Astrid

“Astrid!” Eli rushes to me over breakfast, panting. “The Master and Isabelle are trying to stab each other!”

“Beg your pardon?” The water I am drinking dribbles down my throat. I end up hacking away in a fit of coughs, but I let Eli drag me by the hand anyway.

We race to the sparring arena. Adjacent to the castle grounds, it is a large space with checkered stone tiles painted black and white. No roof stands above our heads even though stone pillars encircle the area.

In the distance, Kieran helps Isabelle to her feet. They both resume offensive stances.

I glare at Eli for his over-dramatization. His returned grin shows no hint of remorse.

Before I can usher him to leave, Isabelle – who has gotten herself pinned to the ground again – notices us standing and calls out: “Morning, guys!”

Kieran offers her a hand and she takes it. This time, however, they do not resume their sparring. I cautiously approach them with Eli by my side.

Strange bonding activity, I think, but out loud I say, “Is Kieran bullying you?”

“Absolutely,” Kieran responds unabashedly.

“He’s teaching me to spar with a weapon.”

“Whatever for?”

They both exchange a look.

“We’re thinking that maybe…” she bites her lip. “Well…”

“The monster can be tamed,” Kieran interjects on her behalf. “We have reason to believe I practiced restraint the other night in the castle.”

“Bayorn was injured, but not killed. And you – you survived without a scratch. I mean, without much of a scratch. So we’re going to make preparations and -”

“- perhaps you, too, should ready yourself physically.”

I glance at the scar on my right forearm. Their synchronized speech would have been comical if the weight behind their words were not so terrifying. Yet the truth rings in the air: even in the nightmares that plague me most nights, the image of the beast retreating is a common factor. A striking memory.

“What are you implying?” I balance my hands on my hips. “That we learn to juggle blades and stand in a circle around Kieran when he transforms?”

“You should at least learn to arm yourselves,” another voice echoes from behind me.

Bayorn approaches us. His movements are still stiff, but whatever medication my father has administered to him has worked better than we expected in the past few weeks.

“Your mother needs help with the horses in the stables,” he tells Eli.

“But -”

“We can spar together tomorrow,” he interrupts, stern but kind.

Eli does not need to be told twice, but he still glances between us sourly. I do my best to offer him an apologetic look. The boy makes a show of stomping his feet when he walks off.

When he leaves, Bayorn speaks to us but looks only at Kieran. “Training within this short period of time may not do much, but it is something. Attempting to tame the beast, on the other hand…”

“I will never let any of them near me without sufficient consideration,” Kieran insists. “I have thought this through, Bayorn. Over and over again. There is no other way.”

You can work on breaking the curse, I want to say, but the underlying meaning behind this idea heavily echoes my own warning to him yesterday.

People are hunting him. If there is a way to stave off their attention, it is by keeping the beast at bay. Helping Kieran to regain control could also mean less of a threat to us in the castle.

Bayorn must see this, too, because even though his stance remains unhinged, there is accession in his deep exhale.

“And how do you propose to go about this, my liege?”

Kieran fixes his eyes on me, the least willing member of this unspoken pact.

“We train.”

I am terrible at combat. Throwing daggers, holding them, wielding well-balanced swords...everything in the weaponry positively hates me. Even when I nock an arrow on a bow, everybody flees ridiculously far out of range. Even Eli is better than me.

But although my progress is not up to par with Isabelle’s quick athleticism, it is – by some marvel – still existent. In very miniscule scales.

The more difficult parts come at night. Each of us takes turns to enter the dungeons for at least an hour while Bayorn stands guard, his sword balanced in front of him even though the beast remains caged and shackled. Eli insists on entering the dungeons, too. It was first met with unanimous resistance, but after some time, Imogen finally consented. He only comes down when all of us are present – and even then, we form a protective human shield around him.

That child is more courageous than I am.

Every time I go down there, my knees shake violently. I constantly fight the urge to plead for my release. When the hour is finally up, I flee to either Isabelle’s or Imogen’s chambers.

Tonight, four hours before midnight, Kieran visits my chambers.

He is wary and tense every time the sun goes down. Tonight is no different.

I run my wide-teethed comb through my hair once more before setting it down on the dressing table. “Whose turn is it tonight?”

“Bayorn’s.”

He makes a straight beeline for my bed and collapses on it, his bare feet facing the bay windows. I approach him and slip under the covers so that our bodies are positioned perpendicularly, the top of his head barely brushing my abdomen.

“It’s not working,” he says to the ceiling. “Is it?”

“Not really,” I admit.

A muffled groan escapes his lips. He runs a hand up and down his face before ruffling the hair on the front of his head.

“But it helps to try. It helps us, anyway. Reduces the element of fear.”

“Someday, I’m going to kill somebody again.” He mumbles this under his breath, but I catch it. Those words do not leave a pleasing effect in the pit of my stomach.

Instead I try to diffuse the tension with a change of subject. “What will you do once the curse is broken?”

He cracks a humorless smile.

“Sleep,” he says.

Of course. The constant discolouration under his eyes serves as a reminder of how he should have dropped from exhaustion long ago if he did not possess the gift of quick recovery.

“How is your father?”

“His condition deteriorates by the day. The less optimistic part of me reckons he might just have the minimum amount of time predicted by the physician. I should be able to care for him in his final month if it is so.”

Considering the curse is broken. Or if we do not die before then.

“After…” he glances at me and moistens his lips. He does not need to finish that sentence. “What will you do?”

I angle my head so that we are both looking at each other: him up at me, and me down at him. “I do not know. Anything. Perhaps...perhaps I will return to visit. If you are still here.”

He snorts in disbelief. “Return? Why?”

The dubiety in his tone is almost insulting. I lace my hands together over my stomach. “I do not know. To bother you? To watch Eli grow up?”

His amusement disappears as quickly as it came.

“You would come back?” he says quietly.

“Yes. We are friends, are we not? Regardless of the circumstances of our coming together.”

Kieran thinks this over as if this is a new concept presented to him. He turns his head so that his bewildered attention is shifted to the ceiling once more.

“Yes,” he murmurs. “I suppose we are.”