The End of The Cursed

‘A witch is only half human. Unwanted in the world to which she belongs, and unwelcome in ours.’ – Guidebook for the Eradication of Witchcraft

The several weeks trek had been painful in innumerable ways. Sleeping on frigid rocky ground in tents being buffeted about by harsh winter winds, wearing so many pounds of fur that every step was difficult and made relieving oneself nearly impossible, and riding a bear or in a jostling carriage all day long. Gilda had never been so uncomfortable in her entire life. But now, standing in front of the huge spiked iron gates of the Keep, Gilda would gladly agree to make the journey a hundred times over…if it meant avoiding what was inside. The length of the journey had compounded a suspicion that Gilda already had. She could no longer willingly do what she had been asked to do. Unfortunately, it was most likely going to happen anyway, with, or most likely, without her consent.

Gilda was frozen underneath her bulky coat, but she made no move to enter the warmer Keep. She just stared at the gate. It was a twisted snaking thing of black iron, woven together into a spider’s web of metal with long jagged spines on the top of each section like the heads of ripper arrows. The tips of every spine were the sort of serrated arrowhead a man uses when he wants his prey dead, even if he doesn’t retrieve it. They made no sense on the top of a gate.

“My Grandfather built this gate. Ugly isn’t it?” Freyr remarked as he reached for Gilda’s hand, noticing her eyes tracing it. “But then, it does serve its purpose.”

“I imagine it would. No one would ever be foolish enough to attempt to get in over it.” Gilda looked wide eyed at the tightly woven gate. Such a heavy gate must have taken absurd amounts of ore. Nothing could get through it. Freyr laughed.

“Gilda, it wasn’t made to keep enemies out. It was made to keep the King in.” Gilda’s eyes widened. She hadn’t considered that. Freyr drew her forward by her captured hand to the gate. A row of uniformed guards stood in front of it. They bowed as a single unit. This would apparently be much easier than getting into the manor in the Summerlands had been.

“Your Majesty.” The lead guardsman stepped forward. It was obvious he was the leader because his helmet bore a long strip of furred animal skin, making him 3 inches taller than the others. A swath of fur with metal honors on it hung across his shoulder like a sash. “I am Leo, guardsman of the Iron Gate. Your father’s Seer informed me that you would arrive today, precisely at sundown. She is never wrong.” He gave a wide smile. His words made Gilda’s already freezing spine shiver slightly. “Allow me to lead you in.” He bowed again. Freyr nodded.

“Thank you. We are excessively weary of travel.” Freyr motioned for his three black guards, as well as Rearden’s carriage to come forward through the gate. It took twenty guards split into groups of ten to push open the gate. Several more on the inside of the gate were turning large geared cranks simultaneously. The gate appeared to be absurdly heavy. Finally the way was clear for them to come through. The guard gave them a bow, with a flourish of his hand to indicate that he wished for them to follow him as he led them all the way to the front door of the keep. A man from the stables took the horses and helped Rearden out of the carriage. The dark guards that had traveled with them left with a sharp bow and without any words. This was after all, their home, and so they went to report to the barracks. Their duty to escort their Prince was over and they were not sentimental about it. A man with long dark hair and white furred robes rushed out of the Keep doors and down the stone steps.

“Freyr!” He shouted with obvious excitement. He gripped his now gigantic son by the shoulders and held him close to him. Even though he could scarcely feel his adult child through the double coat of black bear skins he was wearing, he didn’t release him. “It has been a lifetime.” Freyr returned the embrace hesitantly. It must have been very strange for him, Gilda couldn’t even imagine what it would feel like.

“Too long, I agree.” Freyr replied quietly. The King held Freyr back away from him in order to meet his eyes. “Thank you. Thank you for coming home.” The King said before realizing that there were two other people in the assemblage. He turned toward the King of Twyle.

“Majesty. You honor me with such a difficult and unusual journey. It goes a very long way toward proving your earnest desire for peace.” The King of Gyllene bowed to Rearden who returned it stiffly. He was still unused to limbs that worked so well. He had learned to bow after his back had been ruined and he could still not do so gracefully with his new body.

