Chapter 12 Hunger and Lies
Chapter twelve
Hunger and Lies
Hunter woke with the sun in his eyes and grit in his teeth.
For a few blessed seconds, he didn’t remember where he was or why his body felt like it had been dragged behind a cart.
He only knew that the ground beneath him was hard, his back ached, and his mouth tasted like stale fear. Then the memories crashed in.
Liora’s promise. Snow White’s throat under his knife. Her voluptuous breast in his hand. Her body against his. His own, traitorous release inside of her. He groaned and rolled onto his side, one arm flung over his eyes.
“Oh gods,” he said to the sky. “What have I done?”
He pushed himself up to sitting, joints popping. The clearing looked different in daylight: less like a secret world, more like a patch of ordinary forest. Birds flitted in the branches overhead. Somewhere nearby, water trickled.
Snow White was gone. So was Grimm. And his knife? Only the trampled grass and a few torn threads of cloth on the rough bark of the tree bore witness that she had ever been there.
He should have felt relief that she’d run. That he wouldn’t have to look at her cooling body and tell himself it had been necessary. Instead, a different dread settled in the pit of his stomach. Liora. “She’ll know,” he whispered. “She always knows.”
He pressed his palms to his eyes, hard enough to see bursts of color.
He could not tell her what had really happened.
Not the failure, not the weakness, not the way he had turned a murder into something fouler in its own right.
The queen had no idea how far he’d gone.
If he lied—if he said he’d done the kill quickly, cleanly, as ordered—how would she ever prove otherwise?
He could chase her. Try to cover his sin with belated duty.
Or he could turn back and weave the neatest, safest lie he could manage.
He stared at the faint hoofprints leading deeper into the woods, then at the direction of the castle, where Liora’s promise waited like a glinting hook.
In the end, he did what he always did: he turned his horse toward the queen.
The ride back felt shorter than the ride out, though his muscles complained with every step.
He rehearsed the story in his head with each hoofbeat.
Found her. Did as ordered. No, there’s no body—the forest took it, or wolves, or the river.
Yes, I’m sure. No, Majesty, I would not lie to you.
As a soldier, he hated himself for his traitorous act.
As a man, he understood. All he ever wanted was Liora.
He eased his guilt by renewing his devotion to his queen as he fled the scene of sin.
He imagined Liora’s gratefulness. Thanking him with her body nightly.
Appreciating him with her warm mouth. His pants felt suddenly tighter.
He questioned his own thoughts. Would she follow through this time?
He cared less of the kingdom she promised, and more of herself.
He pleaded with his own mind. He wanted her devotion more than the throne.
By the time the castle’s gray walls rose between the trees, the lie he conjured had worn grooves in his tongue. The guards on the gate towered above him as he approached, squinting down. “Captain!” one called, surprised. “We’d not expected you back so soon.”
He forced an innocent smile. “Duty doesn’t wait,” he said.
They saluted, chains clanked, and the gate lifted. Inside the courtyard, the usual clatter of morning had begun: buckets sloshing, boots on stone, the murmur of servants exchanging gossip. A few heads turned as he rode in, noting the mud on his cloak, the weariness in his posture.
He dismounted stiffly and tossed his reins to a waiting boy.
“See to him,” he said. “Rub him down well.”
“Yes, Captain.”
He took the stairs to Liora’s chambers two at a time, ignoring the protest in his knees. Outside her door, he paused for half a breath. Then he knocked once and entered without waiting for an answer.
She was already awake, of course. She sat by the window in a loose robe, hair unbound, face bare of paint. Even like this—especially like this—she radiated a dangerous sort of beauty. The kind that drew blades as easily as it drew men.
Her eyes flicked up as he entered. “Well?” she asked. One word, razor-sharp.
He bowed, more deeply than usual. “It is done,” he said. “She won’t trouble you again.”
Silence pulsed between them. “Show me,” Liora said.
His mind scrabbled for purchase. “Majesty—”
“You know,” she cut in. “You’ve led men long enough to understand what proof looks like. Where is it? A lock of hair? A scrap of dress? A finger?”
