CHAPTER FIFTEEN
“Seven skies, it’s Anya Degen,” cried Perrine, crushing into her. The falcon lifted into the air, settling on a tree branch. “It’s been ages!”
“Four months,” Anya said, a relieved smile lighting her own face as she pulled back and clasped Perrine’s arms. A soothing warmth filled her. No trick of the forest could replicate Perrine’s beaming smile; this was her friend.
But a sharp gust cut through the warmth. Though kills were shared freely in the winter, the rest of the year was another matter. Hunters were jealous of their game, particularly when their reputations, or their earnings, were on the line.
Particularly if that game was a magical, immortal being.
“Where are you headed?” Anya asked as casually as she could.
Perrine cast a glance around them. “That’s the funny thing. I thought I knew, but though I’m grateful to see you, meeting you here tells me I’ve gone a bit off course.”
“A bit. You’re in King Edgard’s woods,” Anya supplied, the words tasting false on her tongue.
Though he had courts and armies to back up his claim, Edgard no more owned these woods than the bear she had killed or the bird she sought.
No more than the witch who had cursed her, who, perhaps, Anya realized, owned it more than them all.
“Shit,” Perrine muttered, rubbing her temple with the heel of her palm. “Feels as if I’ve been going in circles, sure enough. I didn’t even cross the Warbler.”
“I’m heading toward it myself.” Between Perrine’s rifle, and her extra rations, having her around for a short while wouldn’t hurt. “Join me?”
They fell into step together.
Anya kept her voice cheerful, but only politely interested. “What’s your game?”
Perrine shrugged the question off like a fallen leaf. “Pheasant. Yours?”
“The same. Aren’t there pheasant in your neck, though?”
“There are,” Perrine agreed, “but none so pretty as the ones in Augur Meadow. You know that.”
“You’re trophy-hunting.” The laws of Preule were not the laws of Gescany; nor was hunting the fashion in Perrine’s country the way it was here.
As such, the society set cared less about poaching, and their laxer hunting laws reflected it.
Perrine’s pay came over the table, from wealthy clients, lords and ladies who wanted to boast of the rustic origins of their lavish feasts of boar and venison, their exquisite furs and leathers, their manor homes decorated with fearsome beasts or handsome fowl, without having to risk the forest or supply the game in their country parks themselves.
But Perrine was not in Preule; she risked Gescany’s penalties. For…pheasant.
Perrine was not stupid, and she knew Anya was not, either.
Anya studied her. “Are you going to tell me who your client is?”
That was the magic question; Perrine looked as if she was about to burst from withholding the information. “The King of Preule himself.”
At her forthrightness, Anya nearly stumbled. Perrine had not been being evasive; she was fishing for compliments.
Had she grown so distrustful already?
“You’ve made quite a name for yourself, then,” she attempted.
Perrine wilted, but only slightly. “Well, there are others on the hunt as well.”
“For pheasant,” Anya repeated.
“That’s right,” Perrine said, as if there was nothing else to say about it.
She looked at Anya sideways. Anya pretended not to notice.
In the winter, there was no reason to compete.
The lodge was their sanctuary until the thawing snows flooded the Wryneck.
Sanctuary from winter’s harshness, from foresters, from want.
Everyone contributed, and they shared everything.
Mountain goat, snow hare, the occasional bear – an excellent score, for the gold the fat and claws brought from city apothecaries alone paid for the annual upkeep of the lodge.
The pelts were divided evenly, with the surplus, if there was one, going to whoever told the best story.
They shared stories, they shared songs, they shared the roaring fire in the center of the main hall, the bottomless supply of ale and mead, bread, warm beds, partners.
In the summer, it was every hunter for themselves.
But Perrine was not just any hunter. Johanna had let slip about the lodge the summer Anya turned eighteen.
Anya, who loved Johanna but had enjoyed no company but hers for ten years, was desperate to go.
Johanna, who admitted she had expected a different sort of call to adventure upon Anya’s coming of age, was relieved Anya sought the lodge over her erstwhile inheritance.
She refused to accompany her – but wouldn’t keep her away.
She gave her the directions and the customary jug of mead for the collective pot and sent her on her way.
When Anya had arrived, she’d been immediately overwhelmed.
Never mind her relative solitude with Johanna – she had never seen so many people in her life, not even at her parents’ parties.