Gilda shivered involuntarily, standing out on the cold step, while warmth waited inside. It honestly felt otherwise, a chill seemed to emanate from the King in a slow wave. Her motion seemed to catch his attention as he turned to her with a dark and painful expression. His heart fell out the bottom of his chest. The girl was seraphine in every sense. Her hair was like a halo of blond curls flowing out from under her furry hat. It was her eyes that stopped his heart cold, blood congealing. They were light brown with a golden ring around the pupil. Only someone with inhuman eyesight could see that her eyes were not totally gold, but ringed in it, like the royal seal of Gyllene. Her eyes were wide, sweet and innocent. They were the eyes of a woman who would willingly sacrifice herself for those she loved. He was going to kill this woman with the face of an angel and it galled him, but there was nothing else to be done. He realized that he had been staring at her for a very long time without speaking, although she did not seem unnerved by it. She was probably used to such a reaction.

“You must be my son’s new bride.” He removed her thick leather mitten and kissed her hand, smiling up at her. “I no longer wonder why he could not resist asking a peasant to wed him.” Her hand was warm and smelled of sugar and cinnamon. Gilda curtsied, withdrawing her hand before he could continue inhaling it. She put her mitten back on as quickly as she could. Cursed men did not feel the cold with the same acuteness that she did.

“He didn’t actually ask me. It was an accident really. You shouldn’t reproach him for it.” Gilda was painfully embarrassed. For all her silly musings otherwise, she was a peasant, and she did not belong in this world. It was so obvious, that this man she had just met, felt the need to immediately remark on it.

The King raised his eyebrow. Fairlight had made him think that Freyr was desperately in love with his young bride. Was their union truly accidental? What did that even mean? He glanced at his son who had returned to the girl’s side and taken her arm in his possessively. His eyes were fierce and protective, but shaded with far deeper and stronger emotion. Fairlight had been correct. There would be no forgiveness for what he was going to do. He embraced the girl.

“No matter how it came to be, we are glad to have you here with us.” He intended his embrace to be only to be a show of acceptance…for the sake of his son. His nose wrinkled as the scent of the girl invaded it. He had smelled something like this several times before. She was pregnant. He bit his tongue to stop a growl from escaping his throat, but he heard one anyway. It was his son. He abruptly released the girl that he had been embracing for too long. Freyr took her back under his arm.

“Gilda exaggerates. I would never have lived without her. If my curse could not keep me from her, obviously an accident of wealth or birth would not have either.” Freyr’s tone was angry. Having Gilda referred to as if she were beneath him had rankled him. Rearden looked nervous. He was standing between two beast men who seemed to be sizing each other up. The King swallowed his next sentence which was less than flattering. He could not be angry with his son for putting him in such an impossible position. It was important at the moment to be welcoming and magnanimous. He forced a grin onto his stiff bearded cheeks.

“Doesn’t matter how it happened then, so long as you are glad it happened! Your people will just be happy that you have returned, and with a wife of child-bearing years.” He slapped his son heartily on the back. “Please, come in and be warm! I have hot mulled wine and a sumptuous dinner prepared for your return.” The King forced himself to sound boisterous as he waved them in. “Servants will attend to you and help you to dress. All of your rooms have been furnished with fresh clothing and baths have been drawn after your arduous journey. We can reconvene in an hour or so for dinner when you have had a chance to…” He didn’t finish his sentence. Telling them to clean up was rude, but they had been traveling for several weeks and it was obvious. Freyr put a hand on his father’s arm. He leaned in to whisper in his ear as they crossed the threshold of the castle.

“Can you tell me, is Grigor here?” The King straightened. How would he know this?

“My dungeon has had a guest these past two weeks, yes.” Freyr nodded.

“That is certainly the best place for him. He has a taste for women that are not his own, and he has already expressed interest in…” Freyr glanced backwards over his shoulder toward his picturesque wife. The golden girl was looking around the cavernous entry hall with awe and admiration. The King considered this. How had his father come to interact with his lost grandchildren? He had never even known their whereabouts…but neither had he known his father’s. It was no surprise that if his rather legendary father had found them, he would want the girl. Any breathing man would. He himself wished that he had met the angel first…but he had not. However, Grigor’s interest in the girl could…No. Allowing Grigor to harm the girl would only make things worse. Strengthening the witch’s hatred of Grigor would not be in anyone’s best interest.