Revulsion coiled in his gut. He wished, absurdly, that he had thought to cut some prize from the girl while she lay unconscious under his knife.
“I—” he began. “She fell into the ravine,” he blurted, the lie tumbling out.
“When I cornered her. We struggled. She lost her footing. The river… took her.”
It wasn’t what he rehearsed. It wasn’t even a good lie. But once started, he had to finish it. “The current was too strong to go after her,” he added. “The rocks—” He spread his hands. “There would have been no body left to find.” He braced himself for her fury.
Instead, she stared at him for a long moment, eyes flat, unreadable. Then, slowly, she smiled. “You always did have a way with… messy tasks,” she said.
Relief, sharp and bitter, flooded him.
“To be clear,” she went on, rising from her chair with liquid grace, “you’re certain she’s dead?”
“Yes,” he said. The word scraped his throat. “Majesty, I swear it.”
“The horse?” she asked.
“Gone,” he said. “He leapt after her. Or ran. I didn’t see. But he didn’t come back up.”
She tilted her head, studying his face, weighing every short breath, every twitch of muscle.
Hunter forced himself to hold her gaze. Bitter experience had taught him that looking away only made her suspicion bloom.
After a long, taut silence, she nodded. “Good,” she said. “Very good, Captain.”
Relief sagged his shoulders. “Majesty, I—”
“You look tired,” she observed, crossing the space between them. “Come closer. Let me see what my loyal hound dragged himself through for me.”
He obeyed.
Her hand slid up his chest, palm warm through his shirt. Her fingernails grazed the line of his jaw.
“Blood?” she asked softly.
“No,” he said. “The river took everything.”
“Even so,” she murmured. “You did what was necessary. You have my gratitude.” The words—a rare currency from her—lit something in him he wished he could kill.
“And my reward?” he said before he could stop himself. The need in his voice embarrassed him.
Her smile sharpened. “So eager,” she said. “Have you been thinking of nothing else?”
He didn’t answer. He didn’t need to.
She laughed quietly. “Men,” she said. “Always so sure they are the hunters.”
She leaned in, lips brushing his cheek, the ghost of a kiss.
“We have time,” she said. “Time to plan. Time to arrange… everything.”
He stiffened. “You promised—”
“You will get what you’re owed,” she whispered, lips brushing his earlobe. She grabbed his jaw with her hand and turned it towards her lips, kissing him with one deep motion. She walked back toward the mirror, her robe trailing. “Go,” she said over her shoulder. “Wash. Sleep. You smell like death.”
He ground his teeth, torn between anger and guilt, hope and desire. In the end, he bowed. “As you wish,” he said. He turned and left, the lie he’d told her sitting heavy on his tongue.
For Snow White, the world was Grimm’s back, the endless rhythm of hooves, and the darkness of the forest. After leaving Hunter in the clearing, she pushed Grimm as far as she dared, moving quickly when they could, and moving slowly when they couldn’t.
Fear and shame and fury snapping at her heels like wolves.
The adrenaline that had fueled her escape eventually ebbed, leaving only exhaustion and a nagging ache everywhere his hands had been.
She did not have the luxury of stopping for more than snatches of sleep. Every time she closed her eyes, she saw Liora’s face, the glitter of the comb, the flash of steel. Every crack of a twig behind her made her whip around, half expecting to see Hunter’s shadow. But nothing followed.
Days blurred. She rode through rolling meadows where wildflowers nodded in the wind, their bright heads bobbing like gossiping courtiers.
She slipped between stands of fir trees that made their own dark cathedrals, the air beneath them cool and sharp with resin.
She forded shallow streams, cold water numbing her toes, watching as curious fish scattered when Grimm drank.
More than once, she caught herself thinking that the moment would all have been beautiful—if not for the bruises, the soreness, and the fear.
She kept believing that right after that next ridge she’d see a village, or just around this path’s bend she’d come across a farm—any kind of civilization—people to help her, a place to live, a place to start her new life.
At night, she rested under low-branched trees, cloak wrapped tight, Grimm standing watch nearby.
Dreams came in a tangle: her father’s laugh, her mother’s hands, blue eyes in a stable, rough hands on her body, the press of a knife.
