Chapter 62
Cold air stings my cheeks as I race across the yard, my boots slipping over the packed snow while my breath bursts from my mouth in white clouds. Father waits beside the gate, something large hidden behind his back, and the moment he sees me barreling toward him, his face splits into a rare smile.
"Happy birthday, little one."
He crouches awkwardly and pulls me into a tight, one-armed hug. He smells of pipe smoke and worn leather, though today he isn't dressed for a Hunt. I try to peer over his shoulder to see what he's hiding, but he rises before I can, ruffling my hair.
"Close your eyes."
My face lights up. "Is it a present?"
"I said close your eyes, little one."
The world goes dark as I squeeze them shut, bouncing on the balls of my feet. It's been a hard year. I hadn't expected a present!
"Hold out your hands."
I do, and he settles something into them with surprising care. An impatient little sound escapes me, but I keep my eyes closed.
Father chuckles.
"Now."
I open my eyes.
The polished yew gleams honey-gold in the morning light, the leather grip wrapped neatly around its center. Every curve is smooth beneath my fingertips, nestling perfectly into my grip, as though it already knows the shape of my hands.
A bow.
A real bow.
My chin trembles.
“I made it myself.” Father's voice carries an uncertainty I've rarely heard before, as though he isn't quite sure I like it.
I turn the bow over in my hands again and again, hardly daring to believe it's real.
He scratches the back of his neck, suddenly looking self-conscious. "Perhaps I should've traded it for a doll—"
"No." I look up at him, his outline blurring before my eyes. "I love it."
His face softens, every hard edge melting into a tender smile I haven’t seen in a long time. I throw my arms around his waist, my hand brushing the iron blade at his hip, warm as it always is, as though it cradles a hidden flame.
"Thank you, Papa."
He laughs softly.
"Thought we'd see if you know how to use it."
I pull back so fast I almost trip over my own boots.
"Now?"
"Well, I didn't carve it so it'd sit inside collecting dust."
The walk beyond Midland feels like an adventure all on its own.
Snow crunches beneath our boots as we weave through the forest, the trees even more skeletal up close than they ever look from behind the walls.
I stay close to Father, though there's nothing to fear.
At least not today. The putrid scent of death is nowhere in the air.
The Infected haven't come this way much this year.
Instead, the wind smells of frost and pine, sharp enough to sting my nose, cleaner than the smoke and misery of Midland behind us.
I'm starting to hope they're leaving. Maybe they'll go back through the Veil and never return.
I smile.
Maybe we won't have to take any more heads. Maybe the other children won't be afraid of me anymore. Maybe I'll finally make friends this year.
We stop in a clearing where the snow has already been trampled. A target is propped against the knotted trunk of an old pine, a quiver of arrows resting at its roots.
Father teaches me how to stand, where to plant my feet, and how to aim.
He shows me how to nock an arrow and draw the string back.
It makes the muscles in my back and shoulders burn, and the fletching tickles my nose.
I sneeze through my first shot, sending the arrow sailing somewhere into the brush.
Father laughs, the deep gravel of it like stone shifting beneath the earth. I laugh with him—so hard I can't keep my next arrow straight either, and it lands nowhere near the target.
"Lesson number one." He ruffles my hair again, chuckling. "Try not to miss."
It’s my fifth arrow that strikes true.
The thud echoes through the clearing. For a heartbeat, Father and I only stare.
Then I let out a triumphant squeal.
Father throws both hands into the air. "Ha!" He claps so loudly a crow bursts from the trees overhead, cawing its outrage as it weaves between the branches and disappears from sight.
"Did you see that?" I shout.
"I certainly did!"
He sweeps me clean off my feet, spinning me in a circle until the world becomes nothing but snow and sky and sunlight. I'm laughing so hard I can barely breathe.
"Another year or two," he says as he sets me down again, "and you'll put every Hunter in Midland to shame."
My chest swells.
I've never felt taller.
The snow has turned gold beneath the setting sun by the time we finally trudge home.
My back aches in the best way, my muscles so sore I can't even lift the bow anymore.
Father carries it slung over one shoulder, listening while I chatter about my shots—what I did right, all the things I know I did wrong.
He wears a quiet smile, every hard line of his face softened.
He seems almost as happy as I am, and it isn't even his birthday.
The smell reaches me before we open the door.
Lamb.
He found lamb. My favorite.
When was the last time we had meat?
