Page 13 of House of the Beast

Chapter

I t must have been a shock the next morning when the attendant came in and saw me perched in the sitting area, freshly washed and dressed for the first time in days.

They yelped and nearly dropped the tray of breakfast they had been holding.

“Lady Alma,” they stammered. “You’re... awake.”

The windows had been opened so the dawn breeze could blow away the funk of my depression. I breathed in the fresh air, feeling renewed.

“Good morning,” I said.

They eyed me warily. “Good morning, my lady. Your breakfast is ready. Shall I set it on the table?”

“Yes, please.”

The tray was deposited on the low table before me, the plates still steaming.

For the first time in days, I realized I was hungry, and the food looked delicious—thick toast drowning in cream and syrup, fluffy eggs, and round, glistening sausages.

The hearty, smoky smell of the sausages combined with the rich sweetness of the syrup made my mouth water.

I picked up a fork, and paused when I noticed the attendant was still staring.

“Shall I fetch Lord Zander?” they asked abruptly.

I frowned. I wasn’t looking forward to more of my father’s self-important tirades, or to facing him at all when it wasn’t yet time to enact my revenge, but it was inevitable. He would hear of my sudden recovery one way or another.

“You might as well,” said Aster.

He was sitting beside me, chin leaning on his entwined fingers, smiling free and easy while the attendant moved about. I looked to the attendant, who gave no indication of having heard his reply.

I had suspected that no one else could see him.

It had seemed that way at the temple, when he had been nothing but a trick of the light in the corner of my eye, completely unnoticed by both my father and Darantha.

Though he now inhabited a more solid form, he seemed equally unbound by the rules of our world, flickering in and out of sight as he pleased.

But I was sure I had heard his weight creaking up the stairs last night—and he had opened the door for me, which meant he could touch things on our mortal plane.

As if to demonstrate, Aster suddenly stretched his arms above him in a yawn, his bare feet going onto the table, where he knocked my cup of tea a couple of inches to the side, sloshing liquid over the edge.

The attendant’s eyes snapped to the sudden movement.

It very clearly hadn’t been me, for I had not moved at all. But what was I going to say? That their god had manifested himself before me last night, and was now sitting with his feet crossed on the table like some sort of animal?

Hissing a quick apology, I grabbed the napkin from the tray and began mopping at the spilled tea.

“Oops,” said Aster belatedly.

“You did that on purpose,” I accused.

The attendant’s eyes grew wide. “Pardon me, my lady?”

“Never mind,” I said quickly. Clearly, I would have to get used to not talking to Aster in front of other people. He was not helping either, the way he muffled a snicker at my side. “Please call for my father,” I requested, hoping to get the attendant away.

Giving me a harried look, they bowed again and hurried out, not saying anything else.

When they were gone, I directed a glare at Aster. “Are you going to keep doing things like that?”

He gave me a smile full of so much charm that I began to curse my own mind for dreaming him up this way. “If it means you’ll pay attention to me, yes.”

“What if someone sees you?”

“They won’t. I belong to you only. I always have.”

The words stirred warm memories of all the times he’d kept me company as a child. I tried to keep my expression disapproving, to not let him distract me. “You were just a figment of my imagination. How can I be sure I’m not still imagining all of this?”

Aster’s expression turned smug. “You’ll see soon enough.”

The guesthouse, which I could barely stand being in before, now felt almost comfortable, with his chatter filling up the space.

Those ghostly specters that had lingered in the corners of my eyes had all disappeared, as if repelled by his presence, and without them crowding the edges of my mind I could finally breathe again.

Breakfast tasted better than any meal I had eaten since arriving—the toast sweet and filling, the sausages savory and rich.

I offered some of it to Aster and was met with a laugh.

Eating was apparently too mundane a task for him, but I had no problem with that.

After so many days of starving myself, my appetite had returned with a vengeance.

Even my clumsy single-handed movements could not slow me down.

I had just finished wolfing down the last crumbs when the door to my guesthouse opened.

My father strode in, his steps confident and assertive, another attendant in black trailing behind him.

In stead of his formal coat he wore only a black tunic today, but he looked no less imposing for it.

He appraised me critically without a hint of remorse in his expression.

“Finally had enough of sulking, have you?”

How I wanted to lunge at him again. There were no guards this time, so maybe I’d get a good go at breaking his nose before he could stop me.

Aster put a reassuring hand on my shoulder. “Not yet,” he soothed. “There’ll be plenty of time for that later.”

Despite Aster’s earlier assurances, I still glanced at my father to see if he could hear anything. If anyone else were to sense my companion, it would be him, another vessel of the Beast.

“I see you’ve decided to finish the food we’ve so generously set aside for you,” my father said, glancing at the empty plates instead of at the boy sitting by my side.

