20. The Hunt #2
A giant moon-hare struggled in my trap, its fur silver-white and its eyes.
.. gods, its eyes were wrong. They reflected not just my face but other things.
Other versions of this moment. In one reflection I was dead, throat torn out.
In another I was crowned with light. In another I was weeping over Thatcher's body.
I looked away before those visions could root too deeply in my mind, snapping its neck as I winced.
One down, I sent to Thatcher, trying for lightness.
He was already pulling his own catch from his pack—another moon-hare, its dead eyes mercifully reflecting nothing. "Got mine on the way here. Lucky catch."
Lucky. Right. But nothing about this felt like luck.
"This is too easy," I said aloud, unable to keep the words trapped anymore. "Think about it, Thatcher. This is supposed to be deadly."
I saw my own unease reflected in his eyes. "The weapons were just... lying there."
"Exactly."
"So what are we missing?"
"I don’t know."
We need to be ready, I sent through our bond. For anything.
Always am, he replied, but I felt his tension ratchet higher.
We started moving again, keeping an eye out for signs of another game trail. I fell into the rhythm Aelix had beaten into me—silent steps, reading wind direction from the subtle turn of leaves, avoiding the patches where twigs lay like traps for the unwary.
The forest grew denser as we traveled, ancient trees so massive that six people holding hands couldn't wrap around their trunks. The canopy wove together so thickly that we moved through dimmed sunlight, green-tinted and dreamlike.
Then I slipped.
My foot found a patch that looked like ordinary moss but felt like oil-slicked glass. I went down hard, tailbone meeting earth with enough force to send stars across my vision—the painful kind.
"Graceful," Thatcher commented, offering a hand up.
I took it, grimacing at the deep ache that would definitely bruise.
The moss clung to my palms—thick, slimy, reeking of rotting fish.
Gods it reeked. I inspected it, rubbing it through my fingers then looked down.
I scraped away a patch of the moss with my boot, revealing pale threads like spider's silk woven through the dark soil beneath.
Hylock moss. Shields fungal veins from the elements.
Two weeks ago, I wouldn't have known that.
Perhaps I’d absorbed more of Xül’s teachings than I thought.
A cry split the air above us. We both looked up to see a flash of silver between the leaves. The eagle. It circled once, its wings trailing light like a comet's tail, before disappearing into the canopy.
Catching that won’t be as easy, I murmured, frustration bleeding through the bond.
Not at all, Thatcher replied.
We pressed on, heading northwest now, the ground beginning to slope upward. After maybe half a mile of steady climbing, a stone mass appeared between two trees. It sat in a natural depression, sheltered by the rising slope behind it—a perfect spot between two of the northern peaks' foothills.
Smoke rose from a chimney. The door was solid and bound with iron, and when I tried the handle, it didn't budge.
"This is strange, Thatcher." My voice came out raspy, jagged with growing panic. "Why is there a building here? Why the smoke?"
He examined it, running his hands along the stone. "I don't know…"
We both stared at it for a moment longer.
Keep moving, Thatcher sent. Whatever this is, we can't afford to get distracted.
And so we did.
A clearing opened ahead, and we decided height would give us an advantage. Thatcher laced his fingers together, and I stepped into the makeshift stirrup, letting him boost me up.
I had to stretch to reach the first solid branch. Once I had my footing, I leaned down to help Thatcher up?—
But we weren't alone anymore.
Another contestant perched in a neighboring tree, settled into the crook of two massive branches. His bow was drawn, arrow nocked, aimed at something above us. Everything about his posture screamed competence. Patience. A trained hunter?
When he shifted his grip on the bow, I caught sight of black ink on his wrist—crossed swords beneath a crown. The mark every soldier received upon entering the royal forces. Not a volunteer. Not a hunter. Military.
Our eyes met.
My heart stopped. Started. Stopped again.
He was older than us—maybe thirty, with stoic features and dark hair pulled back in a knot. I recognized him vaguely from the Choosing, though we'd never spoken.
His gaze held mine for one breath. Two. Three.
My hand burned, sparks tingling my skin, but I knew any sudden movement might trigger him to loose that arrow. Behind me, I felt Thatcher go equally still, his power coiling like a spring.
Then, without warning, the other contestant simply... relaxed his draw. Lowered his bow. He held my gaze a moment longer before melting back into the foliage. One moment there, the next gone, as though he'd never existed at all.