My throat tightens, and I bite my lip to keep from crying. I'm ten years old and a Plague-Hunter now, just like him. And Plague-Hunters don't cry.
It isn't lamb after all, only mutton, the meat stringy and sparse, but I don't think I've ever tasted anything so wonderful. My stomach is fuller than it's been in months.
When we're finished eating, Father stands and reaches for the top shelf beside the hearth, the one that's still too high for me no matter how hard I stretch.
"One more thing."
He unwraps a faded checked kerchief with slow, careful fingers, the joints thicker now than they were a year ago.
Inside rests a single sweet.
Cloudy amber. Misshapen. Beautiful.
Papa’s smiling again. "Go on."
"Is... is that… honey?"
"It is."
I've never had honey all my life. I've never seen it.
I lift it carefully between shaking fingers. Warm and sticky from the fire, it glows from within like a tiny piece of captured sunlight.
"Can we share it?"
"Absolutely not."
"Please?"
"It's your birthday, Elowen."
"Please?"
He sighs so dramatically I burst into giggles.
He cuts it in half with a paring knife.
He takes the smaller piece.
We count to three, poised to pop it into our mouths at the same time.
His hazel eyes crinkle at the corners, flecks of green and gold sparkling with excitement.
I barely recognize him like this. Lately he's always so serious.
Ever since I started helping him with the Infected, he hardly smiles anymore.
But right now…
Right now, he's just Papa.
The moment the honey touches my tongue, my eyes close. It's sweeter than anything I've ever imagined.
"Well?" Father asks.
I can only nod.
He throws his head back with an exaggerated groan and slaps his knee. "Terrible."
"Papa!"
"Awful stuff. We should never eat honey again."
I laugh so hard tears spill down my cheeks.
And we laugh and we laugh and we laugh.
Later we sit together beneath a patched blanket in front of the fire, our shoulders pressed together as the flames crackle in the hearth.
Father tells me another story, one about an evil Fae and a friendly giant, but somewhere in the middle I stop following the words.
His voice is warm. The fire is warm. His shoulder beneath my cheek is warm.
Outside, the wind whistles softly against the walls, but its bite never reaches us despite the cracks that need patching.
Right now, the whole world feels safe. There are no Infected. They don't exist. I'm not special. I don't have a gift. Here, no one dies. We get presents and shoot bows for fun and eat sweets.
Right now, with Papa, I'm happy.
Sleep steals over me before the story is finished.
That's all right.
Tomorrow he'll tell it to me again.
The last traces of his magic slipped quietly from my mind, withdrawing with the same infinite care with which they'd entered. They left behind something I'd thought was gone forever. A piece of me I'd surrendered and never imagined I'd hold again.
My happiest memory.
A trembling breath escaped me as my eyes fluttered open, the knot in my throat so tight I couldn't swallow.
The silver blazing through Rìan's irises was already fading, like starlight retreating before dawn, leaving behind those rich, expressive brown eyes fixed on mine, unguarded and achingly open.
His hand rose between us, fingertips trembling as they brushed lightly across my cheek. When he drew them away, they shone with tears. I hadn't even realized I was crying.
I couldn't speak. What could I possibly say?
My heart felt full and painfully tender, bruised like overripe fruit.
That flash of silver I'd glimpsed when the Spinner had sunk its teeth into me.
The presence I'd felt in my mind, silent and watchful, as I surrendered the memory.
It had been him.
He’d slipped into my thoughts in those final moments and witnessed it all. He'd made the memory his own before the Spinner could fully claim it, carrying it where the creature could never follow. Keeping it safe inside himself all this time.
But why?
"I meant to give it back sooner."
He looked uncertain, like my father the day he'd given me the bow—quietly hopeful, self-conscious, as though he wasn't sure whether his gift would be enough.
As though what he'd done had been anything less than a miracle.
As though preserving the most precious piece of my childhood—the one perfect day I'd clung to—and giving it back when I'd believed it lost forever was somehow something to apologize for.
Something inside me gave way.
Emotion swelled inside me in powerful, pulsing waves, rising until I thought my heart could hold no more. The Eidra uncoiled at once from the shadowed corners of my soul, drawn to it with familiar, ravenous hunger. It descended upon the feeling.
It fed.
And fed.
Yet this time, the well within me refused to empty, its depths beyond even the Eidra's reach. However fiercely it drank, it could not find the bottom.