The Commander's Collar

LYRA ARDEN My father used to say I had been born twice. The first time, I came out of my mother's womb covered in blood, screaming and perfectly female. The second, a few hours later, Elias Arden wrapped my body in a blue blanket, paid the midwife to forget what she had seen, and announced that he had been given a second son. I remembered neither of those things. I only knew the version that had survived: Rowan, the firstborn, and Lyr, the youngest. Two boys raised on a remote farm, sons of a widower who spoke little and worked too much. Lyra existed only inside the house. That morning, the sky hung low and gray, heavy with rain that had not yet fallen. The earth still held the night's dampness; dark mud clung to my boots, and the wind carried from the woods the strong smell of wet leaves and rotten wood. I was kneeling near the northern fence, a knife clenched between my teeth and my bloodstained hands over a fox, when Rowan whistled behind me. "You do know elegant girls embroider flowers, right?" I took the knife from my mouth and wiped the blade on the dead fox's fur. "And intelligent men know when to keep quiet. Neither one seems to apply to us." Rowan jumped the fence instead of using the gate, because my brother treated simple paths as useless. He was two years older, almost a head taller than me, and possessed an irritating ability to look relaxed even when he was about to do something stupid. He came over smiling, and that same smile died when he saw the fox. The animal had not been killed for food. There were two deep marks on its neck, too wide for a dog's teeth and too clean for a wolf's. The bone beneath the skin looked crushed. Almost no flesh had been torn away. "Another one?" Rowan asked. I nodded. "Found it before dawn. Near the dry creek." He crouched, ran his fingers beside the wound without touching it, and frowned. "First two chickens. Then the goat. Now a fox." He stood, crossing his arms. "Whatever is doing this isn't eating." That was the part that bothered me. On the farm, death had a purpose. We killed to eat, to defend the animals, sometimes to end suffering. A predator killed out of hunger. This seemed to kill so we would notice. Rowan looked toward the woods. The humor had disappeared completely. "Has Dad seen it?" "Not yet." He muttered a curse and grabbed the fox by its hind legs. "Great. If we hide it and he finds out, we'll wish whatever did this finds us first." Our house sat in the middle of low barley fields, crooked fences, and a barn too large for the family we were. Herbs grew in irregular bands around the entire property. Some had silver leaves, others tiny colorless flowers; the worst released a bitter resin that stuck to your fingers for hours. I had grown up hating the smell. I had also grown up knowing I could not live without it. My father was sitting near the barn door, sharpening a scythe. The scrape of stone against metal was so regular I could almost measure time by it. Rowan dropped the fox to the ground. The sound stopped. Elias's hand froze over the blade. I knew my father's silences. There was the irritated silence when Rowan broke a tool, the tired silence after a bad harvest, and the almost amused silence when I said something he pretended not to find funny. This was another kind. His fingers tightened around the stone, and before he looked at the fox, he looked at the herbs behind us. A chill settled in my stomach. Elias Arden was not a man who imagined monsters. He was the kind who walked through a storm to hold a cow in labor, who stitched his own leg when he cut himself in the field because “it wasn't worth losing a day going to the village.” If a dead fox could put fear on his face, I needed to pay attention. "Where?" he asked. His voice came out low. "Northern boundary. Near the creek." "How close to the barrier?" Rowan and I exchanged a look. "Fifty paces," I answered. "Maybe less." The scythe slipped from his knee and struck the ground. Dad got up too fast. "You two... aren't going there anymore." "Dad..." "You aren't going." His voice came out rough as he went inside the house. I followed. "Something is killing our animals." "I noticed, Lyr." The male name came out sharp, deliberate. My body had recognized that warning since childhood. Lyr was used for neighbors, merchants, tax collectors, anyone who might show up uninvited. Lyra existed only within those walls—and sometimes not even there, if my father was frightened enough. I looked around. "Dad... there's no one here." Elias stopped at the door and turned his head. "And that is exactly how I want it to stay." I crossed my arms. "You're going to lock us inside because of a fox?" He did not answer. He came closer, took my chin in his callused hand, and turned my face toward the light. I frowned, not understanding. "What are you doing?" He leaned his nose toward my hair, smelling me. I shoved him in the chest. "For the gods' sake, Dad." "Did you put the herbs on today?" "I did." "Not enough..." Irritation rose automatically. "I put them on my neck, wrists, hair. I practically dunked my head in the jar." "Then put on more." "I can hit a deer from fifty paces, dress a carcass, and stitch a cut without fainting, but apparently I'm going to die because my hair doesn't stink enough." I expected him to get angry, but it was not anger I saw on his face. It was fear. Real fear, naked enough to erase my next joke and kill my smile where it stood. I had seen him like that only a few times. When Rowan fell off the roof at eleven. When, at thirteen, I woke up with blood between my legs and thought I was dying. My father had found the cloth hidden beneath the bed, gone pale, and then spent an hour teaching me the herb recipe as though my life depended on memorizing every leaf. Maybe it did. "You die if a beast smells what is underneath that scent," he said. The words fell between us, and I felt my chest tighten beneath the bindings. The world had begun running out of women long before I was born. No one knew exactly why. Some people spoke of an ancient curse; others, a disease brought by the wars between beasts. What I knew was simple: in some human regions, one girl was born for every fifty boys. Among certain beast bloodlines, it was even worse. Scarcity had turned a womb into wealth. And wealth was something everyone searched for. "It's been years since any beast crossed these lands," I murmured. "I know..." "Then why are you acting as if one is at the door?" Dad looked at me for a few seconds. If there was an answer there, he decided to swallow it. He went to the high shelf, took down the clay jar stained green, and shoved it against my chest. "Put on more." "This... stinks." "That's the point." Behind me, Rowan smothered a laugh. "You're already an ugly boy, sister. A little smell won't make it worse." I threw the jar at him. Rowan dodged, but my father did not laugh. That was what stayed with me. At night, the wind changed. It struck the windows and carried the cold smell of the woods. In my room, I lit only one candle and stood before the cracked mirror that had belonged to my mother. I spread the bitter paste behind my ears, along the nape of my neck, on my wrists, and through my hair. The boy the world knew stared back at me in the reflection: dark hair cut below the ears, a narrow face, no beard at twenty-two, Rowan's loose shirt making my shoulders look broader. I sighed as I took off the shirt. The bindings had been compressing my chest for hours. When I undid the knot and pulled the cloth away, the first free breath hurt from how good it felt. Red lines marked the skin beneath my breasts and crossed my ribs. I ran my fingers over one of them. It was strange to live in two versions of the same body. Lyr could cross roads, sell eggs, drink, sleep in a barn, and argue with men without anyone taking too much interest. Lyra had to exist behind a locked door. I was still finishing removing the bindings when an animal's scream split the night. I went completely still. It came from far away, but it cut through wood and glass. It was deep and long, ending in a hoarse sound that did not seem to belong to anything we raised. Something else answered from the woods. And it was not another scream, but a low roar. My bedroom door flew open. Rowan came in looking at the floor and threw my shirt toward me before I could even cover my chest. "Get dressed, quick!" There was no humor in his voice. Maybe that was why I dressed so fast. "What happened?" "Dad found tracks behind the pen." "Tracks? From what?" Rowan finally lifted his eyes. He was pale. "He doesn't know." "Then why do you look like that?" My brother ran his tongue over his lips and glanced at the door. "Because they're too big to be human."