“He is not going to get out. I haven’t even been to see him. Nothing he could say would sway my position on his accommodations. Your young woman is as safe as I can make her.” The King said quietly. His voice was a razor’s edge. It dawned on him that he had just been handed the key to his own salvation. He had his reason for needing to enter the girl’s room during the transition. He was going to overhear Grigor entering the room…because this coming morning, there would be a jail break. A jail break of course, that included exactly one prisoner.

Freyr dried himself off with a towel roughly. He was trying to keep certain thoughts out of his mind. A distraction was needed, but he had none available. They were late for dinner – which for this Keep was actually breakfast. He could hear Gilda chatting amiably with a chambermaid through the crack in the adjoining door. Her voice sounded happy for the first time in days. Every day brought more of the strange pain to her eyes, and another layer of guarded secrecy to her voice. But he knew her secret. It was his fault after all.

That night back at the manor when he had demanded her responsiveness to his need…he had caused the situation which now plagued her. It was obvious. Her hair, skin, and face were luminescent with a new radiance. For a girl who already glittered in the light, it was impressive. She was as difficult to look at as she was to not look at. Even her already generous breasts had begun to strain her clothing with their increased proportions.

His protectiveness, inability to control himself, the need to harm any other man who came near her…it all made perfect sense if he allowed himself to think the thoughts that he had been trying to avoid. Gilda was carrying a cursed child, and she was no more happy about it than he was. The shame in her eyes was like a knife through his chest. He had never wanted to do this to her, but unless he had truly gotten away and stayed gone it wouldn’t have been avoidable. Gilda was for him, as he was for her. The only result of such infinite pairing was children. He had almost come to accept the notion…but Gilda’s reaction reminded him of why he had avoided it. She was fearful, sorrowful, and full of a strange sort of confliction that he had never seen before in her. He had utterly betrayed her, and she would be the one to pay the consequence. The anguish and sad expectation in her eyes told him exactly how she felt about bearing his child.

Gilda slipped through the adjoining door to his childhood room. She was splendidly attired in a red satin dress which did everything to accentuate her figure. The fashion for women in Gyllene was less flouncy than in Edenhoven. There were no petticoats or corsets or layers. Just a thin silhouette of slippery material which flowed like water down her skin. He was full of such frustration that it was all he could do to keep from helping it to slide right off her skin. But he didn’t. She stepped quietly into the corner of the room, looking at the various furnishings with confusion.

“Was this your room as a boy? You slept with these around you?” She asked with incredulity in her voice. Her eyes were taking in the large collection of trophies and taxidermied animals with some degree of horror. He laughed distractedly, his fingers were struggling to remember how to tie a cravat. He had dismissed his valet. He’d gone twenty years without another man dressing him and it seemed impossible to go back.

“There used to be more.” He glanced around the room. The golden eagle, wolf, wild cat, and elk were still in the room, but several of his favorites were gone. The one that had given him nightmares, the giant white bear, was also missing. “The idea was, that if someone looked in here during the day, who was not supposed to-they would assume it was a collection of stuffed animals, or a menagerie. The bear child in the room would not appear to be a cursed heir to the kingdom, but just another trophy.” Gilda put her hand gently on his arm and began finishing his vest buttons and cravat for him. Of course the little imp had studied men’s fashion. Ironic, that she was now assisting him with the very worthless knowledge he had often silently mocked her for.

“It must have been rather frightening to awaken at night these around you.” She finished the tie and turned him toward the mirror. The clothes were the right size, which in and of itself was a miracle, but they didn’t look right to him. The man in the mirror looked like a Prince, clean, well attired, even wearing a circlet…but it didn’t look like him. He was a rangy leather wearing woodcutter with tangled hair. Gilda was smiling.

“You don’t look a bit like yourself.” She put her head on his arm. His arm snaked around her waist, fingering the curve of it through the slippery fabric. “They’re waiting for us.” Gilda gave a glance toward the door. Freyr nodded.

