Chapter 7
“When the fairies steal away a beautiful mortal child they leave an ugly, wizened little creature in its place. And these fairy changelings grow up malicious and wicked.”
Although the second victim was brought to our own step, all we can glean in the next two weeks is that the victims were all but beheaded and that both were travelers.
The lack of footprints, claw marks, or hoofprints around Hugh could be attributed to the rain, but that is less the case with the body at the manor.
The lack of sufficient blood at the scene was the most unusual trait—other than the severity of the blow to the necks.
I look at what samples I have, but microscopy shows little of note.
Without a pattern, we are left making guesses still.
The only conclusive answer is that the assailant is a faery, and that the two dead men seem to be victims of the same creature.
I still know nothing about why my samples were taken, or whether the assailant in the woods that knocked me to the ground is that creature.
Presuming all are connected is yet another way to make mistakes, but presuming otherwise is equally problematic.
Father believes they are the same, but we know nothing for certain. Without useful evidence, we are left with mere speculation. He is patrolling again, and he insists that I stay with Mother and Rylan for their safety.
Gossip wends its way to the village, and three matters are on everyone’s lips.
The first, of course, is that there are murders in Brimmond Wood.
The second is that Isabeau’s father has died, and she has become the rarest of nobility—a lady duke.
Most surprisingly, perhaps, the third matter is that the new duke is cursed.
Curses are rarely heard of during our lifetimes.
The types of faeries that can lay a curse are strictly banned from our side of the veil.
I wonder idly if Isabeau is not cursed but contaminated.
Did she encounter whatever toxin was on my person when aiding me?
Or escorting me to the fireplace at Maudite Castle?
Despite the pressing matter of a murdering beast in the forest, Queen Morag II still insists on holding her vow ceremony. Only two dead? That is not yet a crisis, she replied in her letter. Vows are essential. Come to the palace.
I am eager to attend. I must inquire after Isabeau. As a child, the duchess made her drink foul health tonics, claiming the future duke was spindly and weak. Did the duchess know something then? Or was this not a curse at all? Was she exposed to some faery toxin?
Because he has the immunity afforded to the Hunter, Father refuses to come to the city at all, but the rest of the family has no such luxury.
He hunts, and I am tasked with protecting my sister and mother in the city.
I would much rather leave them safely at home while I seek out the queen and the new duke.
However, as with every other aspect of my life, I do not have a choice in the matter.
We relocate the household—sans Hunter—to the city.
This morning, as the sun starts to crawl across the sky, I weigh the thoughts of beasts, possible curses, probable contamination, and obligations as I make my way along the block around the Fleuriste townhome here in Regina Centrum.
I am clutching a long, thin sliver of steel held hidden in the folds of my walking dress and patrolling.
The morning sun is barely brightening, and the path is mostly walked by young couples starting the day quite early.
No city or national offices were built in this area, so the only people who have reason to be here are those living in the houses.
Yet in front of me is what initially seems to be a man in a tall hat and puce-colored waistcoat.
He has a squirming bag over his shoulder.
I glance at his clothing, only silver or gold fasteners or decorations.
Yet I don’t know him, and I know every resident of the quarter.
“Sir? Wait, please.”
As I reach his side, I brush the sliver of steel over his knuckles, hoping I’m wrong. He growls as the skin there sizzles. Faeries. It’s always faeries, even here, where we are to be less plagued by them.
No words are spoken. He can’t because he isn’t a real person, and creatures can’t speak. They can mimic humanity, but that’s only in shape, not word.
Smoke rises from the quickly flaking skin; bits of it drop to the sidewalk and turn back to leaf or branch when they touch ground.
Now we both know you aren’t human.
The man-shaped creature stares at me, smiling in a way that’s more fang than anything remotely mortal, and starts loping away. If he makes it to the park around the corner, I’ll need to have a public reckoning with the beast.
So I hasten my pace and pull a fistful of salt and seeds from my skirt pocket.
“I think you dropped something!” I lift my fisted hand as if to extend a fallen coin, hoping the beast isn’t bright enough to realize who I am. Some of the faeries are not yet aware that there is a Hunter-in-Training.
