Free the Beast
Something evil is stalking the villagers. Leaving burnt marks and oiled warnings on door frames, in stables. Waking them in the night with the stares of glowing red eyes in their bedrooms.
I keep my head down as I leave the courtyard, pressing through the crowds wanting to speak to the king, willing myself invisible. My hands won’t stop trembling. My skin still feels scorched where I touched the mark imprinted on a hut in the upper village, though no burn shows. I pull my cloak tighter, hiding the shiver that won’t leave me.
No one can know. Not the villagers. Not Arthur. Least of all Wthyr.
If they knew what I woke last night—I’d be dragged to the altar before the holy man of the Wthyr’s new religion by dusk.
I climb the stairs to the second story of the manor house, each step heavier than the last. The great hall looms to my left, timber and stone crouched like a beast of its own.
Arthur’s chamber is warmer than the morning air, the fire snapping low in the brazier. I pause just inside the doorway, trying to steady my breath, trying to make my hands stop shaking.
He doesn’t look up when I enter. He’s pacing, shoulders taut, lips pressed tight. The darkness presses on him too—I can feel it in the room like a second presence.
He rounds on me. “Where have you been?”
I flinch, though I force myself to straighten. He’s never this short with me, and now I suspect it has less to do with the quality of his sleep and more to do with the strange happenings in the village. “Fetching your boots, sire.”
My voice sounds strained, uneven, and I’m suddenly reluctant to show him the ones I borrowed from the shoemaker.
“You should’ve been here an hour ago.” His hand rakes through his hair, leaving it standing on end. “What did you do, take a dalliance through the village? You’re meant to make things easier on me, not vanish whenever it pleases you so that I’m forced to do your work for you.”
My mouth goes dry, and my heart hammers in my chest. The tension wraps around me like a coil, but Arthur’s ire unravels me. He’s rarely so stern with me. The words I want to say—about the villagers, the mark, the monster—die in my throat. “The leatherworker was busy,” I say. “It took a moment to get a pair of boots for you.”
Arthur lets out a short laugh. “Busy? At dawn? Do you take me for a fool?”
“No, my lord.” I bow my head, but my mind races.
Something is amiss here. In all the time I’ve served Arthur, he’s never made me…anxious. Like he might snap and I’ll pay the price. Like he might use his hand to teach me a lesson.
He moves past me to the window, the light falling harsh across his face. There’s a shadow in his eyes, a restless fire. He doesn’t speak for a long moment, only grips the sill until his knuckles whiten. Finally he mutters, almost to himself, “Something’s wrong. This place—this morning—” He cuts himself off, jaw tightening.
I suck in a breath, my eyes steady on his face. Then he feels it too.
What has the beast done? “What do you mean, sire?” I ask softly, almost afraid to draw his attention to me.
“Forget it.” He turns back to me. “My water pitcher is empty. And I need those boots before noon, I can’t be expected to wear my hunting boots all day. And I want my armor polished by then as well. If you can’t manage it, I’ll find someone who can.”
The words sting, though I bite back any reply. He doesn’t mean them—not truly. This is the magic speaking through him, the same weight that presses against my bones.
I did this. I released a darkness in Caerleon, and I’m witnessing the repercussions already.
“The leather worker won’t have new boots made right away,” I say. “But he lent you these until yours are ready.”
I place the boots on the floor before him and flinch as he slaps them away.
“What’s the matter with you today?” he roars. “Those boots are good for the trash!”
I bow again, deeper this time to hide the fear on my face. “Yes, sire.”
His eyes linger on me a moment, unreadable. Then he waves a hand, dismissing me.
I grab the water pitcher, ignoring how the water inside it sloshes back and forth, and back out of the chamber, the door shutting between us, my heart pounding louder than the latch.
The mark burns behind my eyelids. The beast’s eyes. The way Arthur’s voice caught when he said something’s wrong.
Something heavy has fallen over Caerleon, and the darkness is infesting him.
Yesterday, I would have believed Arthur would be angry at me but let it go if he knew I did such a thing.
Today, I’m afraid he would see me executed.
And I can’t let that happen.