“I would not be too eager if I were you. Gyllene is not known for its cuisine.” Gilda laughed.

“It could hardly be worse than Gran…Clothilde’s cooking.” Freyr bit his lip. Clearly she had never eaten any Gyllenese delicacies. He took her arm as they walked toward the large wooden door. A reminder of his painful childhood, in the form of deep claw marks, marked the otherwise polished surface. Apparently no one had sanded them out in the years he had been gone. Until he had been old enough to understand why he had to stay inside the room, he had spent much of his time trying to get out of it.

“Should we ask my father for his blood tonight? Or wait for later on, when things are less…” He still hadn’t confronted her about the child. Obviously she would want to try to end the curse before it was born. If the little spell worked, maybe she would be less concerned, she seemed more agitated than ever at the moment. Gilda looked up at him confused.

“Blood?” She asked. He led her down the familiar stone hallways lined with torches bright as suns in clawed iron sconces.

“Yes, for the spell! We will need to ask Fairlight to perform it...if you think she can.” He continued. Gilda’s eyes glazed momentarily. Probably just a trick of the light.

“Of course of course! Yes, tonight is best.” She was quiet, and her fingers held his arm tightly. Strange. She seemed so nervous. It made no sense. Gilda was finally getting what she wanted, a castle, servants, family…why this reticence to be here?

Fairlight picked Gilda’s cup off of the table. The girl had finished her glass. That was good. Dinner had been unnecessarily long as the pleasantries had given way to talk of peace with Twyle. She had been fairly certain that the bored young woman would drink all of her wine, but it was nice to have it confirmed. Fairlight sniffed the glass. The King appeared at her elbow.

“What is it? Something in the glass?” He sounded almost hopeful, as if the girl being poisoned would take a weight off of his shoulders. Fairlight shook her head.

“Nothing that shouldn’t be.” The sedative in the glass was planned…and hopefully the right dosage. She wanted Gilda relaxed, and in no pain. She also wanted her cooperative. The fiendish creature had attempted to plead for a way out of this end when she had caught up with Fairlight after dressing for dinner. Apparently for Gilda, the possibility of a child, changed the circumstances. This was not so for Fairlight. Things had to unfold the way they were meant to, and she would not let a small matter of maternal hormones dissuade her.

This evening had to go exactly as planned. The girl had to believe she was really dying or the vision would not fool Clothilde. Sedated, she would have no choice but to cooperate. The sedation might also help with the trauma of waking up in a sealed coffin the next morning. Everything had to be just as she saw in her vision…Gilda still as marble, Freyr broken hearted, and a coffin slid into frozen ground. It was only the meaning of the vision that could change.

“That was cryptic. What are you brewing in that mind of yours?” He gripped her face in his hands feverishly as if trying to pry the information from her narrow skull. The King’s eyes were glassy with the illness that now tinged to madness. The grip on her face was tighter than she liked. She wrenched herself free.

“Please brother. Just let me worry about it.” She turned away. He clenched his fists around her thin arms and pulled her towards him almost roughly.

“Tell me what is in your head! I will not continue to be pushed about like your puppet.” He seethed. Fairlight made a low shushing noise as if to calm him.

“Hush. Everything I have done since I have arrived here has been in an effort to aid you. Trust me, that anything I do now, is of that same intent.” She laid her effortlessly cool hand to his temple. He was burning up, his dark brown hair was damp, and his skin flushed. “You should return to your room. The change is coming…” She didn’t finish the sentence. He was well aware of what was planned for the evening. He nodded as he turned to leave the room. His face slackened as whatever fever of anger which had suddenly seized him, ended.

“I trust you.” He sighed deeply as he ran a hand over his beard. “Let’s just get this over with.” His voice was heavy. The hoarseness in it was hard and tight. Still, Fairlight felt less pity than she would have imagined.

