Chapter 3
“Geasa, whether in the sense of [taboos] or of obligations, could be imposed by anyone, and must be obeyed, for disobedience produced disastrous effect.”
I push open the heavy oak door that leads into the study where my father sits with the duke. The room is lit by several small lamps, and the duke is reclining on a settee with a sheepskin over his legs for warmth. Even with the fire blazing, he looks drawn.
A tea tray sits on the small table in front of them. Steam lifts from a cup, and the scent of something floral tints the air.
“Is my daughter well?” the duke asks. A genial smile hovers over his lips, and I am reminded that he never objected to the moments when Isabeau and I stole away.
“She offered me a less distressed garment, as did Her Grace.” I am not interested in pleasantries or memories, but I cannot be impatient with a dying man. His skin has a waxen look to it, as if it’s ready to slip away.
“Ask my sister to tell Isabeau what you are after her mourning period,” the duke orders. “I could tell her now, but she has enough weight on her. I worry how my family will react to my passing.”
My father is uncommonly silent. The box of samples sits on the table, open to reveal its ghastly contents.
I startle. “Is that safe? The contaminations—”
My words are cut off as the duke laughs. “I’m already at the last edges of dying, Gabrielle. If I see the dawn, I will be surprised.”
I am unsure how to reply.
The duke coughs, and blood blooms on the cloth he holds to his lips. He sees me catching sight of the stains. “I have lived a long life. My dearest dreams came true when I found love. The rest . . .” He shrugs. “It matters little.”
I’m not sure why I’m here in this room. By the time I am the Hunter, His Grace will be gone, but there’s no delicate way to ask why I have been summoned. So I wait.
After the duke coughs violently again, he stares at me with eyes very like Isabeau’s. “Whatever other duties you have, Gabrielle, I ask that you protect my daughter.”
I startle at his request. As a duke, Isabeau will be higher ranking than almost everyone. The only ones higher are the royals, who are her family via her father. Gently, I say, “I cannot protect her from her moods or gossip, Your Grace.”
“Her heart. Protect her heart. She’s delicate. You saw it. So many people don’t. They think she’s . . . coarse.” He makes a sound that is either a cough or a noise of displeasure.
“I will do my best to protect her, Your Grace.” I stumble over my words. “I still care for her. We were friends for a long time.”
“Friends,” he echoes with a kind smile. “Indeed. She is a loyal friend, my Isabeau. I am grateful you are her friend, Gabrielle.”
The urge to glance at my father is strong, but he insists on only seeing Isabeau as trouble.
I’m still not sure why. He has no issue with women marrying one another.
No member of the nobility does. He loathes Isabeau, though.
The Earl of Fleuriste does not share the logic of his opinions with me.
As Hunter, he will, but the part of him that is my father keeps his opinions away from my ears.
“Was the death in the woods certain to be not by man?” the duke asks, glancing at my father and then back at me.
I want to support whatever my father has said; he is the Hunter.
Unfortunately, I have no idea what he’s said, so I opt to be truthful.
“I have no doubt. There was no faery blood to confirm it, but the dead man’s wound was deep and unerring.
There were no start and stop marks. The depth was consistent from one side to the other. ”
The duke’s attention darts to the door as the duchess slips into the room, standing out of the way as the duke asks his questions of me. “No faery you know?”
“The Hunter will find the killer, Your Grace,” I assure him.
“And the victim? What know you?” the duchess interjects.
As she moves closer, my father closes the steel box of samples and secrets it away. The duchess is not dying, and I am glad he is being careful not to expose her to anything dangerous. She ought not be in here around such things.
Father doesn’t answer her, so I do. “A traveler. Not local to our home village. Does that matter? Do either of you know something?” I hear muffled voices beyond the door and then a crash. “Anything would help.”
“He is the Hunter, then. The earl?” The duchess gives my father a strange look and then turns to the duke. “You never said. In all these years.”
“You had no need to know. I was here to handle such things.”
“If they had not come here today, would you have told me before you—”
“I am not yet dead, my heart.” The duke pulls his wife near with surprising strength.
I want to flee. Theirs is not a conversation for witnesses, especially as the duke looks as if death is but a moment away. I don’t want to intrude in their final moments. “Your Grace.” I curtsy. “I will do my best to do as you request.”
The Duke of Maudite breathes out a rattling gasp of air and glances at me. “Talk to my sister. Some creatures are territorial. If this man was a stranger, perhaps . . .”
I’m not sure if his words fade because he’s falling asleep or has lost the thought or even lost the air to speak. The duke waves us toward the door as his wife clutches him, as if she can keep him in this world by clinging to his dying body.
Still the duke adds, “Talk to Morag. Tell her I loved her until my death.”
My father walks up to the duke and bows deeply. “Isaac. Your Grace.” His voice is rough. “It has been my privilege.”
The duke motions for the duchess to back away as my father leans close to clasp the duke’s arm. He whispers in the duke’s ear. The duchess frowns at them both. She has always been possessive of her husband’s time and attention.
“I will not fail you,” Father says. Then he straightens and leads me to the door. Whatever friendship they have shared over the years is deeper than I was privy to. Father pauses only long enough to bow to Her Grace. He says nothing to her, and the expression he wears is an odd one.
I forget myself and bow rather than curtsying to her, and she gives me a peculiar look. My stoic father looks defeated as we walk out of the study. He has lost a friend to death today, even though the moment is not yet here.
