I’ve seen monsters claw the faces from Ferkó and Imre and feast on their mangled bodies. I watched Peti die slowly beside me, breathing in the green rot of his awful wound. This is more horrible than either—I put my hand to my mouth, afraid I might be sick.
Gáspár does not look sick. Rather, he’s trembling as he raises his ax. He presses the blade to Kajetán’s chest, seething with gentleness, right below his collar and the pale hollow of his throat. Careful not to cut.
“Repent,” he says. “Or I will render you deaf and blind as punishment for your crimes.”
Kajetán only laughs again, his eyes holding the firelight. “Repent for what, Woodsman? For serving the Prinkepatrios the way He demands to be served? Better to die swiftly under a knife than watch your fingers and toes rot away with the cold, or feel your belly eating itself until there’s nothing left but bone.”
Gáspár’s grip tightens on his ax, throat bobbing. “You are still a killer in the eyes of the Prinkepatrios. Repent to me, or you will look like the most pious Woodsman in all of Régország when I am finished with you.”
“You must be mad,” I burst out. “He’s not sorry at all.”
There’s no contrition on Kajetán’s bright, ruddy face or in the glassy sweep of his gaze. He looks between Gáspár and me, sneering, shoulders tremulous with silent laughter. I remember the way he ordered me bound, the way he wrestled me to the floor and put his knee in my back so he could tie me, how I felt his hot breath against my ear. I remember how his villagers cringed away from me like I was something that would eat them in their sleep, all the while their monster was wearing a white suba and living in the headman’s tent. I remember the way Dorottya spoke of the king’s sack of Yehuli vipers.
There are monsters, and then there are wolf-girls, and then there are wolf-girls with Yehuli blood. Now I understand: even bound and toothless, I am more odious to them than any Patritian killer.
I unsheathe my knife and lunge at Kajetán, hurling him against the wall of the tent. He stumbles but catches himself, then thrusts an elbow into my chest. Before my knife can hit its mark, all my breath floods out of me.
“évike!” Gáspár shouts, but his voice is distant, like something I’m hearing from underwater.
Kajetán grabs me by the shoulders with such force that my knife flies from my grasp. He twists my arm and I shriek, my vision going starry with pain. There’s a whirl of fabric, flashes of skin, and then I am pinned to Kajetán’s chest, my own blade held against my throat.
“You ought to keep your wolf-girl chained and muzzled,” Kajetán says, panting. “She’ll be the ruin of you both. How long will the fire burn when her body is added to the pyre? What is the worth of one feral wolf-girl, a heathen of the highest order, to the Prinkepatrios?”
He presses his finger to the wound on my throat, opening it again under his thumbnail. I choke on another scream, tears burning across my gaze. When Kajetán takes his hand away, it’s florid with the mingling of new blood and old.
“Let her go,” Gáspár says. He lowers his ax, letting the blade of it thud into the dirt.
I can almost hear the cleave of Kajetán’s smile, like metal rasping over metal. “What is the worth of one feral wolf-girl to you, Sir Woodsman? Surely the men of your order would drink a toast to her death.”
“Please.” Gáspár raises his hand, weaponless. “I can bring gold to your village, food—”
“No, no,” Kajetán says, shaking his head. “There is nothing you can offer me that is of greater value to the Prinkepatrios than a wolf-girl’s death.”
And then his fingers close around my throat, forcing me down, my body bent at the waist. The blade draws to the corner of my mouth, right over my tongue, and I realize with a start what he means to do: pick off little pieces of me to burn one at a time, stretching my sacrifice for as long as it will go.
I close my eyes, but I don’t feel the bite of the blade. There is only the crush of bone, the wet sound of flesh giving way. When I open my eyes, I can see rivulets of blood in the dirt, and Kajetán’s fingers have loosed from my throat.
The inertia sends me toppling to the ground, and I land on my knees, gasping. There’s blood in my mouth, but my tongue is intact. Kajetán’s body lands beside me like a great felled oak, Gáspár’s ax wedged in his chest.