sighed and went to her hands and knees. Vixie giggled and landed on her feet, quickly straddling her sister’s back. They laughed as Aerity moved sluggishly forward, Vixie clinging.

“Come on, then, you’re as slow as an old mule.” She swatted Aerity’s bottom, making the older princess squeal.

“I’ll buck you off!” She laughed.

Aerity picked up speed as Vixie moved, light and agile,
resting her knees on Aerity’s lower back, and her palms on Aerity’s shoulder blades.

“Nice and easy,” Vixie said. Aerity tensed as she felt her sister’s weight change, all the pressure going to her upper back as Vixie moved into a handstand.

Aerity was holding her breath. She had stopped.

“Keep moving, you naughty horsie,” Vixie breathed from her handstand.

Aerity tried to go forward, but couldn’t keep her back tight enough, and the two sisters toppled into a heap, Vixie landing on top of Aerity with a thud. They laughed together as they hadn’t done in a long time.

Outside they heard hushed, serious voices passing, and the girls stilled. They looked at each other.

“I’m worried about Mama and Papa,” Vixie said. “And Wyneth.”

“I know,” Aerity whispered. “Papa will figure something out, though. Things will be back to normal soon.” She gave her sister a small smile, and Vixie smiled back, seeming relieved.

Yet the following morning proved Aerity’s words to be worthless. A villager had gone missing in the night. They found his leather boot by the canal near his house, his foot still inside.

When Aerity saw the fierce look of determination on her father’s face as he sped down the halls, spouting orders to his men, she felt her first spark of hope—it seemed he’d finally
had enough. He was ready to act. She flattened herself against the wall as the men passed, so focused they never glanced her way.

“. . . respond with force,” she heard her father say. Yes! He spoke of sending out thousands of soldiers across the kingdom, on both royal and common lands. So much manpower and expertise. They would have to kill the beast.

Her mother, who’d been steps behind the men, saw Aerity and took her by the hand. “It will be all right now. Keep to your rooms so you don’t get trampled. And be on the lookout for Donubhan. I can’t keep track of that child.” The queen kissed Aerity on the temple and left to catch up.

Aerity sighed. She checked in on a sleeping Wyneth before heading to her own chambers, wishing she could venture outdoors. In the corridor she spotted a slight shuffle in the wall curtains and marched over, yanking the curtain back. Donubhan let out a holler of surprise and Aerity bit back a smile.

“What in Eurona are you doing, Donny?”

He exhaled and smacked his hands to his thighs. “Nobody will tell me anything!”

“They won’t tell me anything either,” Aerity said. “Come on. Let’s find Vixie and visit the indoor archery range together. I’ll challenge you both to best out of five.”

“You’re on!” He ran ahead, dark red locks flopping around his head.

Everything was going to be okay. Forces would be dispatched this very day to try to catch the nocturnal beast
where it slumbered. They would hunt through the night if necessary. By the next day, this madness could be over.

Princess Aerity awoke to the hope of celebration, but when she tiptoed out of her chambers for an update, she was met with eerie silence. She found Donubhan, Vixie, and the younger cousins eating with the maids in the informal dining room. She rushed past before they spotted her. Following low voices coming from the end of the long hallway, she found her parents, aunts, uncles, and the king’s advisers inside his office. She slipped in behind the standing bodies. When all eyes turned to her she stood straighter, clasping her hands behind her back and lifting her chin as if daring them to make her leave.

Her father only sighed. “Continue,” he told one of the commanders.

Aerity felt a moment of proud glee.

The commander looked ragged, as if he hadn’t slept. “Your Highness, the men were stationed throughout the kingdom—in trees, at the edges of the water, anywhere we could think. The beast attacked from behind along the east inlet—one of the places it’s never been spotted before. My men say the beast felled ten men within minutes. Their weapons were useless. They say it has tough skin, thick tusks, and sharp claws. It roared loud enough to pierce their eardrums, and . . . the few surviving soldiers ran.”

The commander sounded ashamed to admit this as the king grimaced. His soldiers ran. For some reason this shocked
Aerity more than any other fact. Grown, trained men had run because the beast was that frightening. The room seemed to grow colder.

“Your Majesty,” began Lord Wavecrest. “Perhaps we should round up a few Lashed to try and kill it with their powers—” The king adamantly shook his head, and her uncle hurried on. “With all due respect, now’s not the best time to have a bleeding heart. A Lashed One could kill the beast with a single touch!”

Aerity’s father slammed a fist against his oak desk, making it rattle. “I will not force civilians to face the beast against their will, Lashed or not. Would you have women, children, and elderly out there when our own soldiers run from it?”

“There are men on the Lashed records. Not many, but—”

“I said no.”

Lord Wavecrest gritted his teeth. Aerity could see the desperation on his face. He’d already lost his future son-in-law, and his daughter had withdrawn to a dark place in her mind, gone from them as well.

“Lord Wavecrest,” the king’s adviser said. “From what I know of the Lashed, they must be able to lay hands on a living being and concentrate. Our men are being flung ten feet from the beast with barely a shrug of its arms. If we could somehow trap it and hold it down, a Lashed One would be valuable, but we have not yet discovered a way to do so.”

Lord Wavecrest gave a nod and looked away in defeat. His wife took his hand.

“Tonight, the soldiers go again,” the king said. “Any who are willing. I will offer a healthy financial reward to the one who kills the beast or injures it enough to take it captive.”