I froze.

My icy heart careened to a complete, sickening halt and withered in my chest. The fear, a cold and liquid panic, gushed into my bowels as though my very stomach had ruptured with blood-curdling terror.

Run! The thought came instantly to mind, but every muscle had since atrophied; my brain continued its desperate screaming though I could not move.

Run, Aria!

The creature before me — still submerged in shadowed obscurity — had not yet stirred, though I could clearly see, where the moon's muted glow disturbed the gloom, it's thick breath misting in the freezing night air. It watched with unblinking, yellow intelligence; crouched and waiting. I dared not breathe, I had no breath to offer up for it had died in my lungs. I could not run either, instinct adhering my feet to the frigid earth, for the large shadowed creature would not release me from it's transfixed gaze — as if it's ravenous stare held me in thrall and congealed the very marrow in my bones.

By some morbid affliction of mind, irrational and fleeting as it was, I actively wished to see the thing emerge into the full moon's glow. I could almost make out its odd shape in the darkness, where it yet stared at me inertly with a frightful, preternatural silence. I could not attribute it to any beast known to me thus far for it was too large to be a wolf, and yet retained not quite the right profile to suit a bear.

My eyes shifted down to where I still clung to the bone-chilling, wrought iron bars — where Lucian's fingers had warped the metal mere weeks ago, when last I stood here — and I noticed how corpse-like my hands were from gripping the latticed gate so frantically. Slowly, I began lifting each bloodless finger, one by one, and as I did so a low, ominous growl gathered threateningly in the animal's large chest. Without warning it leapt, lightening-fast, at the gate!

I was flung violently from the portcullis, the force of the creature's attack hurling me back so that I cracked my skull against a rock on the ground behind me. I rolled onto my stomach, somewhat stunned by the blow, as pain shot through my head, but I soon became aware of the deafening clamor of metal as the wild beast continuously threw its hefty bulk against the gate; the iron groaning dangerously beneath the brute's colossal weight.

I screamed, my cries mixing discordantly with its own resonating grunts, and tried to crawl away, but the creature's reach was long and true. It shot a grotesque paw beneath the leaden bars and stabbed its murderous claws at me, ripping into my right arm before I managed to wrench myself away and roll to safety.

I spared a quick, panicked glance at the deep and jagged lacerations in my forearm, but the agony of my seeping wounds — inflicted so viciously by its razor nails — was naught to the absolute shock of experiencing my first horrific glimpse of the beast as it howled rabidly; it was now quite visible in the silvered light and howling at me balefully.

The monster, for monster it certainly was, stood no less than ten feet high on its hind legs, still slamming and pummeling the barrier with enough force that I felt the terror pool into my gut anew. From whence the foul beast came, I knew not, but I had explored every inch of that maze and seen nary a hint of what stood snarling hatefully at me now.

But that was not exactly true — there had been clues! What of the strange paw print in the maze? This beast was, without a doubt, the owner of that massive, bloody imprint I'd seen in the tunnels during my earlier explorations.

Although I had initially mistaken this thing briefly for a bear, in consequence of it's impossible size, I saw now that it was not; the facial structure was unmistakably canine, albeit it's ears were longer and narrower than a wolf's and situated bizarrely lower — exactly where a man's might be. Its coat was sparse and coarse, the pale skin clearly discernible beneath the bristled, dark-grey fur, and in place of where a tail might be, it possessed only an ugly, hairy stump that protruded from it's backside. It's unnatural paws were neither bear-like nor did they resemble a wolf's, but uncannily something almost human instead; despite the long black nails jutting from those distorted digits.

I gawked, horrified, as it climbed the gate with insidious, prehensile agility and drove its piercing maw between the gaps in the heavy gate, gnawing obscenely at the iron with those long, sinister fangs. Finally, I could watch no more, my brain somehow snapping from its terror-induced immobility. I ran.

No creature known to man had ever run as fast as I, but I would die running — and drain my heart of all its essence — if it meant I could escape the demonic evil still roaring hideously behind me, as if deranged with putrescent wrath.