It was noisy and people kept bumping into her.
When someone spilled their ale down her leather jerkin, made from a doe she’d skinned herself, she disappeared into an empty bedroom and didn’t come out for hours, regretting ever coming, dreading the thought of spending an entire winter there.
Perrine, drunk and searching for her apothecary bag, had stumbled upon Anya in the empty room.
Even after ascertaining the desired herbs were not present, she remained with Anya.
Sat with her. Told her if she thought mead was good, mead warmed with spiceberry and pine tips was divine.
Invited her to help her make some – one she found her damn bag.
Asked her what caliber rifle she preferred, and when Anya said she preferred a shotgun, pivoted to the merits of short-range weapons over long-range.
Invited her to a special spot she knew where the hare practically leapt into the barrel of your gun.
Introduced her to some of the others. Brought her into the fold.
In return, Anya taught Perrine everything Johanna had ever shared with her – the Lichtenwald’s secrets, tricks no other hunter could boast.
She was part of it now, and loved it. Looked forward to it.
But when Anya returned every winter, the ten winters since, it was not primarily for boasting or for bottomless cups of mead.
Whether Perrine sought the phoenix for gold or for glory, Anya’s betrayal was not one she would easily forgive.
She would not call it a betrayal; she would call it fair sport, the way of the world, and then never speak to Anya again.
Anya said little more except what was necessary, letting her friend direct the conversation for the rest of the day while she directed their feet – all the while keeping one eye turned to the darker parts of the forest. Other than Perrine’s getting lost, the forest had been unnervingly quiet since that morning.
But with the forest teeming with ?bender’s high society, the Lichtenwald had more prey than ever to keep it busy. She wondered if the city-dwellers had taken her – and the bear’s – encouragement to leave, or if the king’s encouragement was more enticing.
They made their camp by yet another flowering rowan tree. For dinner, Anya risked two of her arrows on a pair of quail, which Perrine plucked and prepared. She had brought a little clay jar of salt with her and sprinkled some all over the birds’ prickled pink skin.
Anya piled some birch bark onto a carefully arranged pile of sticks, then lit the bark with her tinder box.
That done, Perrine directed her to an exposed, rocky patch on a nearby hill to pick some wild thyme, which she then stuffed into the birds’ cavities.
The sun had set by the time their preparations were done, but Anya had never tasted finer food on the trail, except, perhaps, for melon soup.
The falcon joined them, perching on Perrine’s shoulder, taking bits of offered quail.
When they’d finished eating, Perrine picked her teeth with a quail’s rib bone, and said bluntly, “You’ve been quiet.”
“Have I?”
“You’re wearing gloves,” she added, as if Anya was instead wearing trout.
“They’re fashionable,” Anya said defensively, flexing her fingers.
“Anya. Listen. It’ll come out sooner or later, and I don’t want it between us.” She handed her flask of brandy to Anya, who, obligingly, took a steadying drink. “You’ve heard of the phoenix?”
“Mmm,” said Anya, her mouth on the rim.
“I’m hunting it.”
Anya swallowed, savoring the burn. “You are,” she said carefully, capping the flask.
“The king of Preule heard your king is after it, so he wants it himself. Though for what, I couldn’t say. Just to have, I suppose. Kings are like that.”
“How odd,” Anya returned.
“What’s odder is I don’t know how I ended up here. But it’s good luck for me, because you know this neck of the woods better than I do. Whatever you’re doing, this is worth more. I say we work together and split the prize.”
“Will your king be very happy about that?”
“What do I care? He’ll get what he’s after, and the prize will be mine to do with as I please.” She looked away dreamily. “Seventy thousand gold sovereigns.”
Anya whistled. Preule’s king was far more generous with his stolen wealth.
“I’ll never have to hunt again a day in my life,” Perrine said, toasting the sentiment with her brandy.
Anya frowned. “Don’t you like hunting?”
“Not really. Not the way you do. For you, it’s like breathing.”
“It isn’t,” Anya protested. “You don’t have to work to learn to breathe. No one ever trained to be a world-class breather.”
“Fine,” Perrine relented. “But there’s a lure to it for you that I never had, more than the meat on your plate or the coin you get for pelts. You’d do it even if you weren’t getting anything out of it but the satisfaction. I’d rather do anything else.”