Chapter 39
Belle
I wove between the wooden pillars, running my hands over each, imagining the perils lurking within the Fold: vicious dire wolves, wildcats that leapt between the shadows, the silver stag. My attention flicked to a broad-shouldered figure moving through the edge of the crowd.
“Gregoire!” I shouted.
The huntsman spun around, his eyes flashing with surprise as he took a step back. “Belle? You look ravishing. But what in the gods are you doing here? This is no place for a woman.”
Considering that he was here, was it so inconceivable that I’d also be invited?
“I’ll be joining the hunt. What are you doing here?” I stopped a few paces away from him, not wanting him to retreat any further. I eyed his bow and longsword, and I had to keep myself from fisting my hands. Why wasn’t I armed?
Gregoire tipped his head toward a towering immortal male with pale eyes and long dark hair that had been twisted into a bun. “When Lord Carmine heard rumors of my prowess as a hunter, he invited me to accompany him.”
The lord turned at the mention of his name, and spotting me, left his conversation and approached. He extended his hand with a slight bow. “Lady Belle. We’ve all been so curious to see you again. Perhaps you would like to accompany us tonight? A woman like you shouldn’t be alone in the woods.”
A woman like me? Weak and powerless. No doubt that’s what he’d meant.
“She won’t be alone,” the king said from behind, his voice low, unmistakable, and edged with steel.
I stilled as shivers skated down my spine. Valen stepped close, the eternal heat of him at my back driving away the winter chill.
Gregoire went rigid, his face as pale as the snow-capped mountains.
“Have you forgotten our agreement, huntsman?” Valen asked quietly as he advanced toward him.
Gregoire shuffled backward, stumbling in the snow. “Of course not, Your Majesty. I was just telling Belle—”
“Lady Marquette,” Valen corrected.
Gregoire’s throat worked, and he lifted his hands. “I was just telling Lady Marquette that I intended to best her in the hunt tonight.”
Perhaps I should’ve let the ungrateful imp rot in the dungeons.
“You can try,” Valen said, his voice ringing with challenge. “Now, move. The horns will sound soon.”
Without hesitation or a goodbye, Gregoire vanished into the crowd, and Lord Carmine withdrew with a subtle nod.
The king turned to me, his gaze sharp. “I warned you to keep away from him.”
“Explain to me,” I said coolly. “Why is he allowed to carry a weapon, while I have nothing?”
His eyes flicked over me—assessing and deliberate. “Because you are far more capable, and far more dangerous.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Do you mean to the Vaythir, or to you?”
His mouth curved. “Both.”
“If these creatures are as dangerous as you claim, I’ll need something to defend myself.”
“I will defend you, princess.”
The ferocity in his voice made me still. I opened my mouth to protest, but he snapped his fingers. A servant hurried forward with a leather-wrapped bundle, and Valen flipped it open. “But I’m not without reason.”
My breath caught in a soft, strangled gasp.
My bow.
The king lifted it gently and handed it to me. “I trust you won’t use this on me.”
I barely heard him. The moment I touched the freshly polished riser, my heart came alive, as if a part of me I’d lost was waking again.
I ran my fingers over the grip. Someone had replaced the old, tattered linen with an oiled hide, embossed with a rose and thorns—Cassius’s crest.
No. His crest. The one Valen had left behind.
My throat tightened, and I met his gaze. “Did you do this?”
“If you’re going to show me what you can do, you need a proper weapon.”
He handed me a hip quiver filled with arrows. I drew one free. Its silver head was notched and lethal, the shaft fletched with three crimson feathers.
I tested the balance, admiring the precision of the fletching. “These must have cost a small fortune. They’re extraordinary.”
His lips curved, faint and knowing. “Then you’re well matched.”
My breath stilled. Is that really what he saw? I looked down, fixing the quiver in place at my hip so it wouldn’t catch as we rode.
“There’s also this.” He withdrew one final item from the bundle: a fine leather belt, with my father’s dagger swinging lightly in its sheath.
The blade was my most cherished possession. Had he known?
Taking it as gently as a holy relic, I slid the blade partway from its sheath. My fingers stilled. It had been carefully cleaned and sharpened and fitted with a strap so that I could wear it on my thigh instead of my hip. He could have simply returned it, and yet he’d done all of this—why?
I met his gaze. “Thank you. You have no idea what this means to me.”
Valen studied me, something dark and unreadable in his eyes. “It’s nothing. They were taking up space.”
It was far from nothing, and that frightened me. I didn’t know how to make sense of this kindness—this attention. Everything Valen did was with purpose, and it unsettled me that I didn’t know what move came next.
He nodded toward the pavilion. “You had best get ready. The horns will be sounding soon.”
His gaze lingered as I slung on the belt and tightened the strap around my thigh. The design was clever and practical and allowed for easy movement.
When I looked up, he seemed about to say something, but the blare of a horn split the night, cutting off his words.
We turned, along with all the gathered immortals, toward a stoic female who stood beside the stone slab in the center of the pavilion.
Her thick dark hair was peppered with silver strands, and she wore a flowing crimson robe over a simple gray gown.
My nerves jolted at the familiar pattern of embroidered roses and thorns on the sleeves of her robe.
“Who is that?” I asked. “Why does she wear the crest of the Bloodvale?”
“Careena,” Valen murmured as Locke joined us. “I asked her to assume the role of Mistress of the Hunt, as she’s one of the oldest immortals here. Like you, she hails from the Bloodvale, but it’s been centuries since she was exiled.”
I wondered what crime she’d committed as my gaze drifted over the immortals.
Most of Valen’s retainers were exiles from the Bloodvale, and those that weren’t had been cast out of other kingdoms. Were they victims of persecution, or perpetrators of heinous acts?
What was so bad that it could get an immortal exiled?
“Welcome, brothers and sisters,” Careena said in a raspy voice. “The king has called a hunt for the Vaythir. The season is auspicious, for tonight is a hunter’s blood moon, and many beasts will cross over the Fold.”
She scanned the crowd, her gaze lingering on me for a moment, before she continued, “Let us remember the first dyrivar that gave its life for our people, and the ancestor who guided us from savagery to civilization. On this night, many blood moons ago, Serevyn wandered through these woods, ravished with hunger as famine had struck the land—”
“It wasn’t actually these woods,” Locke interjected, whispering quietly in my ear. “But those around the Bloodvale. A minor technicality, of course.”
Valen cast him a dark look, and the magister’s lips quirked.
“When the moon turned red,” Careena continued.
“The gods finally answered Serevyn’s prayers.
Durathor, the great stag, offered his lifeblood so that the king could live.
Tonight, we will honor both through this sacred rite.
You will respect the laws. The gods will spare only three of the Vaythir for this eve, those of your choosing, if they are mature males and the kills are clean.
If you disobey the rules, or take a life not sanctioned, your blood will join the sacrifices in soaking the soil.
Each kill will be signaled with a horn, and the close of the hunt with three. ”
The ancient woman looked to Valen, who nodded subtly. She raised her hands. “Under the light of the hunter’s blood moon, let the hunt begin! For Serevyn! The Vaythir!”
The horns sounded, and a strange chant echoed through the crowd as the immortals lifted their weapons. “For Serevyn! The Vaythir!”
Before I could draw a breath, the immortal hunters sprinted into the trees like a ravening pack of wolves, leaving me standing beside the king, stunned.
“With only three Vaythir to be claimed, this is as much of a race as it is a hunt,” Valen said, his cruel lips mocking me. “And you’ve already set us back, princess.”