The Pawn and The Puppet (The Pawn and The Puppet series Book 1)

After I met Aurick, all I wanted to do was wonder the forest on my own. To make sense of my sister’s death. To mourn, to grieve, to wallow alone. There was one moment in that time that snapped me out of my self-pity, my depressed daze.

The forest is still and covered in nightfall and snow—a sleeping ocean before a cluster of waves. I crouch down to tuck my knees against my chest. Inside the coat pockets, my hand grazes a small box, cardboard, rough on the sides. Matches.

A crack. Like a foot stepping on a brittle tree branch.

I light one. “Aurick?” I call out. Another stick breaks, and this time I pinpoint the sound coming from my left, past a couple trees, and it’s close. Animals. He warned. Big ones. The flame burns down to my fingertips, I grunt and drop it, and it sizzles as it falls to the snow.

I pull out another match, watch the tiny flame ignite, starting from blue to bright yellow, then I hear the snarl, not exactly a growl, but something foul, sucking in air through its teeth and nose. I lunge back and trip over a root sticking too high from the dirt. The snarl elevates to a growl—a sharp gurgling in its throat, then a hiss, several hisses. The hiss becomes a scream, a squealing scream like a rat being roasted alive. And it’s getting closer.

I hold up the tiny flame and watch as a light-gray figure steps out from behind a tree, hunched over, arms hanging close to the ground. I stretch my hand out to get a brighter view of what it is. The gray isn’t fur; it’s skin. Bare skin. Leathery and dry. The eyes are white like its tears are made of milk, and the mouth is almost a snout but not quite. Its limbs are spindly, stretching outward to the snow like a dying spider.

It’s a night dawper.

I gasp, fresh blood pours from its mouth—I’m assuming a dead animal isn’t far. I start crawling backward, my fingers stinging in the snow, and my breath hitches in my throat as I attempt absolute silence for survival. My mouth clamps shut as I remember what my father would tell me.

Night dawpers are highly intelligent animals. They have no fur but can survive in the coldest of temperatures by consuming the blood and organs of other animals. They are born blind, with long arms to climb and long legs to outrun their prey. Their senses are heightened; they can smell blood, much like a shark, from miles away, and frighteningly enough, they can hear a leaf drop from that distance as well.

As a child, I was told not to wander too far into the forest, especially if you have a fresh wound, especially in the winter. I look down and understand I’ve acquired my monthly visitor. The warm blood slowly trickles down the inside of my thigh. I know it can smell me. I can’t outrun it. A gazelle couldn’t outrun it. I decide to remain still. It has yet to pounce. The nostrils on its rather stubby snout are flaring—it must be confused because it can smell me, just not hear me.

I take my chances and stay still, breathing into my hand.

My heart, fumbling in my chest like a caged, feral animal.

It begins huffing as if from frustration, exhaling a shrill hiss. Deciding there isn’t anything here, it turns around and walks away, so similar to the posture of a human. Chills crawl back under my skin like a flesh-eating virus.

Wait. Don’t move until the hissing simmers to silence.

Springing to my feet, I whip around toward the firelight beaming from the house that looks too far away to outrun a night dawper. Doubt overtakes me that I might not make it, that I probably won’t make it, and I ignore it with a grunt. There’s a shriek behind me, cold winter’s rage, and earth-vibrating footsteps that follow. The cold is peeling the skin off of my knuckles. A whiff of clipped wind brushes against the back of my neck—the breath of a predator closing in on me. The cottage grows in detail, more than a simple candle’s light in the distance.

A force, stronger than a bucking horse, throws me into a tree. As if the walls of my ribs have collapsed, I slide down the bark, unable to gasp for air. I fall between the giant curly roots swimming above the black soil mixed with snow. Oh, God—I’m going to die—

The air floods back into my lungs just in time to scream as it pins me down with gnarled feet. My body bucks and squirms and thrusts.

I squint up at the white eyes studying me, wide with hunger and strong releases of adrenaline in its veins. Another shriek escapes its mouth, spittle forming on the corners. A victory cry. I must be a far easier target than what this creature normally preys on. It drags its long, yellow nail across my torso, slowly and nearly as precise as a surgical movement. I bellow again. My voice slicing through the forest, through the ice on the trees, like a machete cutting through butter.

It sticks its bloody nails in its mouth, closing its eyes as it hums. I stare at it in horror, my joints gone rigid. I’m going to die this way. Blood courses into my neck and ears, sloshing around like the violent waves of the sea.

A large black mass of what looks like a wisp of smoke slams into the night dawper like a train running through a falling leaf. I shriek at the sudden attack, the weight and pressure lifted from my body. It’s an animal, a black beast ripping into the night dawper, tearing it limb from limb.

“Oh my God,” I say under my breath.

The black animal’s eyes flash up at me, a russet-cinnamon color, and I now catch the familiar details—a wolf, a gargantuan black wolf. But the markings of russet red on the paws, the chest, the small brows above the eyes—a beast said to be extinct.

A RottWeilen. They weigh four hundred to five hundred pounds. Beautiful creatures, but never seen. Not since the first settlement. The agronomists that worked near Scarlett’s and my home used to share stories about the massacre of the RottWeilen. They claimed their ghosts still linger around the red oak woods. There were hundreds of them, a massive pack of animals at the top of the food chain. For our settlers to reach the center of this continent and make it through the feral forests, they had to slaughter the pack of beasts.

I didn’t know there was anything that could take down a night dawper. It barks at me in between ripping into another body part, a low, thundering growl. Authoritative. Demanding me to leave. Now.

I stare a moment longer, halfway paralyzed. Then, I pick up my feet, my hand pressed on the cut on my stomach, and shuffle through the snow to the cottage.

