Chapter 2
What the—"Kestria! What are you doing?"
"What?"
"I—how are you carrying that? That deer is like twice your size."
She shrugs the deer higher on her shoulders. "It's not that heavy."
"Damn. I can barely carry a bucket of water."
She grins and keeps walking toward the cottage. "Thought you could use this."
"You weren't supposed to be back this soon."
"Got bored."
"So you brought me a deer."
"I saw it and thought of you."
I set down the bucket I'm using to water the garden. "You saw a dead deer and thought of me. I'm deeply touched."
"A fresh dead deer." She dumps it on my worktable with a heavy thud that makes the whole structure shudder.
“Kes—”
"There's a difference. You're welcome."
Nugget is making her displeasure known from inside the coop—she's still pink, and furious about it. I should check if her feathers are growing back normal or if I've permanently dyed my chicken.
Add it to the list.
The mental list I definitely have.
Should write it down before I forget again.
"Did you hunt this yourself?"
"Found it."
"You found it."
"Mm."
"Kestria." I step back from the table. "This is the third time."
"The third—"
"The fish. The rabbit. Now a deer." I gesture at the enormous dead animal currently taking up my entire workspace. "You have a pattern, Kes. You show up with something you 'found' and it's always got suspicious teeth marks on it and I always cook it anyway because I'm weak."
"You're not weak, you're practical."
"I'm enabling you." I lean closer, lower my voice. "And you don't know where this has been. Anything could be festering on it. Something could've peed on it."
Kestria stares at me. "Peed."
"Yes."
"On the deer."
"You don't know. That's the point. It was just lying in the forest, Kestria. The forest where things pee."
"Mel."
"I almost went with yellow dye yesterday after the whole Nugget situation. But I realized it would just look like something peed all over me. The forest does things to fabric. Imagine what it does to meat."
"This is not the same as your dye situation."
"It's the same principle."
She's losing the fight. I can tell. Her mouth is doing the thing.
"Fine," she says. "I hunted it myself. Just for you. With my bare hands."
"Don't lie to me."
"You wanted me to say it."
I start prepping it out of habit—checking the hide, looking for damage, figuring out what I'm working with. And I stop.
Teeth marks. Deep ones, puncturing through the hide at the throat. Too wide for a fox. Too clean for a bear—bears maul, they don't grip. These are long canines, set wide apart, driven in hard and precise.
Wolf teeth.
"Kestria."
"Hmm?"
"These are wolf bites."
"Are they?"
"On the deer you found."
"Maybe a wolf found it first. Left it behind. Waste not."
"A wolf killed a deer and then abandoned it."
"Wolves are wasteful. Everyone knows this."
"Nobody knows this. That's not a thing."
"Mel." Kestria wipes her hands on her trousers, leaving dark smears. "Do you want the deer or not?"
I want the deer. Winter's coming, and smoked meat keeps. My stores are low—I made a mental list yesterday, actually wrote it down for once, now where did I put it? Kitchen table? No, by the herbs. Maybe.
"Fine. Thank you. It's a lovely deer. Really. I'm very grateful. Even if something peed on it."
"Nothing peed on it."
"You don't know that."
We work together to prep it—Kestria on the messy parts, me setting up the smoking rack.
Salt. Do I have enough salt?
Hm, I think so.
"So why are you really back early?"
"I told you. Bored."
"After one day."
"My brother was in a mood." She wipes her knife on her trousers again, adding to the stains. "I told him what you said, by the way."
"About the scouts?"
"Mm."
"How'd that go?"
"He didn't say much." She adjusts the blade, scraping. "He never does."
"Helpful."
"Figured I'd come back. Help with the comfrey. See if Nugget was still pink."
"She is."
"Excellent. My day is already improving."
The mist is burning off, sunlight breaking through the trees in dusty shafts. Pretty. Going to be warm later. I should move the basil inside before—
Hoofbeats.
Multiple. Moving fast.
Who would be—
Kestria's already straightening, knife in hand. Her whole body goes tense—different than the wolf. Worse. Wrong.
"Get inside." Her voice is flat. No room.
"What?"
"Mel, just—" She grabs my arm, pulls me toward the door, fingers tight enough to bruise. "Get inside. Now."
"Who's coming? What's—"
"Please."
I've never heard her say please that way. Not asking. Begging.
The hoofbeats are getting closer. Four horses, maybe five, crashing through the underbrush. Riders in rough clothes coming into view between the trees. Armed. One of the horses is limping—front left leg, the way it's favoring the right. Poor thing.
"Kestria—"
"Inside. Don't come out."
She moves between me and the path. Small knife against five armed men on horses.
No. No, she's going to—
I should—
I step toward the cottage, stop at the doorway and turn back.