I scurry after Father, wishing that Isabeau were here to at least hear my goodbye. When next I see her, she’ll be the Duke of Maudite. She’ll be mourning. I will eventually be relieved not to have to lie to her about my duty, but not if the cost is her sorrow.
Still clad in my ripped and sodden dress, I march across the puddle-decorated courtyard and retake my horse. “Do we patrol? Do we—”
“You head to the manor. I must speak to Her Majesty.” Father hands me the box with the samples we gathered at the death site. “The microscopy ought to eliminate something. I will see you on the morrow.”
Father and I part ways at the mouth of Brimmond Wood, and I glance back at Maudite Castle.
Once I thought I’d make my home there, at least part of the time, spinning a fantasy about dividing our lives between Isabeau’s castle and my manor.
Eventually, some other woman will be her duchess, and if I’m lucky we can share the sort of friendship our fathers had.
The journey through the Brimmond Wood feels different alone.
Every crunch of a creature’s scurrying or footfalls in the debris is loud.
I jump like a scared child when a bevy of wild game birds launch into the air with a loud cacophony of wings and scattering leaves.
I am immobile completely when I see the reason for their flight.
A great cat sìth prowls after them, still in pursuit even though the birds are now aloft.
The faery cat pays me no attention as it slinks from one patch of sunlight to the next, muscle and fur flowing more like molten gold than an animal.
I study the sharp claws that extend from each massive paw as the cat watches the treetops for the birds.
The cat’s claws retract as I watch, and it turns toward me.
I am fixed in place by the moss-green irises focused intently upon me.
“I mean you no harm,” I say, voice louder than I like in the silent wood. “Unless you were the killer this morning . . .”
Although nothing in the Hunter journals says that the cat sìth speaks any of the languages of humans, the cat in front of me smiles then, looking more amused than an animal ought to ever look. The gesture flashes teeth at me. One serrated tooth is the size of my arm.
“You would have to put a man’s whole head in your maw to behead him.” I scoff at the image. The dead man’s skull would have been crushed like a melon, and the musty scent of cat sìth would’ve lingered at the site of the death.
This is not the killer we have to stop. This faery beast is massive and daunting to see, but the strange beast only eats birds or squirrels. I tell it, “I cannot imagine ever harming you. Go get your birds.”
A long, split tongue lashes out and licks inside its nose with a slurping noise.
The cat sìth is not the most refined faery, but it’s not a murderer of people.
With a hiss, it launches into the next sunbeam, not quite bounding, but not actually running either.
Nothing in the journals clarifies how it actually moves.
“One faery suspect eliminated, and no idea where to look next.” I feel no more or less safe with a cat sìth nearby. Not seeing me as a meal is not the same as being an ally.
I watch the shadows for any other creature—or human—that might lurk there.
Though I am like the cat sìth in that I am not going to be a Hunter of humans, I am always aware that my own kind is not without flaws.
My father and I must weigh the possibility that any culprit we seek is a human—or a beast of this world.
The forest has those threats, too. Serpent and wolf, panther or spider, both the large and small threats wait in the wooded corners of my life, too.
A scream cuts through the forest, too raw to be human, too human to be faery.
Before I can allow fear to take hold of my feet, I urge my horse in the direction of the sound.
A creature that can behead a grown man was here last night, my fear reminds me.
You are not yet the Hunter, my logic calls out.
But I have a duty, and I am fairly certain it is not a duty that will magically activate one day when I inherit this task.
My calling is already present inside me.
I was raised to be the Hunter, taught that my mission was to protect humanity, reminded over and again that my life is already as good as forfeit if I am a coward.
“I am no coward,” I whisper as I ride toward the general area of the scream.
The closer I get, the more I realize that I am approaching the same place where we saw the dead man a few hours ago.
I slip off the back of my horse as quietly as I can and draw my sword.
The box of samples from this very site is in a satchel still on the horse.
I debate carrying it with me, but I am one person.
Trying to hold a steel box and a sword seems foolish—and no creature would be so aware as to take my samples.
The faeries that come through the gate are almost always barely more than animal.
Animals don’t think of evidence, not the way humans do.
Steel blade in my hand, I continue toward the site, half expecting to see another dead body, half fearing that the body will be my father’s.
He would never scream like that, logic reminds me.
A laugh echoes around me, not quite the sound of a common loon, but I think it is not human.
At first, I think I’ve been misled by a mix of birds and nerves, but then a sharp blow to the back of my head knocks me forward, right onto the charred remains of the dead man.
I have no time to guess who or what attacked me.
Instinct kicks in, and I swing wildly behind me with my sword, feeling it make contact as I try to roll over.
I realize that my palm is in the ashes of the corpse. As gross as it is, I grab a fistful of ash and teeth and toss it toward my assailant. Ashes in the eye could blind my attacker if I’m lucky.
So far, I don’t know whether I’ve managed any real strike, or whether the ashes aimed true, but in a fight against something stronger, any tactic is acceptable. I manage to push to my knees, tangled as I am in my wet skirt.
All I can see between the ash in my own face and my uneven vision is the vague shape of a person. Pain sears my arm, but still, I jerk out my bag of salt and fling crystals toward it. It darts into the shadows of the forest quicker than anything ought to move.
I demand, “Who are you?”
Then I am struck again, and everything goes dark.