BEAST
We always know before the change comes. When a storm approaches, we feel it in the thickness of the air, the tension in the earth awaiting the blanket of snow. We feel the moment the wind changes direction. We sense a shift of power when it is coming.
Tonight there is hunger in the air. The forest waits for something. We pace, our steps stirring the early snows. Our frustration vents in growls and grunts. Each of us could read the change to come, neither hindered by the other. We could track it, or we could run with it. But we are trapped, and we can do neither.
We always know before the change comes—but we never know what the change will bring.
ONE
YEVA WATCHED THE SKY over the far-off forest, listening to the baronessa with one ear. The air was heavy and unfamiliar. A storm? she wondered, inhaling the strangeness. In the distance the treetops swayed as if in a gust of wind, but the rest of the forest was still.
She leaned forward, abandoning the sewing on her lap so she could nudge the glass-paned window open a fraction. The air outside was frigid, especially for Yeva in her finely embroidered dress, but she didn’t mind—the glass distorted the distant woods, and she’d rather see clearly than be warm. How large must a creature be to cause movement like that? Larger than anything an arrow could bring down, unless the shot was beyond lucky. Here on the edge of the wood, there shouldn’t be anything larger than a bear skulking beneath the canopy. Her father used to tell stories of larger, stranger things that hid in the heart of the wood, but she’d outgrown stories long ago. If only that sign of movement would come again, perhaps she’d be able to—
“Yeva, darling!” The baronessa’s voice cut in, the world snapping back to the present. “You’ll get your death in that draft. Close the window before we all catch a cough.”
Yeva reached for the latch to pull it closed, trying to look less rattled than she felt. “Sorry, my lady. I thought I saw bad weather approaching.”
“Not another storm,” moaned the baronessa, clutching her fur wrap more closely about her shoulders. “It’s too early for such snow, I don’t know what we’ll do this winter.”
“Do you really think a storm is coming?” asked Galina, one of the baronessa’s other ladies.
With her attention mostly on the far-off forest, Yeva noticed with a start that Galina had been speaking to her. “The air smells of it,” Yeva replied, eyes shifting from Galina’s face to the baronessa’s.
Galina turned to whisper to the lady next to her, forgetting herself. The baronessa scarcely noticed, though, too busy wringing her hands. “Oh, what shall we do?” she murmured, not bothering to look outside herself, but staring around at the faces of her ladies.
Yeva glanced back at the window. There was still no sign of bad weather on the horizon, but uneasiness lingered at the back of her mind. The parlor had erupted into whispers, and with creeping dread Yeva realized that she could be here all night.
“My lady,” she said, adopting for once the gentle voice she was meant to be cultivating, “perhaps the other ladies and I should retire, if we are to get home to our families before the storm arrives.” A number of heads lifted among the circle of women.
“And leave me alone?” cried the baronessa as though Yeva had proposed taking her out into the storm and blindfolding her.
The baronessa was fairer skinned than most, claiming some Varangian blood in her ancestry. Other nobles would have hidden those roots, but she owned them with pride, attributing some romantic hot-bloodedness to them. Combined with her plump face and bow-shaped mouth, it gave her a youthful appearance, childlike and sweet. For all her silliness, Yeva could not help but feel a twinge of pity for the woman. She wasn’t that much older than Yeva herself, not even twenty yet, with her husband more than three times her age. The company of the wealthy ladies in the town was all she had in the dark months of the year.
Yeva smiled at her, for once not having to search for the expression. “The baron will be home soon, and of course Machna and Lada will be here.” The two sisters were guests of the baron’s household, visiting from the city.
The baronessa chewed at her lip, casting a glance for the first time at the tiny window. Yeva had secured the spot by being the most junior of the women in the baronessa’s circle, and thus taking the coldest seat—but she preferred it to any other, with its view of the forest beyond the edge of the baron’s property. Yeva felt impatience strum at her insides. She hated the indecisiveness of people in town, how they waited to make decisions, took weeks or months or years to settle, until the decisions were made for them by inaction.
“Oh, very well,” the baronessa said finally, waving her hand in a sad, dismissive gesture. “If the snow has not marooned us all by morning, will you ladies return tomorrow afternoon? If it snows my husband will not be hunting, but he will be so cross that I would rather have company when facing him.”
Yeva felt a sluggish stirring of dislike in her stomach. Only a nobleman, whose idea of hunting involved sitting high on a spotlessly decorated stallion while half-starved hounds did all the work, would be turned away by snow. The snow is a canvas, her father would say, upon which the beast paints his past, his home, his intentions, his future. Learn to see the picture and you will know him as you know yourself.
“Of course we will come back tomorrow,” Galina replied, saving Yeva from having to formulate an answer. “Thank you, my lady.”
The girls all stood, tucking their sewing away, preparing to leave until the next afternoon. Yeva hurried to follow suit, shoving her embroidery into its basket. She’d learned in her first few days that the baronessa often snared the last of the girls to leave, drawing them into conversations that could last for hours. It wasn’t so much that Yeva disliked speaking with the baronessa, but rather that she’d prefer to reach home by nightfall.
And before the storm, if one was coming.
They left the baronessa mournfully describing her husband’s hunting exploits to the hapless sisters from the city, and rushed to bundle up in their winter gear.
“Thank you,” whispered Galina as she caught up to Yeva, jogging her elbow a little and casting her a smile.
Yeva shook her head, the corners of her mouth twitching. “I was only thinking of our safety, traveling in the weather.”
One of the baronessa’s ladies, overhearing Yeva, laughed. “We knew exactly what you were thinking of, Yeva. What time is Solmir meeting you?”
Yeva’s smile vanished. “Solmir?” she echoed.
“Don’t think we haven’t seen how much attention he pays you at the baronessa’s dinners.” The lady raised an eyebrow. She was one of the older members of the baronessa’s inner circle, soon to be engaged to a man in the baron’s hunting party. “Don’t give me that look. That is the point of this all, no? For us to see, and be seen.”
Yeva looked over at Galina, who was watching quietly as she laced the ties on her cloak. Finding no answer there, Yeva could only shrug in response.
Galina fell into step beside Yeva, and they walked in silence through the high doors of the house and onto the street. Galina was the second-newest addition to the baronessa’s collection, and somewhat more understanding of Yeva’s peculiarities. She had never once blanched at the accidental mention of weaponry.