My feet pounded the earth with a furious intensity, my vision turning blurry with frightened tears as the blood trickled thickly down my arm in crimson rills. I kept running. My heart screamed for me to slow my pace, but my brain, so demented with fear, heeded that abused organ not at all. Logic held no sway — only terror controlled me now.

I ran ever faster, my hair now matted with tears and blood, ignoring the sharp stones that cut into the soles of my slippers and the painful wind that gouged at my eyes. I needed to get as far as my tired legs would take me and never go back to that accursed, evil place again!



❆



"Take her to my chamber, immediately!"

That distraught voice, as dear to me as my own mother's might have been, was sweet comfort to my frozen ears, but I had not the strength to open my eyes nor the power to call out to her. My mouth was dry and my throat raw, but that was nothing to the torturous throbbing in my arm.

"Speak of this to no one, understand! If I find you have spoken aught of this to anyone...!" Anne hissed at whomever was now lifting me up, leaving the threat ominously unfinished.

"As you wish, my lady," came the stranger's calm, placating reply.

I felt myself moving, dreamlike, through the world as the dense fog of wavering consciousness clouded my vision. After a while — or an eternity — the air became a little less crisp and the wind no longer stabbed at me; I was therefore dying, ostensibly succumbing to the numbness of mortality. Either that or I had subsequently entered the shelter of the keep, which accounted for the two sets of feet padding against the flagstones, one pair directly beneath me and the other padding some distance ahead. The faint light of a taper seeped through the paper-thin skin of my weighty lids as I floated in the ether — my eyes as yet glazed over and unresponsive, unlike my ears.

I was eventually deposited on a feather mattress, the sturdy arms that had held me thus far now released me gently. I groaned softly.

"Hush, sweeting," came Anne's benevolent crooning. "You may go now, Gerald, but remember... not a word." I heard the door shut quietly behind the retreating Gerald.

Anne's cool hands settled tenderly over my sweat-caked and grimy brow. I moaned again and she shushed me softly. At length I heard her rummaging beside the bed and a bottle clinked audibly against another before the bed sagged and the blankets rustled as she leaned over my slack body.

"Ack!" I sputtered noisily and sat up from the counterpane as a nasty, astringent smell scorched my nostrils, practically stabbing at my brain with its potency!

"Shh! Tis merely volatile salts, Aria. Be easy."

I opened my bleary eyes in a panic, shooting my hands out in a moment of delirium, and inadvertently struck Anne directly on her cheek whereupon she quickly subdued me in a viselike embrace of surprising strength. She rocked us back and forth, soothing me patiently, and once I had calmed somewhat — whimpering only occasionally — she slackened her hold.

"Where have you been my child? I was beside myself with fright! You have worried no less than a full score of years from my lifespan tonight!" She hugged me close again and kissed the side of my head loudly; fiercely.

"Oh, Anne! I'm so frightened!" I turned in her arms to hug her back frantically.

"Hush, tell me where you acquired such a nasty wound-" but I did not let her finish.

"There's a monster, Anne! Inside the maze in the forest! It attacked me and-"

"God's blisters, Aria! You were in the forest this time of night?!" Her face turned ashen of a sudden.

"Anne, I tell you I saw a demon in the woods! You must inform Godwin! He will-"

"Enough!" Anne clamped her hand roughly over my mouth. "I would that you speak no more of this nonsense!"

She was angry now, but there was dread in her eyes. I tried to argue behind her hand, but she tightened her grip and I relented, becoming silent again.

"Aria, listen to me carefully..." she was now whispering with a frightened expression cloaking her once calm features. "I am going to remove my hand and you will not open your mouth to speak till I have bolted my door. It is important that you understand this and obey me!" She waited and I nodded in affirmation ere she removed her hand.

She walked purposefully toward the chamber door, opened it to check that the room beyond was unoccupied and free of curious ears, and then closed it firmly before drawing the bolt across. This done, she cast wary brown eyes at me and bit the corner of her lip in uncertainty a moment afore she began speaking.