I keep my head bowed as I leave Arthur’s chamber, the weight of his words pressing heavier than the pitcher I carry. My steps echo down the corridor, measured and quiet, until the wooden stairs spill me into the lower hall where the morning’s work is already in motion. Servants rush past with baskets, buckets, bolts of linen. The air is thick with smoke from the kitchen and the sour tang of ale casks for the feast.
The feast for the game Arthur and I brought back after the hunt yesterday. When we laughed and colluded together after Diana, his falcon, showed an extraordinary display of strength.
One might even call it a magical display of strength.
But the Arthur of yesterday wasn’t about to point that out.
That was before I opened the cabin and everything fell to darkness.
I slip into the familiar clamor, grateful to disappear into the blur of duty. No one looks too closely at me if I keep moving. I top off Arthur’s pitcher at the well, but before I can get it back to his chambers, Jenna catches my arm, thrusting a bundle of bloodied linens at my chest.
“To the stream. And don’t dawdle, boy.”
She glares at me also, her jaw tight, like she thinks I’m up to no good.
Maybe the beast whispered into the dreams of everyone in Caerleon, somehow, that I caused this. I stole the map from the church and I opened the hidden house with the beast concealed inside. I released the curse on everyone.
I deserve her suspicion. “Yes, mistress.”
I haven’t forgotten Arthur wants me to polish his armor, but I have time for both, and I don’t want to risk anyone else’s ire. I set the pitcher down and shoulder the heavy cloth before heading out through the side gate, the sunlight spilling hard and bright. The air is sharp with early autumn warmth, a rare hot spell. Beyond the walls, the fields stretch golden, ready for harvest, the stalks rippling in the wind like a living sea.
At first I think it’s a shadow, a trick of the light. A patch of black among the rippling green. But as I draw closer, the truth settles like a stone in my gut.
An entire section of the barley field is ruined. The stalks are twisted and brittle, their tips curling into gray.
I set the linens down at the edge of the path and step closer, my feet brushing against healthy stalks that rustle like whispers. The smell reaches me first—a faint scorched tang, like wood doused before it could burn.
I crouch, my knees sinking into the dust, and touch one of the stalks.
It crumbles beneath my fingertips, blackened husk disintegrating into ash. I snatch my hand back as though I’ve been burned. But there’s no fire here, no heat. Just a sharp, stinging cold that clings to my skin.
The hairs rise on my arms.
I reach again, slower this time, brushing two fingers against another stalk. A faint hum stirs in my bones—like the pull of a harp string, vibrating deep inside me. The same hum I felt the night in the forest when I called fire to my hand. The same wrongness that coiled through the hut before the beast came.
My breath hitches.
The barley whispers as the wind passes over it, the blackened patch hissing like dry reeds. The sound forms words—low, mocking, a language I shouldn’t understand and yet do. I stumble back, wiping my hands against my tunic as if I could scrape the magic off.
A murmur rises behind me. I turn to see the villagers gathering—farmers, wives, old men. They stand at the edge of the ruined patch. I step away from the grains, pulling my shoulders in and melting into the group, not wanting them to notice me here.
“’Tis a sign,” one man says, voice low but firm. “The gods are displeased. They want more prayers. More offerings.”
“Aye.” Another nods. “It’s the priest’s fault with his new god. The old gods remind us who holds the fields.”
“It’s no god’s hand,” an young woman mutters, spitting into the dirt. “It’s the devil’s. A warning.” She glares toward the manor as if its walls themselves offend her.
I keep my face still, eyes lowered, but my heart hammers so loudly I fear they’ll hear it. I know what this is. Not gods. Not saints. Not the devil.
Me.
The blight is the same power I felt in the forest, the darkness that answered when I woke to find myself surrounded by fire on my journey here.
Even now I see it. The black sprites, drifting like ash. I can’t help staring at them.
The du.
The darkness spreads like smoke into everything it touches, twisting it, burning it from the inside.
Everything. And it lives inside me.
I clutch the linens tighter against my chest until my knuckles ache.
“Fetch the priest!” someone shouts, and the crowd scatters, some running toward the church, others bending to touch the charred stalks as though the blackened barley might whisper the truth.
I force myself to step back and make for the stream, my mind spinning.
The beast, the mark, the dark power—it’s still seeping out, curling its claws around this place.
Where is it? Where did it hide itself after I released it? And what does it want?