Fairlight exhaled slowly as she watched him leave. She needed a minute alone. In order to trick Clotilde, the King’s grief over killing Gilda had to be genuine. He could not know that Gilda was alive, just drugged into a death-like sleep. Freyr could not know either. His feeling had to be painful and almost palpable. It was this image, him weeping openly over a frozen casket, that was going to hurt Clothilde the most. Freyr’s stricken face, the lump of icy earth in his hand, Gilda’s waxen face in the coffin-that was the image that would break her heart. It had to break for Freyr, and for herself more than it boiled with hatred for Grigor. The simplest way to defeat bloodlust and desire for revenge was to force someone to watch the suffering of their innocent victims. Fairlight could not cause that, without actual suffering.

Fairlight’s limbs felt heavy as the door shut behind her brother. A vision was coming. She sat down on the long wooden bench seat of the hewn stone table. Her legs were too stiff to bend. Rigor mortis was setting in again. That would have to be remedied later. Her head was too heavy for her shoulders. She touched her forehead to the gleaming surface of the stone table and waited. A series of flashes washed over her like an unpleasant wave. She cringed. Everything had changed. Knowledge she hadn’t had before bloomed in her mind, opening and expanding, each segment more horrible than the last. Oh dear God. Things were not going to unfold the way she had designed them to. If she could not get to her in time, poor drugged insensible Gilda was actually going to die.

Her visions were no longer sacrosanct. They were all changing, so rapidly it was as if they had no point in their existence. Most of them seemed to be lies. Nothing made sense. How could one girl be stalked so utterly by death, and still not die? Over and over in the space of what had to be a year, based on the girl’s appearance, she would be caught, tortured, burnt… Fairlight forced her wooden limbs into a sitting position. Lies, unless… Unless Gilda was not what she appeared to be. The girl swept through lives, polarizing, changing, and upending everything in her path.

Who was she? A foundling child yes, but whose? She was no relation to Clothilde. Who were the carpenter and his wife? The network of lives like a crystalline spider web hung in her mind. She pulled at the thread that was Gilda, unraveling and sampling the delicate structure. A carpenter, and a blonde woman. No one important. The thread of the long dead carpenter glimmered in her mind, only just connected to Gilda’s. She pulled it forward with the insistent touch of her mind. It unfolded too quickly into her net. Ensnaring the lives of the dead was dangerous for a woman like herself who teetered on the brink of death as it was. If she held too much of the past her hands, she could evaporate along with it.

Yes, a carpenter, but not a very skilled one. The hovel he built was deplorable, the furniture all rough-hewn. He was a man unused to working with his hands. She stopped suddenly. The carpenter was too old to be a woodworker. He had been considered dead for 30 years before his part in the creation of Gilda. Interesting. She released the buzzing threads immediately. She had been holding them so tightly that the mental recoil knocked her out of her seat and onto the polished marble floor. Her own reflection in the smooth surface surprised her. She had delved too deeply into the past, and now her appearance was that of a ghoul or a ghost. Pale, dark hooded eyes, almost blue under her thin skin… But, high cost or not. She knew who Gilda’s father and mother were, and why Gilda was so polarizing as to alter everything she touched.

Fate was a giant puzzle. Even when the pieces are scattered across different lands, they will spend decades or even centuries slowly crawling back to one another. Gilda was a central piece, drawing all the others off their paths and onto ones that connected to hers. That lure that made her glitter, that made her irresistible, was only partially Clothilde’s doing. Gilda was a glue binding all the missing bits together. Broken things want to be fixed, pieces want to be set right. That desire to regain what was lost, was also going to get her killed.

Fairlight dragged her stiff, almost stone-like body off of the cold floor and hurried in a limping fashion toward the door. She had to prevent this vision she had seen from occurring. In her vision, no one in the castle was left alive.

The King of Gyllene drew the curtains from his window, as he did every morning, to greet the sun for one instant as a man. By now his father would be prowling the castle, no doubt already a slavering beast. The earlier the generation of the curse, the sooner it began. It had been too easy. The jailor had been already asleep, too intoxicated to notice if one cell was empty. The King had put cogs in motion that would not stop until it was all destroyed. He was going to lose everything today, in the pursuit of the one thing he had always wanted. Today, he would not go to bed as the sun rose. Light bathed his naked skin for the shortest moment of excruciating pleasure before the strange pain of transformation scattered every sane thought from his head. He only hoped he had remembered to open the adjoining door.