Instead of pausing, the beast picks up speed, running on all fours. Bottom high and legs scrabbling, he skitters along the sidewalk with a clacking noise that has no logical source.
The bag lets out a wail that sounds human.
A child?
I give up any pretense of decorum and run faster, fist of salted seeds held tight. My feet pound against the walking path. In moments, we’ll be inside the manicured green area that was built in the center of the finest of the townhomes.
The faery touches the soil of the park and shifts into something less man shaped. His snout extends, and claws sprout. He scurries on four legs and faces me as a beast in a waistcoat and quickly tattered trousers.
“What’s in the bag?”
The beast flashes teeth at me, so I throw the salt and herbs at him.
The mixture doesn’t work on the strong creatures, but it holds this one frozen for a moment.
I take the crying bag. Inside is a small boy, maybe two or three years old.
I lower the boy to the grassy ground, step between the child and beast, and tell the creature, “You know the rules. If your kind cannot follow them, you will all be cast out.”
The creature stares at me; it’s pinned where it crouches at my feet.
“No beasts in the noblesse quarter or any other housing block. Not in the queen’s city.
” I utter the same warning I’ve learned to speak whenever I am nose to snout with feral things inside city limits.
I suspect there’s some power imbued in certain words, the order, or the tone, but that power ultimately comes from the Queens’ Treaty.
The Faery Queen’s accord with the last human queen is what gives words power over the creatures.
Soldiers enforce it, and if the creatures violate the rules, the Hunter is summoned. It’s all about her power, though, power writ into vows.
Much like the one I’m going to be late to make!
“No snatching our children! No eating our pets or horses!” I’m not paying enough attention, thinking of the dress I ought to be preparing to don. That’s my only excuse for what happens next.
The beast breaks free of the containing mixture. It launches at me, and I twist, keeping my body between the toddler and the beast.
Still it knocks me to my back, its right foreclaw punches at my face, and the other front claw grazes my side. Sharp edges rake over my skin. The pain blossoms like fire along my ribs, but had I not moved, it would have sunk a claw into my chest, heart high and fatal.
“There. Are. Rules.” I roll to my feet as I jerk back my skirt slit and draw a short sword.
Before the beast reaches me for a second launch, my sword tip pierces its throat with a squelch.
With a painful pull, I slide the blade across tendon and muscle, and even with rage powering my blow, the neck is only half severed.
The beast gurgles and flops to the ground. Dead.
Now, though, is when the child shrieks and runs away—as if I am the threat.
“Stop!” I heave a breath, hoping that there are no perils in the wee one’s path.
A trio of soldiers march along the riding trail, stirring the ground into gusts of dirt. I wave an arm above my head and call, “Over here!”
The eldest soldier sweeps the child into his arms with the comfort of a man who is a father or uncle. When he reaches me, the child hides its face.
“Fleuriste.”
“Sergeant Nolan.”
The only people allowed to know the family legacy are the villagers at Fleuriste, the queen’s soldiers, the queen herself, and those she—or the Hunter—deems essential.
It seems a long list until I think of the size of Alveus.
Most citizens are oblivious to the Hunter’s identity, magically so, and any soldier or citizen who reveals the secret is silenced in grotesque ways.
There are strong-willed souls who parse it together, but in most cases, the magic that imbues the Hunter’s line also aids in our privacy.
Such a state is better for the citizens and the Hunter.
“Has no one patrolled?” I let my glare sweep them. “Is the W?chter idle? What if the faery had taken the child?”
Two of the soldiers exchange a look.
“You have faery blood on your . . .” Sergeant Nolan gestures toward my chest and then face. “Do you need assistance? Will your ladyship, uh, be fainting or some such?”
I point at the corpse with my sword. “Remove that. Salt the ground there. Find the child’s people. Submit the report to the officials.”
Blood congeals on my sword, and I can’t stop my scowl. I’ll have to rewrap the hilt now. I don’t have time tonight, since it means liberally salt-curing the leather first, but there’s no avoiding it. Faery blood eats away at the leather wrappings, and the steel blisters my skin if it isn’t wrapped.
One of the corporals extends a cloth.