But what she thought about most was the way she felt when Hunter looked at her body.
With shock? With amazement? With hunger?
With greed? She didn’t know exactly, but she knew it felt powerful.
Food was whatever she could find: berries along the path, water from streams. She wished she was a horse and could sustain herself on grass and water.
She wasn’t good at survival in the forest. She didn’t know which mushrooms or roots she could eat.
She didn’t know how to find safety from bears or snakes or how to keep warm at night.
She didn’t know how to ensure she wasn’t riding for days in circles.
She had never had to survive. She had never had to struggle.
She had never had to worry much at all. She just assumed there must be neighboring villages nearby, but in truth, she didn’t know.
How much longer until I find someone—somewhere?
How much longer could I survive, starving and cold?
How much longer before the wolves closed in?
She was thankful to have Grimm. Without him, she would have certainly given up.
Her mind circled the same questions over and over.
What had I become in that clearing? What did it mean that I had used my body like that, as a bargaining chip, a distraction, a shield?
Was I now more like my mother than ever?
Sometimes she gripped the falcon pendant at her throat and thought of the prince.
Of the way he’d looked at her without calculation.
Of the gentleness of his hands and the kindness in his eyes.
“Would you still see me the same?” she whispered once into the dark.
“If you knew?” The trees did not answer.
On the fourth day, as the sun sank low and her stomach growled in protest, she saw it.
At first she thought it was a trick of the light—a darker patch among the trees.
Then Grimm flicked his ears forward, and Snow White, squinting, realized it was a roof.
A cottage. It sat in a small hollow by a sparkling stream, its walls of rough-hewn logs gone gray with age.
Smoke rose lazily from a stone chimney. A small patch of ground nearby had been turned into a vegetable plot, currently just neat rows of dark earth waiting for planting.
Snow White’s heart leapt. A dwelling meant people. People meant food. Perhaps shelter, if she begged hard enough and kept her story vague. “Please,” she pleaded to Grimm. “Just a little luck, for once.” She urged him downhill.
The cottage door was shut. No one moved in the yard.
“Hello?” she called, sliding from Grimm’s back on legs that trembled.
Her head was spinning. “Is anyone—” Her voice cracked.
Her throat was too dry. She cleared it and tried again.
“Hello?” No answer. She staggered to the door and knocked.
The wood was solid under her knuckles. Silence.
Her head swam. The long days of too little food and too much fear pressed in.
If no one’s here, she thought, dizzy, then at least there might be bread.
The thought shamed her, but not enough to stop her hand from testing the latch.
It gave. She pushed the door open and stepped into the dim interior.
The air smelled of stale smoke, sweat, and old stew.
Dust motes danced in the thin shaft of light that sneaked in through the small, dirty window. Her eyes adjusted slowly.
A rough table with mismatched chairs. Hooks on the wall hung with coats and belts and tools.
Heavy pickaxes leaned against the dark wood like silent sentinels, their iron heads caked with the glitter of false hope and gray stone.
A shelf sagging under the weight of dented tin plates and chipped mugs.
In one corner, a small stove, its coals dead but the ashes still faintly warm.
On the table, a loaf of bread sat under a cloth.
Next to it, a wedge of cheese and a crock of something that might be stew.
Snow White’s stomach cramped. “I’ll leave something,” she whispered to the empty room, as if someone might be listening.
“I’ll… sweep. Or wash. Or just… be gone before you return home. ”
She stumbled to the table and tore a hunk from the bread. It was coarse but fresh enough. She bit in, barely chewing before swallowing. The cheese followed. Then a few cold, greasy bites from the crock, the flavors so intense after days of foraged berries that she almost wept.
When the worst of the pangs eased, her body remembered other needs.
Her legs buckled. The floor seemed suddenly much closer.
There were a few rooms down a short hall.
She peeked in the first one and saw a large unmade bed in the far corner topped with a pile of rough wool blankets.
It might as well have been a royal canopy bed for how inviting it looked.
“I’ll just lie down,” she told herself, staggering toward the bed. “Just for a minute. Then I’ll think what to do.” She reached the edge of the mattress, fell forward, and was asleep before she hit it.