Shannon Hale - Book of a Thousand Days

I placed my hand on her forehead, and I wove the calming song into the tune for Goda's prayer. The goddess of sleep knows the mind.

After a time, Saren shuddered but stopped crying. Her eyes closed, and she leaned against me as if too tired to sit. While I was singing, My Lord the cat nosed the door ajar and leaped onto her lap, purring under her hand.

She took a deep breath, leaned into me more fully, and told the story she'd been keeping for seven years. "I was twelve years old and was visiting Lord Khasar with my father. His house was vast and cold, like my father's but darker, heavier. We ate a huge feast. I knew my father had hopes of betrothing me to Khasar, but I didn't pay any mind. It seemed as though it had nothing really to do with me. They talked and I ate and played with a little dog that begged under the table. Sometimes I felt Khasar watching me.

"I had a room to myself while we stayed in his house. I thought it was such fun at first. I'd never been alone before, and I could run around the room and climb on the furniture and not worry about my maids and my father and what they thought of me. But at sundown, one of Khasar's men came to my door. His name was Chinua. He was Khasar's war chief and had constantly been at his side. He said my father and Khasar sent him to fetch me."

Her forehead furrowed, but she didn't open her eyes. "I was afraid," she stated simply. "I thought my father would have me do something humiliating before Khasar, like make me dance while they laughed. Or he might slap me, just for show. He never slapped me when we were alone, only in front of people. While I didn't dare refuse my father's call, I did wonder why Chinua seemed full of some secret joke.

"He took me to a courtyard outside Lord Khasar's house, hidden from the eyes of windows. My father wasn't there. Lord Khasar was. He called me Saren. He said, 'Fitting that a girl named for moonlight should see me as only the moon knows me. What do you say, Chinua, is it time to show myself to this moon?' He smiled as the sun finished setting, then he took off all his clothes until he was naked."

"Naked?" This part surprised me. To be naked outside is utter submission, and to be unclothed before anyone besides family is humiliation. "That doesn't sound like Khasar. Why would he willingly debase himself?"

Saren shook her head. "It was different with him. It was as though he was naked to embarrass me. It was so strange how Khasar just stood there and laughed at my discomfort. So strange, and I was too afraid to do anything, even to look away. Then the last of the sunlight faded, and I realized why he'd taken off his clothes. It was so they wouldn't rip." She shook. "In the darkness he changed, Dashti. Right in front of me, Khasar changed from a man into a beast. A wolf."

She was quiet for a time and I was glad she was. I had to make sense of this in my own head. In one way it seemed impossible, and in another I felt as if I'd known this all along.

"At first I thought he meant to kill me," Saren continued. "But then I noticed a goat on a tether, and so did Khasar the wolf. Chinua held my head and made me watch while the wolf devoured the animal. I was sure I'd be next, but after the goat was a wrecked carcass, Chinua moved us behind a fire. The wolf ignored us, sniffed the air, and ran off into the woods.

"Chinua laughed and laughed, and while he laughed he told me things. That his lord had gone off to hunt in the woods until sunup. That his lord had made quite a bargain with the desert shamans and now was the greatest hunter in all the realms. He said, weren't we lucky to be the only ones alive to know Lord Khasar's secret? Once his lord had allowed another girl to witness his transformation, but she'd told a boy. Afterward, both were found in a pile of their own innards, and if I ever told a soul, I'd be the next goat."

Saren's eyes fluttered, then she closed them again. "I saw Lord Khasar the next morning, and he smiled at me and touched my braids and told me I was beautiful. He'd eaten that goat and hunted other things in the woods as well, and yet when I looked in his eyes, I knew he's never full."

"He killed our tower guards," I said, realizing it as I spoke. "As a wolf, he attacked them, and all those guards with their weapons couldn't kill him. You knew all along and yet you didn't dare tell me."

She sat up and opened her eyes, speaking straight at me with no fear. "I'm telling you now. Khasar becomes a beast at night. In the dark, he's a wolf. I want you to know. I guess he'll kill me like the goat now that I've told, but I don't care anymore. Even if I have to die, I want it to be over. I'm tired of being afraid."

"I'll find a way to end it," I told her.

She rested her head on my shoulder again and didn't cry. I thanked her and I sang to her, and she sighed like a traveler who can rest at last. My poor lady. All she's been for years is a frightened little girl. I've promised her I'll make it better, and I will. I must. So, how does one trick a wolf?

Day 163

I'm alone in a room, though not the small clean room, not the kitchen, and not my lord's resting chamber. There are windows, but these look out on the city, these are high up. It's not a tower, not quite, though it seems as much like a prison. Just now, I understand my lady's plea that she wanted to die. My stomach feels like the winter sky.

After Saren remembered Khasar's horror, I passed the night drowsing between ideas, then waking again with thoughts of what to do. What to do? Could I trick him into becoming a wolf by daylight? Is there a way to sing him into that shape? What would happen if he did become a wolf under the sun? And how could I get close enough to make it happen?

As soon as it was light enough, I went to Khan Tegus's chamber to share what I knew, but it was filled with chiefs and shamans, and of course Lady Vachir and her vulture maids sitting on their perch.

As I entered, the war chief was saying, "He's declaring lie won't attack Song for Evela if we give him Lady Saren."

I stood in the threshold, though I know it's bad luck. I couldn't move, not forward or back. My mama said I'm as brave as the lead gazelle with hunters on her tail, but I wasn't then. Since coming to Song for Evela, too many times I've put my mama to shame.

"Lady Saren?" The khan rubbed his forehead. "Is Khasar truly insane? He has Lady Saren already, if he hasn't killed her yet."

"What do you mean Khasar has Lady Saren?" I asked. I just couldn't keep quiet.

Some of the chiefs glared at me for interrupting, but her khan answered.

"Dashti, I didn't see you. Have you heard of the lady in the tower? I knew her." He glanced at Lady Vachir before continuing. "I visited her one autumn. When I returned to Titor's Garden in the spring, Khasar was at the tower before me, and two hundred of his men camped with him. I'd only thirty men and couldn't risk attacking."

He came back! I smiled at him. I wanted him to know how wonderful he was, but he was looking out the window.

"Surely Khasar was there to break her out," he said, "take her back to his own realm."

"But now he's asking for her," said the town chief.

"Maybe he didn't take her." Tegus drummed the pane with his fingers. "But if he didn't, where is she?"

There was silence for a few moments, and my soul rumbled inside of me, rolling around like a ball in a box, shaking my bones.

I'd sworn to protect my lady. I'd said I'd claim her name and title and see if the khan would welcome her. I knew I should speak up now, the Ancestors designed this very moment to allow me to do my duty. But instead, I quaked and stared at my feet. And the moment passed.

"He claims he has one hundred villagers on neck ropes," said Batu, "ones too slow to flee before his army's advance. He's shouting that he'll catapult them into our city if we don't turn over the lady. Scouts confirm the hostages."