Dinner had been interminable. Gilda had scarcely tasted her food. Everything seemed to turn to dust in her mouth. She wasn’t sure if she was angry, or sad. It had all woven itself together into a knot of pain inside her that just felt unbearable. Gilda turned her head to the side. She had heard a strange scuffling noise, but no one came in. She must just be overwrought. Every noise was impending murder at the moment. She had told Fairlight that she was no longer interested in the part she was to play, but it wasn’t going to matter. How could it? She had taken Fairlight aside, for the briefest of moments and begged for her life. Not even hers, but the life of the child. Fairlight had been unimpressed, she’d told Gilda that there were things in motion that she did not control. It was a cryptic answer, but Gilda knew what it meant.

It inflamed Gilda to know that the one secret she had, the one thing about her that was truly hers, would not last. Unfortunately, if she was fated to die, and did not die now, then she would no doubt die in childbirth. She could not do that to Freyr. He would hate himself until the end of his own days. She wished Fairlight had never told her what her fate was. Knowing, was only pain. Anticipation of something horrible increased the suffering, rather than decreasing it.

Gilda lay face down on the bed, fully clothed in the slippery red dress. Freyr had gone into the other room change for bed, even though it was nearly dawn. The door was locked behind him, but he did not know that. He had been too exhausted to notice. She hadn’t locked it, but the lock had been broken off from inside her room. The broken lock was a sure sign that her request to change the arrangement had been overruled.

Gilda heard her door squeak open and turned toward the adjoining door that led to the King’s apartments. It was still shut. She pushed herself up off of the outrageously comfortable fur blanket. It was soft and deep and all she wanted was to sleep through what she knew was coming. Her limbs felt like they were sinking into the softness. She felt exceedingly strange all of a sudden, and very very tired. Someone inhaled, long and slow behind her ear. Gilda whipped her head around to see who it was, but she was moving in slow motion. What had been intended as a brisk motion was barely motion at all.

“Shhhh… It’s alright. We’re old friends.” The voice whispered as it slunk back into the shadows. A man’s form was appearing and then disappearing into the darkness. Gilda couldn’t seem to open her mouth to form any words in response. She put her hands to her lips, what was wrong with her?

“You smell wonderful. Even better than before.” The voice exhaled like a sigh as a finger traced its way through her hair. “But then, I suppose I’m the sort of man who doesn’t mind if someone has already beaten me to the first bite.” It was Grigor’s oily voice and his hands stroking her hair and face. He took Gilda’s hand, she couldn’t even move to withdraw it. He took this as an invitation to sit on the bed. “You aren’t going to scream for Freyr?” He asked. He sounded genuinely curious. Gilda was confused. She was screaming. She was screaming as loud as she could, but her lips were not moving. None of her was. This was all wrong, if Grigor killed her, the curse would not end. At this point, it seemed more likely that Grigor was not going to kill her, but how was he not yet an animal?...and if the stories of his appetites and tastes were true, what was going to happen was almost worse than being mauled to death.

“If you do not make any move to stop me, I may actually do this.” He was petting her hair as if considering it, his hand sliding down her shoulder through the length of her hair. “I’ve been in prison for several weeks, and such suffering can only be relieved by making others suffer.” He touched her face with his fingers. “It isn’t as if I enjoy my predilections. They simply are. I’m just sorry that it will have to be you. I did mean for it to be a serving girl, but then I smelled you.” His eyes glowed slightly in the shadowy room. “I actually think fondly of you, and didn’t intend to hurt you when I came in here. I just wanted to tell you something important, before I found someone to help me with my…pent up frustrations I was trying to do something good – to warn you. Such a pity.” He sighed as he pulled her very soft and yielding body towards him. She felt so warm and smelled so sweet after such a long absence from sweetness. “You just make it so difficult.” He kissed her savagely on the mouth. She felt his teeth pressed against her lips through the force of his kiss. She tried to turn her head but it would not move.

