A Court Of Shadow and Blood

☆ To Kill a Beast ☆

A drop of hot water dripped onto her forehead, running down her temples and into the hastily shorn and bleached hair. Her sharp face twitched at the breath of blazing rancid air as it attacked her senses, nostrils curling with disgust. But, when she peeled open deep gray eyes and gazed up, she was only met with a snarling face and a piercing roar that cleaved her eardrums.

Without thought, Eblis rolled from underneath the beast, away from the wall of granite she had curled against last night. Her hand was on a hidden thigh sheath in seconds, only to find the strap without a weapon. Her things—

Gone, with a single slash of razor-sharp claws and a thick growl.

Supplies were strewn over the hard, uneven granite, among the miscellaneous pebbles and various boulders. Rations, clothes, and money; everything was quickly shredded into by the hulking form of mangled fur and acrid breath. As Eblis slowly edged away, she found herself creeping to the opposite side of the small cave and assessing her choices. The deep shadows at one end—and the pale misty morning on the other.

Eblis bit the inside of her mouth, placing both hands against the wall as she slowly inched towards the gaping maw of the cave, eyes trapped on the beast sniffing through her bags.

The fur seemed to be a smoky gray, yet it was stained a dark, rusty brown around the curling lips and the old scars that separated fur from flesh. Ears that tapered off into tufts of hair were twitching, swiveling around like an owl's head. Eblis made sure to slow her quickening breaths, to silence them and her raging heart. As the large head of the mountain beast swung around—revealing a feline-like structure and more scarred flesh—Eblis realized why it hadn't detected her yet.

The eyes were pale and unseeing orbs, yet still darting around like a crazed animal as if it could see. A deep rumble from its chest alerted her that she had been found, her grimy scent from long days of travel picked up by the quivering wet nose. The pale and thin lips of the cat peeled back to reveal mere lumps of teeth, as if worn away over centuries of chewing on rocks and bones. It hissed a long, scathing breath before taking a step towards Eblis, the somehow sharp claws clicking on the ground.

Eblis thought of running, thought of dashing from the cave with all of her immortal strength and prowess. Even so, the meaty bunching of the creature's muscles suggested it could keep up with her—blind or not. The high fae woman pressed chapped lips together, trying to pull some long-lost memory from her mind.

A test.

It was for any travelers brave enough to attempt to reach Velaris, the coveted City of Starlight. The test was simple—most people didn't know that somewhere amongst the rocky crags lay a warded wall of granite, one that barricaded Velaris from view. So anyone who didn't know it was there might give up and turn around.

It would have been proven to work if Eblis hadn't lived among the people of Velaris—hadn't been carved from the very love of the denizens. She gritted her teeth, snuffing out bleating thoughts of panic as she bared her elongated canines and released a purely animal growl.

She hated this, hated being feral and revealing that dark side of her, even if it was a rogue beast in the Night Court. Yet the mountain cat didn't hesitate, instead lunging forward with a thick paw, the claws spearing for her.

Eblis bolted for the mouth of the cave, hands swooping up two blades from the ground as she went. Upper ground—she needed to find a proper location to slay the cat. She played with the idea of simply getting out of reach and waiting for it to disappear, but she knew it would follow her scent and hunt her while she continued her search for the wall. There was no other way.

She dashed for the adjacent wall of the ravine she traveled through—another mountain that was incredibly steep. She focused on climbing. Focused on the burning of her muscles as her fingernails dug into crevices and pulled herself up.