Page 1 of House of the Beast

Chapter

M y father’s sword of cold black steel, the finest in all of Kugara, hovered over the tender flesh of my left elbow.

A sick tempest of uncertainty churned in my stomach, threatening to send the first full meal I’d eaten in weeks all over the temple floor.

I had asked for this, but I was beginning to wonder if I had made a mistake.

I mustered up the courage to croak, “Wait.”

My father, who I had met for the first time two days ago, frowned at me.

“What is it?” His voice echoed through the dark hall, low and sharp. “The Beast does not appreciate delays.”

He was a tall man with an angled face and an air of importance in the way he held himself.

He was unlike any of the scruffy uncles and potbellied sailors I grew up around in the slums of Merey.

Beneath the left sleeve of his tailored jacket, his hand was made of polished black metal.

When he’d come to collect me, I’d watched the neighbors look at it and then step back quickly in fearful reverence.

I’d been apprehensive too, yet I couldn’t help sneaking in my own share of glances throughout the day. After all, I had never expected to see an elder god’s vessel up close. I’d spent my whole life believing these things were far beyond my station.

Now here I was, whisked away to the mountainous province of House Avera, one of the Four High Houses of Kugara, kneeling in their private temple, ready to be offered up to a god.

The stone floor tiles were cold and hard against my knees.

The worn clothes I’d traveled here in did little to protect me against the chilly air.

I shivered like a leaf in the wind before the centerpiece of the altar: a monstrous sculpture of the Dread Beast’s head, constructed from smooth, dark metal.

The sculptor had decided on a lupine form for this depiction, and the Beast’s three eyes were each inlaid with mirrors that reflected the temple braziers.

If I looked closely, I could see my own eyes mirrored back at me.

Inside the sculpture’s maw was a shallow basin that held water.

My left arm had been placed inside of it, a cuff locking my wrist into place at the bottom.

My submerged skin prickled from the cold.

The water was pitch-black, like the abyss itself was lapping at my fingers.

“Is there another way?” I stammered.

My father, Lord Zander Avera, Second Hand of the Dread Beast, scoffed at me. “Lest you forget, you were the one who sought a deal with me. Or will you go back on your word and leave your mother to suffer?”

If this were a heroic sort of tale, then this would have been where I steeled myself for the sacrifice.

I’d grit my teeth against his blade and honor the deal, so that my mother could have the medicine she needed.

I’d been so full of bravado back in Merey, even when she begged me not to go.

I’d thought I could sustain that flimsy courage through all that came next.

Instead, I began to cry.

The temple doors slammed open. In stormed a woman with dark hair coiled into an intricate bun and fury twisting her finely painted eyes and lips. Two attendants dressed in black followed at her heels. She pointed a shaking finger at my father.

“How dare you,” she growled. “You would sully House Avera’s name by bringing your mongrel to our most sacred temple? Is there no end to your ambition, Zander? Put the sword down at once!”

I wanted nothing more than for my father to obey her—to put down the sword and send me far away. “I want to go home,” I sniveled, hoping it would help my cause.

My father looked at me with an eyebrow raised. “Home?” he repeated. “This is your home now, Alma.”

He brought the blade down.

***

I CAME FROM MEREY, A SMALL PORT TOWN IN THE PROVINCE OF Metia.

Here, the people revered the Heavenseer, one of the four elder gods worshipped in Kugara.

Fishermen and merchants prayed to the divine vessels of House Metia in hopes that their all-seeing deity would bless their catches, prevent disaster, perhaps even move the weather itself.

Every seven days there was a congregation in the local temple to give thanks, attended by almost everyone in town—save for my mother and me.

Our little household was something of an anomaly.

My mother had never taught me to worship the Heavenseer, or any of the others: not the Weeping Lady or the Odious Tinkerer or the fearsome Dread Beast. We kept to ourselves, and because we did not worship the old folk deities either, we were thankfully spared from the ritual drownings that were often administered to heretics.

I used to wonder why we never made an effort to join in when the temple bell tolled and the people of Merey shuffled dutifully to prayer.

Then it became apparent that the Seer-Priests of Merey simply didn’t like us.

Neither did many of our neighbors. I had been born out of wedlock, and the rumor around town was that my father was a married man.

The Heavenseer Sees all , the aunties on our street used to whisper behind my mother’s back. She must be afraid he will See her wicked ways and cast her into the ocean .

I often wanted to tell those thoughtless hypocrites that my mother was the loveliest person in the world.

They didn’t know that her smile never wavered, even when we struggled to put food on the table.

That she would always offer me portions off her plate, even though she needed the energy to work.

That when we could eat nothing but plain rice and salt for days, she would ask me, “What shall my sweet Alma feast upon today? A turkey? A boar?” And she would mold the rice into the shape of an animal so that I would smile as I pretended to bite off its head.

