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It’s the dead of night when Reki wakes to shouting from outside his tower cell—shouting and fierce, animal snarling that makes his blood run cold. The light from the full moon through the tiny window is bright enough to see by, but he almost regrets opening his eyes when he sees the shape of the same massive black wolfdog that had attacked him, lumbering backwards with something—someone—thrashing against the grip of its fearsome jaws, futilely trying to swing his fists at its muzzle.
“Langa!” Reki nearly trips over his feet stumbling off his cot and toward the bars, adrenaline banishing the last remnants of sleep instantly. “What are you doing here?!”
Langa doesn’t look badly hurt—the dog’s dragging him by his clothes, not his neck, thank God—but he’s battered and filthy, like he’s been dragged a long way. Even then, Reki can see the way his eyes light up at the sound of his voice.
“Reki, you’re okay!” Langa smiles, his scuffed face looking way too pretty in the glow of the moonlight. It’s like he doesn’t even care where they are, that he and Reki aren’t sneaking out to the stables for a night-time ride; Reki gapes at him in disbelief as he adds, “I’m here to rescue you!”
“Are you crazy?!” Reki shouts, gripping the bars with both hands. “You’ve gotta get out of here! Miya was right, there’s a monster, or a demon, or something—”
“But, Reki…”
The wolf gnashes its teeth and growls, those razor-sharp fangs making enough contact with Langa’s skin that he hisses in pain as it adjusts its grip when he tries to wriggle free. It could probably crush Langa’s whole head in its mouth, and the dagger Reki can see Langa struggling to grab from his belt isn’t going to do him much good. And even if, by some miracle, he manages to kill the dog—
“What have you dragged in this time?”
—there’s still the ruler of the castle. The cursed prince, the ghost stories all say, but there’s nothing princely about the way he stalks down the hall, his massive frame, his wild hair and thick bull’s horns, the red eyes glowing beneath his porcelain mask and the fangs that glint when he smiles at the sight of Langa, as sharp as his guard dog’s.
What little hope Reki had been holding onto that the apparition he’d seen was just a man, that his own fear and Miya’s stories had gotten the better of him, evaporates. Whatever’s beneath that mask and cape, it’s not a human being.
“Put him down,” the monster says coolly, and the dog releases its grip on Langa’s tattered vest, whining and sitting back like an obedient puppy. Langa immediately grabs his knife and scrambles to his feet, but the monster towering over him just stares at him. “What do you think you’re doing with that?”
“Let my friend go,” Langa says, brandishing his knife—only for the monster to snatch it out of his hand and snap the blade, like breaking a twig.
We’re dead, Reki thinks, with a strange, cold sense of acceptance through the terror. We’re both dead.
But the monster just raises one clawed hand to Langa’s chin, just shy of touching him. Langa glares, but doesn’t flinch, and the monster smiles even wider.
“Good, very good,” he purrs—really purrs, something inhuman about the sound. “I’ll do as you ask.”
“What? ” Reki yelps—then cowers back from the bars when those glowing eyes turn toward him.
“I don’t have the slightest bit of interest in you.” The monster waggles a finger at him, like he’s a misbehaving child—and for the first time, anger almost overcomes his fear. “Your fate means nothing to me. But you…”
He circles around Langa, never quite making contact; Reki can’t help but think of watching a butcher sizing up a pig.
When he’s in front of Langa again, the monster bends in a bow… which just puts them eye-to-eye, and Reki can see Langa’s breath catch in his throat.
“Stay here, as my guest,” the monster croons, “and your friend is free to go.”
“What?! No!” Reki shouts, but neither Langa nor the monster look at him—and Langa nods, barely hesitating.
“Okay.”
“Hey! Langa!”
The monster chuckles, and with a clap of his hands, the cell bars swing open, leaving Reki to collapse to his knees with nothing to hold him up.
“Then we have a deal.”