Chapter 20
“[The faeries] were believed to dwell inside green sunny hillocks and knolls, beside a river, a stream, or a lake, or by the sea-braes, in gorgeous palaces furnished with everything that was bright and beautiful.”
My heart twinges as I ride from the city to the country, where my family waits.
I know that Isabeau is now safe in her home in Regina Centrum, and I have little reason to believe that my mother and sister are at risk.
They travel with enough soldiers that the queen herself would be well and safe.
In this moment, those I hold most dear are safe.
Although the world often seems ominous in the gloaming, tonight my heart is light.
Luckily, my steed is also swift, and I am already past Maudite Castle as the bats begin to take flight, carving through the darkening sky in pursuit of insects.
“Night is when we all hunt,” I announce into that symphony of insects and creatures that lend their sounds to the air.
Still, I am not without fear. The sheer force of the blows that have now killed three men, as well as the power of the two attacks on me, make me frightfully aware that the creature I must fight is one that could very well end my life.
As the Hunter I may be stronger, but I am inexperienced compared to Father.
I urge the horse a little faster, thundering through the paths that I know as well as the routes I patrol within the city. Under the half circle of the moon, I gallop into the village of Fleuriste. I will seek lodging in the rooms over the Dancing Goose for the night.
After I stable the horse, I cross the courtyard to rap on Maria’s door.
“You aren’t bleeding,” she says in greeting. “Why are you here?”
“I want you to check a cut on my back and a burn on my stomach.”
Once I am on her table, Maria looks first at my back.
Her sharp intake of air is the only sound at first. I feel her fingers prodding the holes the beast left in my flesh.
The injury is tender, but not as much as it should be considering how recent it was.
Becoming the Hunter healed old scars and accelerated my current healing.
“Something . . . clawed you?” She frowns.
“Recently.”
“But these are healing already . . .” Maria pauses, hand splayed on my spine, and gasps. “The earl? He is gone?”
“I am the Hunter,” I say quietly, turning my head to look at her.
Her eyes are clouding with tears. “I am sorry, Hunter. I and mine will serve you well, as we did his lordship.” After another pause, she asks, “Was it . . .”
“The Beast of Brimmond that killed him? Yes. Was Father’s death fast?
No. Not at all. He lingered for almost a full night.
The magic called to me, his magic, and I came to him.
” My throat feels tighter than I want, but I have not spoken fully or truly about the horror of seeing him that way—or of knowing that the beast that did it had toyed with me that night as well.
Maria takes a salted, heated knife and slices open the skin where the beast clawed my back. I could blame the pain for the tears that join the words that continue to pour out of me.
“The creature tossed me atop my lantern, held me there, and left,” I say.
“Either right before or right after that, it slaughtered my father. His stomach was rent open. His eye . . . was gone.” I choke a little as I tell her.
“He held his organs inside his body. Told me it was the beast. And died. He died.”
She makes her prayer gesture. “I am sorry.”
“I am afraid I will soon follow if I cannot devise a plan to stop it,” I whisper.
With a wet voice, she says, “Your father said the same in the past, you know. He said it here just this past week when he was in for his knees. His body was slowing. You will not fail, Gabrielle. I know this here.” She pats her chest and then her head. “I am certain of this.”
“I hope you are right.” I pause, not even sure of the question. The words I settle on are not quite right, but they are the best I have. “Tell me what you know of curses.”
“The duke.” She presses salt into my wounds. “Gossips talk. Curses are rarely laid on any family these days. There was one young man, back when your father was not yet deep voiced. He’d tried to capture a selchie, one of the sea girls?”
I nod. Selchies are rarely seen these days, either choosing to stay far from the shores of Alveus or returning to the other side of the gate to Faerie. “They curse?”
“No. He had caught a disease from the fish scales.” Maria chortles. “Thought he was cursed, but . . . he had a sickness. No curses in my lifetime, not a one.”
She pats a bandage onto my back with a sticky sap that will hold it fast.
“You don’t think she’s cursed.”
“I do not.” As Maria finishes treating my belly with a salve that cleans and cools the burns there, she adds, “I will tell the rest of the healers, but if you want the village to know that he has died . . .”
“The tavern.” I nod as she helps me redress. “I go there next. Some of the soldiers are likely patrolling, but I doubt they will have spoken. I will tell those villagers who are here and tell Girard, and he will spread the word.”
“He’ll be a good soldier, Girard will. He’ll merely be serving the will of the Hunter in a new way,” Maria notes.
“I am having guards stationed in Brimmond Wood, now that I . . .” I shake my head. “Father made good choices. My father was a good Hunter. Doing things in a different way is not a slight on his path.”
“No one will suggest it is.” Maria walks me out. “It will be good to have some of our own men as soldiers. They’ll be more likely to join if they are still able to live near home. The garrison here has been empty too long.”
I pause to take in the village. Being here always eases a weight I carry in Regina Centrum. Pretending to be other than who I am rests like heavy stones upon my shoulders. Here, I release those stones and stand taller. There is something pure in not hiding my identity, in being accepted as I am.
I walk into the tavern, even lighter than I usually feel here in the village due to a few hours in Isabeau’s arms. I stroll past several tables where people sit with pints or bowls of soup.
The bowls are bread, so there are fewer dishes for the kitchen.
Nolan sits with Girard and Henry, and my heart smiles at the sight.
“Here’s a den of chatty gossips if ever there was one,” I tease as I come to stand beside them.
All three men come to their feet with a clatter of hastily shoved chairs. Henry still holds his soup spoon in hand. “Huntress! What are you doing?”
“Hoping for a room and some soup.” I glance at Girard, who nods. “A bit of conversation wouldn’t go amiss either.”