“Nothing? No fight at all?” He looked at her glassy eyes with some degree of concern. He had expected more of a battle. Honestly, he preferred it. He knew he was a horrible man, being fought felt…right. “Are you worried about the child?” He pulled her closer to him and brought her down firmly against the lush pelt on the bed, tucking her limbs in between his own. Normally such an act would not harm one, but nothing about the savage way he enjoyed a woman as a cursed man was normal. Her eyes widened slightly. “I am sorry about it…hopefully it will not be harmed. You do seem resilient.” He sat up momentarily to undo his waistband. He slackened his grasp on her for an instant at the creaking noise from the door and she fell backward, limp as a doll onto the bed. The room was spinning so much that she couldn’t make out anything beyond a swirl of stone and fur till her eyes cleared.

The adjoining door to the room had burst open. A huge bear now stood in the doorway of the King’s room. Gilda had never seen the King as a bear before, but her mind was not working well. It was black as pitch like Grigor as a bear, but with such horribly sad eyes. Why was the King a bear, while Grigor was a man? The bear made a terrible roaring noise and came toward Gilda, Grigor leapt off the bed and to his feet. He was across the room and grasping the pen knife off of the reading table in the darker portion of the room before Gilda’s burning eyes had even blinked. They wanted to close so badly, but she had to fight to keep them open. Grigor held the pen knife pointed at the bear, as if considering. He must know that a wounded bear was even more dangerous than an angry one. Gilda felt her chest spasm. He wasn’t going to injure the bear. He was deciding whether to kill his son or risk his own death. The bear roared loudly enough to shake the tapestries on the walls.

“Gilda! Let me in! For God’s sake unlock this door!” She could hear Freyr shouting from the other side of the second adjoining door. But she could no more unlock it than she could scream. She was utterly immobile as the giant bear leapt across the room at Grigor. Grigor dodged and ducked under the bed, rolling to avoid the long claws. The bear’s paw, which had been aimed at him cracked against the mattress, breaking the frame. Gilda felt the wind knocked out of her as the bedframe hit the floor, and she fell along with it. Freyr made a sound of panic from behind the wall. She could hear his shoulder thudding against it, she could even hear his breathing. Everything in the room was a blur. Grigor had stabbed the bear in the neck and it was bleeding and swaying. The door’s hinges finally gave way and it fell to the floor, trapping Grigor underneath it. There was a sickening sound of bones crunching as the heavy door of dense wood fell. Freyr ignored the sound and his Grandfather’s screams as he dove into the room.

“Gilda!” He shouted. He held his arms out to her as if he expected her to run to him. Gilda couldn’t even spit out the blood that was pooling in her mouth. A bedpost had hit her during the collapse, right in the jaw. The mouthful of thick liquid was very nearly drowning her. She lacked the muscle control to get to him, she could only stare hopelessly. The bear had taken interest in the new addition to the room. Bears would kill their own adult young if they blocked access to a female. Gilda knew the effect she had on men, and realized that three men with the instincts of animals would tear each other apart…and she couldn’t move even to get away. Freyr picked her up.

“Why aren’t you moving?” He hissed as he threw a broken bed post at the bear, trying to bring Gilda back through the open doorway of his room. The broken hinge tugged on the thick black velvet curtain that hung across the room’s only window. As Freyr attempted to get them through the door, the curtain fell onto the ground instead. Grigor screamed as the sunlight hit his limbs which extended out from under the broken door. Freyr struggled to get the door off of him in order to use it to barricade himself and Gilda inside the other room. Grigor’s body was convulsing and altering even in its injured state. Freyr looked down at his own arms in horror. Gilda could already feel his fingers forming claws as he held her.

“Forgive me.” Freyr’s voice was thick with pain tinging toward panic. Using his trembling arm, which was sprouting coarse dark hair, he punched the window frame out of the window. Glass cut into his arm as it rained outward onto the snow with tiny droplets of crimson. In blind desperation he did the only thing he could think of to save her…and certainly the most despicable thing any man could do to his wife. He lifted Gilda up and hurled her out of a second story window and onto the thick carpet of blindingly sunlit snow below. He only had a second to watch her strike the ground as splay limbed as a rag doll before his senses left him, and he was an angry bear, trapped in a room with two others. Three bears with no humanity left to cling to were alone in the room that was laced with the heady scent of a female.