Seeing my own uncertainty, Aster languidly rose from his seat beside me and moved to stand behind my father.

Then he poked his head out and made a face at me—tongue stuck out, eyes crossed.

I choked down a laugh.

My father’s eyes narrowed. “What’s wrong with you, girl?”

“Nothing,” I managed, barely keeping the smile off my face. Joy raged through me like wildfire. This facet of the Beast, this boyish monster wearing my arm and holding my soul, truly did belong only to me. No one else could have him, not even my father.

Despite all his talk of piety to our god, all his grand schemes for House Avera, the Beast had not deemed him worthy.

But I was.

“I’m fine now,” I said.

“It’s about time,” he answered. “I have something for you.”

The attendant scurried up to me and bowed, holding out a long wooden box.

The lid was simple and unadorned, but when it was flipped back, my eyes widened.

Nestled upon a bed of deep golden silk lay a prosthetic arm carved with intricate swirling patterns.

It was made of the blackest metal, just like my father’s, but smaller and more slender.

“Hold out your arm,” he commanded.

The attendant helped me roll my sleeve back to reveal the ugly end of my stump. By now the bandages had come off and the sutures had fallen out, but the flesh was still pink and puckered at the edges.

A cotton sock was rolled up over it, and then the metal arm was lifted carefully out of the box.

The topmost section slipped over my flesh; the interior was made of smooth, dark wood, a socket hollowed out to fit over the few inches of arm still left below my shoulder.

Even through the sock, the cool surface pressing against my barely healed skin nearly made me flinch, but I managed to hold steady as straps of fine black leather were fastened around my shoulder to hold everything in place.

It was heavy. The weight was strange after having nothing there for the past couple of weeks. I knew nothing of metalcraft, but even so, I could tell the carvings were exquisite, and the joints fit together perfectly.

As the attendant fastened everything into place, I felt something settle inside me—like something that had been missing and found its way home.

“I will teach you the art of communion,” my father said to me, as brisk and efficient as ever, dispensing instructions without care for how I might feel following them.

“Don’t expect to have any control at first. The prosthetic worn by the Antecedent has mechanisms for movement; yours does not.

We will need to train you, slowly, to attune to the Beast’s will, to let Him inhabit your being, and only after that will you be able to use it.

” He held up his own metal hand and flexed it to demonstrate.

“It is a long and frustrating process, but it will help you build character.”

“I see,” I said, still gazing at the fine craftmanship with awe. I held up my newly acquired hand and, barely thinking about it, copied his movement.

My father went very still. So did the attendant, now watching me with wide eyes.

The only sound in the room was the soft rasp of metal on metal as I flexed my new fingers curiously, one by one.

The movement was stilted, like machinery poorly greased.

But it took no more than a thought to do it.

It was as simple as it had always been when my limb had been made of skin and bone instead of metal. This hand was mine.

Aster exploded into laughter. “You and I are going to have so much fun together.”

I was holding back a laugh as well. It was the first time I had been so happy since coming here. I felt almost whole again.

“Perhaps you have more control than I thought,” my father said slowly. “Consider yourself fortunate. Now Darantha cannot banish you like she wants.”

His words were careful, but they could not hide the brief flash of emotion that had crossed his face when he saw me moving my hand. It was not pride, which I had seen often enough in my mother to recognize.

It was anger—poisonous anger.

He had not expected this from me. Perhaps he’d thought I’d lie here weak and supplicant, desperate for his aid so that he might mold me into his weapon. But I was no helpless thing anymore. I had gotten an edge over him, and he hated it.

I laid my new hand back into my lap, satisfied for now that I’d beaten him in this small way. I needed to pace myself; as Aster had said, it would all come in time.

My father began to drone on about the importance of worship again, and I listened obediently.

Aster scooted closer and leaned his shoulder against mine, and though I had never considered myself an affectionate person, it felt as natural as breathing to lean back.

Already, a part of me considered him familiar and safe.

Something warm curled inside the howling cavity of my chest that I had thought I would never feel again: the comfort of sharing something—a joke, a touch, a sense of purpose.

My childhood had never been warm or golden, but now I realized what a privilege it had been, to not know the cruelty of the world, and to be certain that someone who loved me would protect me.

Now it was over; like a fool, I had rushed my way out of it, and in the process I’d become the very thing my mother had feared most. I was a monster.

Whatever hardships were to plague me now, I deserved them.

And whatever ugly end awaited me, I would accept it.

But I would not go down without a fight. My father had brought me here to be a Hand of the Dread Beast, a host for the Harbinger of Blood and Ash, a vessel of destruction.

I would show him that he should have been careful what he wished for.