A few more villagers join us. Maria starts to drag a chair toward us, although Girard snatches it from her and carries the chair with one hand, offering Maria an elbow with the other arm.
James and his wife pull up seats as well, and soon after, Anders and Cranshaw are there.
Within a few moments, I have assembled an unexpectedly robust group of soldiers and villagers.
My soup bowl is delivered, and I take a deep sniff of the mouthwatering scent of roasted root vegetables and broth. Girard shoots me a curious look, but the general response is a warm feeling of acceptance. I may not come here to dine regularly, but no one seems to object.
“My condolences.” Girard stares at my wrist; a scar used to rest there. “Hunter.”
I shouldn’t be surprised he noticed. Girard has seen me naked more than once, and he knows well what it means that the map of lines from monsters has vanished from my skin.
He stares at me. “I will be sure the village knows. He was a good man, the earl.”
“He kept the village safe,” James says, lifting his pint. His wife, Polly, takes it.
Maria toasts with a gray stone mug of hot mead; the spices make me wish for a mug. As if I spoke, she pushes it toward me. “Only needed enough to toast his memory, Huntress.”
“Drinks on the Hunter’s tab,” I call.
The villagers queue up, and the barman pulls drink after drink.
He taps a second keg, and I am oddly proud that everyone waits patiently, then calls out “To the Hunter” or “To the Earl.” A chill comes over me as the memory of his death feels like it is summoned to the front of my mind like a persistent ghost.
As villagers cheer steadily one after the next at the bar, I sit with my small group of trusted souls. “The beast killed him. Here in the wood. Took his eye. Ripped open his belly.”
Polly pats my hand. Henry and Nolan both grimace.
Girard says, “Did you see it?”
“Not the attack. I felt the magic summon me, though, so I was with him at the end.” A few tears trickle from my eyes, as if my sorrow still overflows. “I need fresh opinions. Since you’re here . . . if you don’t mind.”
James straightens his shoulders. “We need paper. Make notes. Sketches.”
Maria pulls out a stack of paper and passes it around, along with short stubby charcoal pieces. She adds another sheet with a tiny, printed list. “I have a list of injuries already.”
“Maps,” Henry says. “My hand’s still steady enough for drawing.”
Polly adds, “I have thoughts on who the other dead man might be.”
My throat feels like the rest of the tears I didn’t shed are caught there, making my voice shake as I say, “I don’t want anyone to go into the forest, not until we find the beast.”
“As you say, Hunter. Now, let’s start at the beginning,” Girard suggests quietly. “The soldiers here already know some, and Miss Maria does. Let us all support you.”
“The first body was Hugh . . . and the last was my father,” I begin. “Three dead men. All with powerful blows ending their lives. In between were two attacks on me, and one—possibly—on a noblewoman in the city.”
Henry sketches the locations I tell him. The first, in Brimmond Wood near Maudite Castle, is easy to pinpoint. “That’s also where I was attacked, too, and where Father was killed.” I poke my finger toward the spot. “The second body was left in front of Fleuriste Manor.”
“Three attacks in one spot,” Henry muses, charcoal scratching on paper. “And in the city?”
I point at the location. “Here, along the river.”
“The one that flows to Maudite Castle?” Girard asks, and though he’s not accusing her directly, I hear the implication.
“Isabeau is not awake when the sun falls, and the last duke is dead.” I glare at him. “Don’t let jealousy cloud your common sense.”
“Don’t let lust cloud yours,” he counters.
“Children,” Maria says, and though we are both in possession of roughly three decades of living, she has more than twice that.
“You cannot trust her,” Girard mutters before he walks to the bar and returns with an envelope.
I look briefly at the seal, recognizing it as Maudite’s, before I stow it away in a pocket. All I say is, “The current duke is unconscious when the sun sleeps.”
“Was the last duke cursed?” Henry asks. “Don’t recall hearing it, but I don’t soiree with dukes.”
I flash him a smile for his attempt to lower the temperature at our table and echo, “Soiree with them?”
Henry winks at me.
“Who cursed the new duke? When? Why? No curses have been recorded in over a half century.” Maria fires out the questions without pause. “Magic is a strange thing. Are these attacks because she’s transgressed? Are they intended as a threat to the House of Maudite?”
To that, I have no answer. “The first death was before her curse. I was with Father when we visited the castle to tell Isaac, the last duke, about Hugh’s murder. I had not heard of a curse until after his death.”
“Is it an inherited curse? Did the recent duke anger a faery that cursed his progeny? Were there other cursed dukes in the Maudite line?” Maria asks each question with the calm she uses to ask me to catalog my injuries.
“Or the queen. Maudite was her brother. The last one . . . Is this a threat to the queen’s family? ”
“To sons and daughters? Or just daughters?” Polly adds. “The queen has a son, no daughters.”
“But the queen is uncursed. I see her at night.” After a pause while they wait for my thoughts, I say in a low voice, “What do we know of the dowager duchess? Her family? Her history?”
Frowns greet my question. No one has a word to add. No details, and that’s odd when it comes to the nobility. “Could she have angered a faery? Brought this curse upon her daughter?”
“Or there is no curse, and she’s drugging the duke,” Maria adds astutely. “Has anyone seen Maudite collapse at dusk? Perhaps the curse is a lie.”
We sit in silence at that. The more I seek answers, the less I know.
Twice I encountered a beast, and twice it injured me.
The look of it matches nothing in the Hunter journals.
If the duke’s curse is real, is it connected?
Is it even real? If the queen holds secrets, I cannot doubt that they could involve family she wants to protect, but they could just as easily be because she is bound by magic.