This is my home. My cottage, my garden, my chickens.
The riders pull up, horses snorting and stamping. The man in front—lean, weathered, graying hair tied back with leather cord—swings down from his saddle. He looks tired. They all look tired, actually. Long ride. Dust on their clothes, horses' flanks heaving.
He looks at me, eyes narrowing.
"You're the girl who left Blomstradal."
Blomstradal. I haven't thought about that place in years. Haven't wanted to.
"I'm the woman who lives here. What do you want?"
"Theron." Kestria's voice is hard. Actually hard, not the easy sarcasm I'm used to. "Leave her alone."
He glances at her, then back to me. "I'm the Forest Warden. I keep the borders safe. And you've been making my job harder for ten years."
Forest Warden. Fantastic. A title. He's not just some random angry man with a horse—he actually thinks he has authority here. That's almost worse.
"I haven't been making anyone's job anything. I live here. I mind my own business."
"You feed them. You heal them." His jaw tightens. "You take animals that should be dying and make them stronger."
"I heal injured wolves. They show up hurt, I fix them. How is that—"
"Those aren't wolves."
I stare at him. Not wolves. What does that even mean? They have four legs and tails and—
"Those aren't wolves." Every word separate. Patronizing. The tone adults use on children who can't count.
"They're..." I shake my head. The deer is sitting on my table in the sun.
Going to spoil. Flies already—
"I've been treating wolves for years. Regular wolves. They come in, I patch them up, they leave. That's it."
"There's nothing regular about them."
"They have four legs and fur and they don't talk. That's pretty regular for wolves."
He's not amused. "She's either lying or she's a fool."
"I'm standing right here."
"You're coming with us." He gestures to his men, sharp and precise. "This ends now."
"I'm not going anywhere."
"You don't have a choice."
Two men dismount, moving toward me with purpose. One of them has a fresh scratch across his cheek—branch, probably, riding through the forest at speed. The other one's boots are caked with mud, splattered up to his knees. Long ride. They came a long way for this.
"I think I do." My voice is climbing higher, undermining the whole effect. Fantastic. "This is my home. I built it. I'm not leaving because you've decided wolves are somehow dangerous."
"Mel." Kestria's voice is tight. Warning.
"They're wolves."
Theron nods to his men. "Get the healer."
One of them reaches for my arm.
"Don't touch her." Kestria steps forward, putting herself between us.
"Girl, this doesn't concern you. Step aside."
"She said no."
"And I said move." He nods again, impatient. "Get the healer. We're leaving."
The man shoves Kestria—or tries to. She doesn't move. Doesn't budge an inch.
What?
He pushes harder, putting his shoulder into it.
Nothing.
His face goes confused. Then scared.
"Inside!" Kestria's voice cracks through the clearing. "Mel, NOW!"
I stumble backward through the doorway. Kestria shoves back—the man flies, ten feet at least, crashing into a horse. The horse screams, rearing. Men shouting, reaching for weapons—
I drop under the table.
Hands over my ears.
Oh no oh no oh no.
Doesn't help.
Sounds—bones cracking, wet and horrible. Screaming. A horse wheeling, hooves against dirt. Fabric tearing. Nugget shrieking from the coop, the world's angriest alarm.
Steel ringing against—against what? Teeth? Something hard and wrong and I can't see anything from under here except chair legs and the bottom of the door frame and boots, someone's boots running past—
"Monster!" someone screams.
More screaming. A crash against the outer wall that shakes dust from the ceiling into my eyes. The wall shudders—something heavy hit it from outside—and a jar slides off the shelf and shatters on the floor. Hooves somewhere outside, fast, panicked.
There goes the deer.
Not the point, Mel.
The sounds change. Hoofbeats. Shouting—orders, retreat, someone yelling a name. Horses moving fast, away. Theron's voice, distant: "This isn't over."
Fading. Gone.
Then a sound that isn't a howl or a bark—high and broken and not right—and silence.
I crawl out from under the table. My knees hit something—a jar, knocked off the shelf by the impact, rolling across the floor. I push through the door.
A wolf lies in my clearing.
Massive. Dark gray fur catching the light. One side dark with blood, a long slash across the ribs, and its breathing is wrong—shallow, hitching.
Brown eyes.
I know those eyes. I've looked at them across my kitchen table a hundred times while Kestria stole my bread and made fun of my chickens. Brown and warm and human, staring up at me from a wolf's face.
Kestria.
That's Kestria.
That's my friend who makes fun of my chickens and—
Shit shit shit shit.
My knees hit the ground beside her. Blood everywhere, matting the fur in dark clumps, spreading into the dirt in a growing pool.