"You are ill, Aria..."

I started in surprise. Her words unexpected and not a little offensive.

"You have obviously lost yourself in a delirium brought on by the night's bleak, winter cold-"

"But..." Her face soured in annoyance when I interrupted and I quickly clamped my mouth shut.

"I know what you think you saw," she continued, "but I beg you to consider that your eyes deceived you in the maze. The moonlight is full of tricksy effect! You rushed home in terror and nearly caught your death of cold." She paced the room as she explained my head malaise. "After which, you might not have been lucid and, instead, you've conjured up visions of beasts while you lay feverish and undiscovered in the garden."

I shook my head dubiously, unconvinced by what she was telling me. "No! You are mistaken, Anne," I bit out. She made her way to me and took my arms gently in her warm hands.

"Promise me you'll keep quiet about the monsters in the maze."

Monsters? I had mentioned only one monster. Are there more? I wondered at her words as my hand began to tremble.

I knew now that she did believe me, no matter what she chose to say to the contrary. She was affrighted, perhaps even more than I was, and had clearly just warned me against the monsters that I had 'fantasized' into existence; I did not think she meant to say what she just had.

"Vow to me now," she went on, unaware of the tumult of my speculation, "that you will talk of this no more. Not of the maze and not of what you thought you saw." She gripped me a little more forcefully and I sucked a painful breath in, but she did not relent. "Promise me!" she beseeched, her voice fraught with anguish. "You must forget these destructive fancies!"

"How might I do that?!" I cried. My mind knew exactly what my eyes had beheld and I knew I'd not imagined the horrific events of the night. How could anyone conceive of such evil? It was not to be borne and yet I was certain of the sickening reality of it — as sure as I was of my own name, in fact! Anne shook my arm again and I hissed as more blood seeped from my injury.

"Now! Promise me now!" she insisted. "Please trust me, Aria!"

I peered into her desperate hazel gaze and knew for a fact that I trusted no one as I trusted her. "Please..." She asked again and I felt my head nodding of its own accord.

"Alright, Anne. I promise."

She closed her eyes in relief and then hugged me to her again. "And, in return for your confidence, I will not tell Godwin or Lucian that you were in the maze. Awful things happen there, Aria. You must never go there again."

Well that we can both agree on!

She eased away and helped to pull my tattered gown from me. I flinched and sucked in a sibilant breath as the silk ripped the dried blood from the oozing lesions, and once she'd tossed the gown aside, I voiced the thought that was gnawing at the edges of my mind. Her uncomplimentary assertions as to the cogency of my mind was one thing, but the blood clotting within my torn flesh was quite another.

"How then have I come to bear these marks, Anne?" I did not mean to sound so facetious. A single, hot tear — borne of frustration and, yes, not a little betrayal — fell unheeded from my eye, but I gentled my tone nonetheless. "Tell me what to say and I shall repeat the story when asked how I came to wear my wounds."

"There is no reason that any should see it, save perhaps Lucian and Astrid," she reasoned. I groaned miserably at the thought of speak of this to Lucian. "Your bandage will be hardly noticeable beneath the sleeves of your kirtle and gown."

"As to your little maid, we will not change your dressings in her presence, but say only that you fell and injured yourself."

"But the hellhound-"

"Speak no more of it!" she begged.

I sighed, but inclined my head in assent. It was a feeble enough story, but Anne would have her way. "Tis a lie," I yawned tiredly.

"The lie, as you call it, is only for your own benefit. It is doubtless the truth. You became frightened by a creature in the forest tonight — a wolf perhaps — but it is plausible that you fell and hit your head." She then inspected my skull and, finding the tender lump there, muttered, "As I thought." I flinched at both her postulation and her prodding fingers. "How else came you by these injury?"

How indeed...surely I had not envisaged these into existence too? I remained silent and she nodded satisfied.

"We are agreed then." She concluded with pursed lips, daring me to object further. I did not.