Well, I sent to Thatcher, trying to calm my racing heart. Someone didn’t want company.
We should move somewhere else just to be safe. We’re sitting ducks now if he has a change of heart.
We found a different section of forest to continue our hunt.
"Someone else is in this area," Thatcher observed, pointing to boot prints crossing our path. "Recent." I studied the tracks. A dragging left foot. Someone favoring an injury.
A figure darted between distant trees—brown hair, that same nervous gait I'd noticed before. He was maybe fifty yards away, moving carefully but not carefully enough. When he paused to check something in his pack, I saw him pull out what looked like a dead moon-hare.
So he'd had some success. Good for him.
That's when we heard it .
Metal on metal. Sharp.
"I was wondering if this would turn violent," Thatcher muttered. And we shared the sentiment. We hadn’t been charged to hunt each other. Not yet, at least. But it didn’t mean someone wouldn’t take the opportunity.
The sounds came from the east, toward the river. We'd been running parallel to it for the last twenty minutes, the sound of water growing stronger.
"Should have stayed in whatever hole they dragged you from," a man snarled.
"Three against one," came a dry, familiar voice. "How very sporting of you."
Marx.
I was running before the name fully formed in my mind. Branches tore at my jacket, roots tried to trip me, but I pushed through it all. Thatcher crashed through the underbrush beside me, both of us following the sounds of combat.
We dropped behind a thick screen of ferns just as the scene came into view.
Marx stood with her back pressed against a tree, blood painting her arms in scarlet ribbons. Three contestants circled her—two men and a woman whose skin seemed to ripple and flow.
Even bleeding, even outnumbered, Marx looked bored.
"Ivene said to cull the dangerous ones early," the woman purred, her voice distorting as her throat shifted between solid and liquid states. "Can't have wildcards making it to the final rounds."
Marx's blade flashed out, but it passed through the woman's torso like she was made of mist. The woman laughed, reforming instantly.
"Cute trick," Marx commented. "Mine's better."
But even as she spoke, one of the men raised his hand. The air around Marx crystallized into diamond-sharp spikes, pressing toward her.
Behind her, a shadow peeled away from one of the men, rising from the forest floor and taking its own shape. It rose into a mass of darkness that reached for her throat with too many fingers.
She dodged, twisted, slashed—but there were too many attacks from too many angles. Blood bloomed across her shoulder as a crystal spike found flesh. A tendril of shadow wrapped around her ankle, dragging her off balance.
She was going to die.
Marx, who'd saved my life not a week ago. Who'd faced down a pack of Grief Hounds with nothing but wit and will.
I snarled through the bond. We have to help her.
How? Thatcher's mental voice was tight with the same sick realization. We can't just disable them. That makes us their next targets.
The words tasted rotten in my thoughts. I know.
The crystal spikes pressed closer. One was inches from Marx's throat now, and she'd run out of room to dodge.
Starlight blazed to life in my palms before I'd even consciously called it.
For a heartbeat, I was back on Draknavor's black shore, Xül's voice cutting through dawn mist. "A sword of starlight is impressive, but predictable. It needs to be small. Something they won't see coming."
A throwing knife materialized between my fingers.
Thais. Thatcher's urgency pulsed through our connection. Now or never.
I didn't hesitate.
The knife left my hand like a falling star.
I watched the blade spin through shafts of green light, watched the crystal-wielder's eyes go wide as he spotted death blazing towards him. He tried to dodge, but momentum was a cruel mistress.
The knife took him in the chest with a wet, searing thud.
His scream cut off as starlight erupted inside him, burning from the inside out. The smell of charred meat filled the clearing. He looked at me, surprise and fear swirling in his eyes before they went glassy .
And then he fell.
I'd killed someone. Not something, some one .
But there was no time for the horror of it, because the other man’s shadow was already turning. His darkness abandoned Marx, flowing across the ground toward us like spilled oil.
"Shit," I breathed, scrambling to form another blade.
Thatcher descended. No hesitation, no doubt—just terrible purpose. Through our bond, I felt him reach out with that Primordial gift.
The shadow-wielder made it three steps before his own blood turned traitor.
I watched vessels burst beneath his skin in spiderweb patterns, watched his eyes go wide with shock as his body betrayed him from within. He dropped to his knees, hands clawing at his throat as if he could hold his life inside by will alone.
He couldn't. His body hit the ground hard.