The front door is wide open.

Aurick is home.

Before I can take another step—I see him standing inches away from me—a crossbow pointed at the mass of black fur and gray ribbons of flesh.

With a focused glare, he squeezes his finger to pull the trigger.

“No!” I scream and jump into his arms and swat away the firing contraption.

I quickly look over at the wolf that takes off running, stepping over the night dawper’s bloody, mangled body.

Aurick looks at me and back at the dead animal. “What the hell was that?!”

I watch the black wolf run through the snow, barely touching the ground in its long and majestic strides. Thank you.

I sigh in relief, feeling the stinging pain burn across my stomach.

“Sky? Why the hell did you do that?” He grabs my shoulder and gives me a light shake. “I had a perfect shot!”

I pull my hand away from my burning belly. My fingers and the palm of my hand are smeared in blood.

“Ow…” I wince. But when he notices the thin, not-so-serious cut, and his irritated expression falls, replaced with worry, confusion, panic—I can’t help but grin.

A wide, adrenaline-soaked smile.

He cocks his head back, more confusion. “What—are you in shock?”

I shrug. Throwing my hands in the air. “I feel—I don’t know—I just feel—”

He smiles back, nodding in agreement. “Alive.”

~

Before I could step foot in the asylum to face the aftermath of Dessin’s jailbreak, Judas stopped me on the front steps.

He was concerned I had faced severe trauma wherever Dessin had taken me—that I would end up like Sern. He didn’t use her name, but I knew that’s who he had on his mind. My spine may be intact, but how could they know for certain if he hadn’t damaged something else? Perhaps he did—with those tokens.

“I’d like you to be evaluated. I know someone who specializes in trauma from the asylum.” He told me that the council wanted to speak with me about the incident. But first, he must know I was truly unharmed.

Now, I’m outside Judas’s home. The someone he knows would be here, waiting for my arrival, waiting to dissect me, to yank out and inspect everything wrong.

The front door opens, exposing a woman with a long and snakelike frame. Voluminous crimson hair, a pink pointy nose, and a black evening dress.

“Please come in, Miss Ambrose.” Her voice is smoother than wine and a sunset gliding across a steady ocean. It has a lower register than mine with a sultry echo to it.

I enter the spacious living room with a timbered, baronial structure of the brick walls and antique oil paintings. Candle wax drips down the only flickering sources of light in the room. There is a gas lamp on a round wooden table with a vase of pink tulips.

“Do make yourself comfortable,” she instructs, signaling to the velvet daybed.

I do as she says, tucking my navy uniform dress under my thighs like a lady, resting my hand against the arm of the divan. I breathe in through my nose, my eyes softening but still alert. This room smells of dust and women’s perfume.

“Wine?” she asks, pouring herself a glass. Her fingers are long and delicate. The skin that coats her bones is seamless in its iridescent beauty, porcelain white from head to toe, and hair vibrant with rich pin-up curls. She only looks a few years older than I am, twenty-five at most.

Deep-set hazel eyes blink at me.

“Oh”—my eyes flutter back into focus— “no, thank you. May I ask your name?” I watch the dark-purple liquid splash the inside of the glass as it puddles into the bowl.

“Lynn.” She glances over at me, setting her bottle of wine on the glass coffee table. “You’ve been quite the talk of the town lately.”

I nod. Her voice could put me to sleep. It’s soft, like a harp playing on warm summer nights.

“Judas is concerned about any physical or mental trauma from the incident.”

“Is he your husband?” I ask.

She chokes on her wine. “No.” She dabs a napkin at her plush lips. “Very old friend. Like a brother. I live a secluded life now away from the city, but I can be reached for occasions like this. May I ask… Have you known trauma before?” she inquires between sips.

I want to laugh. Yes, father, sister, mother. “I have.”

“Was this encounter more or less frightening?”

“Less.”

She raises her eyebrows. Oops. Maybe that was the wrong answer.

“These traumas you’ve known… Were they physical or emotional?”

“Both.”

She pauses. Swishing her wine in her glass, then taking another swig.

“It can take face-to-face confrontation to begin to heal. Is there a way to contact the person or persons that this trauma involves?”

What does this have to do with Dessin? I want to go back to the asylum.

“No.” I give her one syllable. One word. “They’re all dead,” I say under eerie silence.

Her brow furrows in concern. “Did the patient that escaped hurt you in either a physical or emotional way?”

“Neither. He was a gentleman.” His hands reached for my waist as he helped me down from the broken ladder. He made me squeeze his hands as I was paralyzed with a panic attack. He was… kind.

“Are you experiencing any nightmares or debilitating thoughts about what happened?” She pries for even a shred of detail that makes me compromised. But there is nothing to say.

“The only nightmares I experience are from my childhood. There are no changes.”

“I heard he took you hostage. Doesn’t that stir unwanted feelings of fear?” She leans back in her chair, truly perplexed.

“I know this is going to sound mad, but I don’t think I was ever in danger. Council Member Martin was going to strike me across the face, believing I was the cause for the patient’s escape. He was blaming me, and the patient stopped him.”

“Why do you suppose he helped you, then turned around and held a knife to your throat?” Lynn asks, fondling a necklace in deep thought.

I shrug. “I think he was trying to get me out of trouble. Show the asylum that I really wasn’t to blame. If I’m the victim, then, of course, it wasn’t my fault.”

She asks a few more questions before she is finally convinced I am well, both externally and internally. And after polite chitchat, where our octaves get higher and our bodies begin to shift uncomfortably in preparation to stand, she tells me she’d like to see me again. I nod politely, but again means she wants me to share my trauma.

My trauma is my own. It will stay that way.