But though I never doubted her love for me, the whispers around town did make me wonder about my father.

My mother never spoke of him, and she was adamant that we were better off by ourselves.

There were times when I, being young and foolish, had found that difficult to believe.

It wasn’t that I thought her a bad mother.

But she worked long hours at the waterside hostel and often came back to our rickety little apartment after I had already tucked myself into bed.

I was lonely.

I was an only child and had a grand total of zero friends.

Parents kept their children away from me as if the scandal of my birth were contagious.

I knew it hurt my mother to see this. Once, she had tried to endear me to the neighborhood kids by splurging on a bag of candy for me to share, and then she had somehow charmed them into playing with me despite their parents’ warnings.

After they had eaten all my candy (to my consternation) and then included me in a game of catch (which I reluctantly enjoyed), one of the boys asked me, “Do you really not have a dad?”

“I don’t need a dad,” I told him.

He scrunched up his face. “Everyone needs a dad. My father says your mother can’t find a husband because she’s a harlot.”

“That’s not true!” I shouted.

“Yes it is,” he screamed back, and then pushed me to the ground.

I remembered the awful, tearful embarrassment as everyone laughed. And then a flash of rage, so incandescent that it burned away my senses. The next thing I knew I was back on my feet and the boy was howling on the ground, cradling a broken arm.

I remembered thinking he deserved it.

There had been a big fuss, the aunties shooing me away as they attended to the boy.

After I’d gone home and cried into my mother’s skirts, the boy’s mother showed up at our door and said some very nasty things to both of us.

The rage almost came roaring back, but my mother’s endless patience, her fingers stroking my hair as she gracefully apologized on my behalf, kept it at bay.

Afterward, she sat me down and treated me to the full might of her disappointment.

“You can’t hurt people like that, Alma,” she said in a tone that let me know I was really in trouble.

“He said horrible things about you!”

“I’m touched that you wanted to defend my honor. But hateful words don’t justify violence. No, don’t argue! I don’t care what they say. As long as you and I are happy, that’s all I need.”

Her words brought me to tears again, and she shushed my sobs and kissed me on the head.

I could not recall what I had done to that boy, but I did not regret that he was hurt.

What I did regret was making my mother sad.

She had done her best to help me make friends, but I had ruined everything, proving myself to be as much trouble as everyone believed.

She lacks a father’s guidance , the adults would say. Her mother cannot control her .

The boy whose arm I broke turned out to be well-liked, and he made sure his friends all knew of my transgression. No one in our neighborhood would ever play with me again.

I told myself that it didn’t matter. I wanted nothing from them; my mother and I were better off on our own. But, to my great frustration, I was still lonely.

So, I made myself a friend.

I decided that he would be a prince. One who had been banished from a far-off land, as much an outcast as I. He was more beautiful than any boy from Merey, with hair like moonlight and eyes like stars. He was sweet and charming and always knew how to make me smile, and he was devoted to me wholly.

Unlike most of our neighbors, my mother knew how to read, and she’d taught me as well.

I once heard someone whisper that if she’d never had me, she could have been an educated woman and made something of herself.

The heroines in the books she kept reminded me of her.

They were kind and forgiving and written to inspire girls like me to become better people.

The princes in those stories loved the heroines for being good.

I knew I wasn’t anything like them. There was violence in me—the part that had taken satisfaction in leaving that boy in agony, even as I lied and promised my mother that I was sorry. No, I was not good.

Instead, I imagined someone who would love me even if I was terrible.

I never told anyone about him—not even my mother. It was foolish. Poor Alma, so pathetic and unlovable that she had to imagine someone who would give her the time of day. I didn’t want to disappoint her again. I didn’t want her to worry.

So, I kept him a secret. But he would always be close by, ready with a quip to make me smile when the days were bad. He held my hand during thunderstorms when my mother wasn’t around and walked with me down the street making faces at the boys sneering at me.

At night, I would scoot over in my bed to make room for my imaginary companion and confess to him all my darkest fears.

I told him I was scared I would always be stuck in this hateful town.

I was scared that my mother had ruined her life by having me, that maybe she would have been happier if I’d never been born.

And my prince from the stars would say, so sweetly, “How could you think that, Alma? You are a blessing upon your poor mother’s life. Someday, you and I will leave this place for somewhere better, together.”

One day, my mother came home early and opened the door to find me chattering away to thin air. I will never forget the look on her face. I hadn’t understood the reason for it at the time; I’d only thought that she must pity her poor daughter, talking to someone who wasn’t real.

Only later would I realize that it hadn’t been pity in her eyes, but caution.

Regardless, I stopped talking to my friend. I forced myself to put him out of my mind, and at some point, I managed to forget him completely. I was alone again, but as long as my mother was happy, I would bear it.

When she took ill, my whole world fell apart.