He heard, as if from far away, the prince cry out. His own scream wrapped around his head, as if coming from somewhere other than himself. He grabbed for his satchel, cradling it close to his chest and hoping that it would be enough to absorb the impact of fall and keep the egg safe. Desperate, pleading prayers to the Almighty raced through his mind, fighting with the terror that was threatening to consume him.
This was it.
This was how he died.
Chapter Three
ODESSA
“This isnothow I’m going to die today.” Odessa set her jaw and glared at the angry boar in front of her. It breathed heavily, sides heaving and nostrils flaring, and pawed at the ground as it lowered its head as if readying to charge.
“No!” She shook her finger at it. “Just because you’re bigger than me does not mean you get to be a bully. It’s time for bed, young lady.”
The boar shook her head violently, backing her large, powerful body further into the corner of tangled greenery in her forested enclosure.
Odessa let out a long breath and changed her approach. “I’ll tell you a story,” she coaxed. “And won’t Prince Dmitri be so pleased to hear that you’re being such a good girl?”
At the mention of Kovskia’s handsome prince, the boar stilled, and Odessa resisted the urge to smile. “Come on, Sonya. Let’s get you brushed.”
She approached Sonya, who had lost all of her earlier fight, and placed a hand on the boar’s shoulder, which was nearly at a level with her own. She patted the bristly skin, taut with muscle underneath, and nudged Sonya forward toward the small wooden shelter that stood along the back fence of the enclosure. “Katrin is already waiting for us.”
At the mention of the beautiful silver doe, Sonya snorted with excitement and picked up the pace. Under normal circumstances, Odessa would never have housed the two animals together in the same enclosure, but once she had witnessed the unusual, beautiful bond between the two of them, there had been no other choice. The delicate, almost ethereal, deer had a calming effect on the temperamental boar, who in turn would turn almost feral in her defense of her friend if she felt either of them were threatened.
Their dynamic had been amusing at first, but it wasn’t until Odessa learned the awful truth that she could fully understand and appreciate it.
The last streaks of sunset were disappearing from the sky, morphing into the hazy shadows of twilight. Though the heavy late-summer air still held onto the heat from the day, the cool breeze that rustled in the leaves overhead promised that the night would soon turn pleasant. Odessa glanced up at the sky, her eyes tracing the cool blue until they found the first of the familiar stars blinking awake for the night shift they shared with her.
Although as beautiful as they are, I wouldn’t mind looking up at a sky of fluffy white clouds instead.
Her feet stumbled over a patch of uneven ground, pulling her focus back to the task at hand, which was to get a stubborn and emotionally volatile boar to go to bed. As they came near the wooden stable, Sonya took off at a loping run, squealing a greeting to the deer that waited inside. Odessa followed at aslower pace, stopping to check that the food and water stores were sufficient for the night. She grabbed a stiff brush from a hook just inside the door and stepped into the narrow wooden building.
Sonya had already cuddled up next to Katrin, whose silver hair almost seemed to glow in the twilight. Odessa shook her head fondly as she approached, sharing a knowing look with the wide-eyed doe. “See, Sonya? I knew you were sleepy.”
Sonya narrowed her eyes in a glare and snorted, blowing bits of straw and dust up from the floor where her head was, but the boar did not protest as Odessa knelt beside her and began running the brush over her coarse hair with firm, short strokes. Sonya’s eyelids began to droop, and she shook her head with a grunt, fighting the sleep that she desperately needed. She nudged Odessa’s arm with her snout.
“You’re right; I did promise you a story.” Odessa spoke in a low, soothing voice as she worked, telling a familiar tale of a prince who traveled to a distant kingdom and rescued a princess caught under a sleeping curse. It was a story that she had loved as a child, captivated by the ideas of handsome princes and true love. She had dreamed of her own prince, of a romance that would sweep her off her feet and carry her off to her own happily ever after.
Now, as an adult, Odessa knew that happily ever after was neither practical nor attainable. She had learned enough about princes to know that their marriages were strategic alliances, backed by political motivations and not by love. She wasn’t holding out for true love. Despite all of that, she continued to tell the story anyway.
Because there was a small part of her, buried deep inside, that clung to the hope that curses could be broken.
That somehow, someway, she would be able to feel the sun on her face again.
Deep, throaty snores filled the air, punctuating the last final words of her story. Odessa dropped the brush into her lap, leaning back onto her heels. “Hopefully she wakes up in a better mood,” she whispered to Katrin. “She was particularly grouchy this evening.” She waited a moment, then added, “Are you coming with me tonight?”
Katrin bent her slender neck in a graceful nod before standing. Her dainty cloven hooves clacked softly on the hard earth floor as she stepped around Sonya’s sleeping hulk. Odessa pushed herself to her feet, replacing the brush before draping an arm over Katrin’s neck and leaning into the deer as they left the shelter.
Night had completely fallen, lit by the cold rays of a full moon that shone bright and clear in a cloudless patchwork of stars. They walked in silence to the heavy, wrought-iron gate that lined the front of the enclosure, and Katrin stood back as Odessa reached in her pocket for the ring of knobby keys that was attached to her waistband with a thin chain. Though they would have looked practically identical to an outside observer, she located the correct one with little more than a quick glance and turned the key in the lock.
The tumblers turned with a metallicclink, and she pushed the gate open just far enough for them to pass through, wincing at the loud protests of the hinges. If it were any of the other enclosures, she would have oiled them months ago, but after Sonya had managed to escape through the front gate a year ago, Odessa viewed the squeaky hinges as a last line of defense in keeping tabs on the troublesome boar.
She closed and locked the gate behind them, giving the bars an extra pull for good measure to ensure that it was actually shut tight, then pocketed the keys. “Cats first,” she said softly to Katrin. “Then we’ll make our way around to the birds.”
The silver doe followed closely as she made her rounds, feeding the animals and ensuring that their enclosures were clean and well-maintained. Despite her current circumstances, Odessa loved her work. The Kovskian royal menagerie was famous for its wide variety of animals and the beautiful habitats that made each exhibit unique. Odessa took pride in every gasp of delight and look of wide-eyed wonder that graced the face of their visitors as they beheld the beauty of the animals, though she didn’t get to experience them as often as she would have liked. As the assistant keeper, her role was to remain behind the scenes—caring for the animals and keeping things running smoothly—while the head keeper, Boris, was the public face.
She tried not to begrudge him his role. It was his vision and incessant drive that had built up the menagerie to its current status, so it was only fair that he got to bask in the joy of sharing the animals with others.
Besides, she was reasonably sure he would pass the position on to her one day.