Anne administered a healing poultice to my arm, cleaning it assiduously before applying more medicines. When she was done wrapping my arm in a clean bandage she lifted the crook of her index finger and placed it firmly under my chin, so that I had to look up into her steady gaze.

"One more thing, Aria." Her eyes studied me earnestly. "Under no circumstances must you volunteer tonight's events to Fendrel, least of all that you even possess such a wound as this." She sighed lowering her eyes to my bandaged arm. "He will not ask, but one must be always on guard around that wily bastard. Lucian is the only one that you must worry about," said she. "But believe me when I say that no one will ask about the incident, namely because we shall divulge nothing. No one will know of your injury except myself, Gerald, Astrid and Lucian. But none will see it save myself and Lucian-"

"How will he know?" I bit my tongue. Of course...the wedding night. "Oh," I finished lamely.

"Yes," she confirmed knowingly. "But, no one else shall make mention of it. I have sworn Gerald to secrecy and I know he can be trusted; moreover, his eyes are poor and you, thankfully, had the foresight to wrap the wound in your mantle ere you fainted. I do not think he saw aught of it. By the by, he was the one who found you tonight." She looked deeply disappointed in me. I shriveled a little inside.

The last thing I remembered before collapsing from exhaustion was that I'd managed to crawl into the postern tunnel. By the virtue of some miracle, I had made it home and reached the garden before my weary legs had buckled from underneath me and fatigue had claimed my consciousness.

Anne got up to fetch me one of her shifts. I pulled it on carefully, covering my nakedness with the sheer fabric. Although I was taller, she was slightly curvier and thus the chemise hung loose around my hips and shoulders — the sleeves long and snug enough to help keep my bandage in place. Anne poured steaming water, from the kettle boiling over the fireplace, into a small wooden cup and brought it to me.

"I cannot lie to Lucian. I am no good at untruths." Notwithstanding Lucian's ability to smell a fib on my lips. It was uncanny.

She waved her hand unconcerned, yet I glimpsed the furrow worrying at her brow afore she thought to smooth it out. "There is no lie." With that said, the discussion was at an end. "You will sleep in this room tonight." She handed me the tea and I drank of it deeply. "Now, into bed!" Obediently I obliged her.

I struggled to keep my eyes open. They shut tightly almost as soon as my head sank into the feather pillows. Anne must surely have slipped a soporific into the tea, but it was no matter for I would rather be drugged and sink into a dreamless stupor than suffer awful flashbacks throughout the night.



❅



The growling woke me.

I was roused to consciousness so suddenly that I jumped from the bed in one swift leap as if a thousand needles had struck me at once. The dreaded terror, ever present since the early evening, rose rapidly to the fore — truly it had never left me for it was indelible and only dormant the while I slept; waiting for me to come awake and feel its keenness.

There it is again! A low, awful sound muffled by the distance and the stone walls.

How it had bestirred me from my deep slumber, I know not for it was not loud and had not issued from the other side of my door. Rather it had seemed to rumble down the corridor beyond the next room. I should, in fact, not have heard it. My brain, it seemed, was in a such constant state of alertness that I might have heard a button drop to the floor and still leaped from the bed in a panic!

Had the thing followed me here?! Dear God, no! Tis not possible, I thought. Then I heard voices talking in low tones. Two interlocutors meeting at this time of night? I peered out through the window. Or morning, as it were...

I crept silently, cat-like, through my chamber door and then through the other before poking my head out into the hallway. The blue tinge in the east, seeming to herald the approaching dawn, was already lightening the horizon, illuminating the glazed windows in its wraithlike, grayish glow as I crept into the the long gallery, but it was yet too dim to see anything in sharp relief.

I tiptoed further into the corridor and made my way toward the direction I thought I'd heard the voices emanating from. I hurriedly rounded the corner, heedless of the fact that someone might be doing the same thing from the opposite direction; and I slammed straight into a solid chest.

A steely hand smothered the hysterical scream beginning to bloom in my throat.

Is that...Blood?! There was so much blood!



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