“Thank you. My blade is—”
“Pardon me, Lady Huntress, do you want to wipe that first?” He motions to my face.
“Fine.” I drag the cloth over my face. It is, admittedly, a relief to not have the strange greenish goop on my skin. It itches, rather than burning me as it does most people; perhaps I’ve grown mostly immune to it over the years. Burn or not, it’s gross.
“There’s a smear of—”
“I know.” I pivot and march toward the general direction of the house. “Buffoons. How did a creature get into this part of the city?” Louder, I call, “I will be reporting this oversight to Her Majesty.”
“Fleuriste.” The sergeant catches up and steps in my path. “There are more of them lately. We’ve lost four children to them, found their changelings in the street outside the houses. The past few weeks have been troubling. The queen already knows.”
“Then add more patrols, Nolan.”
“Done. We are stretched to our limit,” he says in a low voice. “Bind your side, Fleuriste. You’re bleeding.”
“It’ll heal.”
“If this keeps up . . .” The sergeant lowers his voice to barely a whisper. “It might be good to have you in the city longer. Something is unsettling the faery creatures. There are more of them, and they’ve been of a bolder sort.”
I soften, maybe from hearing the worry in his voice, or maybe the battle energy is fading. “I will be here when I can, but the nexus of their entry into our world is Brimmond Wood. And we have what seems to be a monster unlike any other before. That’s my priority.”
“I have asked for the Hunter,” Sergeant Nolan said. “No deaths that I can prove, so . . . I cannot requisition your aid.”
I cannot handle two problems, but I have faith that my father will have the monster at home identified and managed soon, so I suggest to Nolan, “If there is a ball I cannot refuse—perhaps a celebration of the child’s safety—I can return to Regina Centrum for a while.
I can speak to the Hunter, too. If there’s a rise and the creature at home . . .”
“I will speak to the Chathams,” Nolan says quickly. “That’s their youngest one. They’ll be grateful to celebrate the Hunter.”
“I am not the Hunter, Sergeant, but if necessary, they can know that an attending person is an emissary of the Hunter—simply not which noble or officer or merchant. Or imply he may be there.”
He wasn’t going to be, though. Father would stay in Brimmond Wood, tracking this latest beast until he stopped it. Even a summons from the queen could not sway a Hunter on a trail, however thin.
Nolan nods. “Of course. I know not to reveal your identity to anyone. I will tell them the Hunter saved the child, but no names or saying that you are the next Hunter. I will suggest that they plan a celebration ball and invite all the nobles and merchants who were in the city to make vows.”
“Very good. And now, I must go do just that. Good morrow.”
“Good morrow, Fleuriste.” He bows and turns his back, allowing me the privacy to limp home.
I force myself to hide the limp as best I can.
I’m barely healed from the blow to the head and the cut in my arm, but this cut is just another in a lifetime.
Showing weakness is rarely an option. The green blood is not as bad as the red seeping through my dress, but I hope to hide both.
If the countess sees the state I’m in, the lecturing will be loud and sustained.
I could tell her I saved a child. That will help calm her upset if she catches me.
As I walk home, I admit to myself that saving that one soul does little for my overwhelming sense of futility.
One child. I saved one singular child. If I request it, the queen will send someone to chastise the faery court.
The faeries will twist words to say it was another misunderstanding.
By then, I’ll be in the country again, and they’ll likely have taken two more.
I sometimes feel as if I am being asked to stop the tides with my hand. I cannot solve every issue, rescue every stolen child, stop every monster. My actual duty is hunting—with the intent of killing—the beasts. I am destined to be no more than a weapon the queen can wave around like a threat.
This afternoon, I will bow before my queen. I’ll wear a lovely gown and dance, and then I’ll offer a vow of loyalty to Queen Morag alongside other nobles and merchants. They all know that one of their number is the Hunter.
No one suspects a lady, though.
A lady ought to be looking for a spouse, making a home.
I am to be a weapon in a fine gown.
That is my fate. Even if I could be both, what sort of person would want a woman who is more at ease with violence than affection? What person would not mind my fate—or the likelihood of my death?
Not Isabeau with her protective mien.