After thoroughly washing, I dunked my head into the bucket and filtered water through my hair. I wrung out the curls with a giggle. My baths used to be in a marble basin with warm rose water and honey. Elizabetta would leave me soaking until my toes wrinkled, then wrap me in a heated robe and brush my hair. Today my teeth chattered. Washing in a cold bucket introduced me to a new level of poverty.
I threw my chemise back over my head. The thin cotton clung to my wet skin and, once dampened, did little to keep any modesty intact. I took the dress from the wall, fed my arms into the sleeves, and straightened the bodice until I was once again hidden behind the guise of a peasant.
The cat gave a soft meow at my feet.
“How do I look?” I spun around, dripping hair clinging to my back. “I’m cleaner.”
Her whiskers twitched upwards in a small feline grin.
I left Darric’s room and stepped out into the cavern, shivering when the outside air hit my skin. Bromly was using an iron skillet to cook trout fillets for breakfast.
Over the last week, the cavern had changed drastically to accommodate the start of bear season. Enormous wooden racks had been crafted to strip, tan, and dry bear hides, and the three had also created tripods for smoking meat and collected stacks of apple wood to infuse the best flavor. The cavern was going to be overwhelmed in a matter of days, and I had the feeling I’d be sick of bear stews by the end of the summer.
Bromly greeted me with rosy cheeks and a welcoming smile. “Wet hair can kill you in Brisleia. Sit down before you freeze,” he joked.
I took a seat close to the fire and sighed when the waves of heat hit my face. “Thank you for the water.” I clumsily ran my fingers through the damp strands of my hair and worked the long mess into a braid.
“Eh, it was Darric’s idea. He said you’d been looking rough lately.” He filled a cup of tea from the kettle and handed it to me.
I blew on the rising steam. “I thought Flint might have been the one who brought it.”
“No, but he offered to wash you.”
I hid an abashed grin, taking my first sip.
Flint came bouncing towards me. He jumped onto the log and kissed my cheek. “Good morning, Aya!” He extended a small bundle of candytufts and, seeing my hands clasping a teacup, placed the flowers in my lap.
“Morning,” I repeated, rubbing saliva off my face.
Flint’s quiver was strapped to his back, stocked to capacity with new arrows. An unimpressive bandit sword hung from a leather belt looped around his waist.
“Was there someone in the valley?” I dreaded the answer as Darric approached, sheathing his own sword.
“Nope, we’re huntin’ today,” Flint declared. “The bears are awake. Darric saw some last night.”
Brisleian short-faced bears were massive. I’d read about them in the library at the palace but never seen one alive. Many of their ostentatious pelts covered the floors of my chambers, worked and treated to be fit for royalty with pearls and crystals sewn into the fur. Seeing one in the flesh would be a spectacular event.
“Isn’t it dangerous to hunt a bear fresh out of hibernation?” I asked. Two swords and a bow didn’t seem like much use against a colossal predatory animal.
“Yeah, but we get the best pelts from ’em, an’ they haven’t shed their winter coats yet.” Flint tore a chunk of hot fish off the skillet and popped it into his mouth. He blew out, trying to cool the morsel burning his tongue.
“Short-faced bears are lucrative at market,” Darric added.
“Take me with you,” I demanded and stood up, only remembering Flint’s candytufts when they hit my shoes.
Darric laughed. I squinted my eyes and shot him a detesting glare.
“Yes! That’d be great!” Flint enthused. “You can use my spare quiver.”
“No.” Darric stopped chuckling. “We are not experimenting with hunting techniques eight weeks before Burge.”
“Hunting short-faced bears is dangerous for someone with no experience,” Bromly interjected.
“I’ve been hunting rabbits with Flint,” I contended. Darric and Bromly looked skeptically at each other. “Can you handle the extra challenge of having me along, Darric?”
“No.” He shook his head. “Definitely not while I’m armed.”
“You’re always armed,” I said, pointing to the obvious.
“No rationale for you to come along then, is there?”
“C’mon,” Flint begged in a whine.
“Look, I’ve been understanding about her being here, but there is no possibility she is going on this hunt. It’s not about danger or an afternoon spent shooting rabbits. She doesn’t have any concept of how to hunt bears. We won’t kill anything with her scaring everything she comes across.”
“I’ll teach her to keep quiet durin’ trackin’,” Flint argued.
“Are you going to teach her the same way you taught her to use a bow?”
Flint’s pale skin changed to a heated pink. He snatched an arrow from his quiver and nocked it into his bow.
Darric didn’t flinch. “Go ahead, shoot me,” he threatened.
“I want her to go. I’ll take the blame if she screws up.”
“Thank you for the vote of confidence, Flint,” I murmured sarcastically.
“Are you sure you want to do this, Aya?” Bromly snickered.
Darric shot him a stern glance that extinguished his grin, then turned back to Flint. “Full responsibility,” he warned.
Flint agreed with a doubtful nod.
Darric groaned, running a hand through his hair. “I’m going to regret this.”
Flint lowered his bow and, with an ecstatic leap, ran into the Hovel to retrieve his spare quiver. He reemerged much quicker than I expected. Taking away my teacup, he tossed the quiver over my shoulder and pulled the leather straps around my chest. Suddenly, his delighted expression vanished. He froze, his hands lingering over my breasts.
“Flint!” Darric broke his brother’s fascinated gaze into my chest. “She is resourceful. She can put the quiver on herself.”
I bit my lip, trying not to giggle, and took the straps from his trembling hands.
“Uh . . . Sss . . . sorry,” he mumbled.
Bromly laughed, eating fish straight from the skillet. “Entertaining.”
“To say the least. Can we go now?” Darric grumbled impatiently and wandered outside the cavern.
I tied the leather straps in a knot, snatched my bow, and followed Darric with Flint at my heels.
“Make sure you hit the correct spot the first time,” Bromly called after us. “Hate to see you come back without a face.”
We moved across the open meadows and into the forest, where the thick canopy blocked much of the morning sunlight. Spring brought countless blooms to the grass, tripling the number from a month ago. The cat blissfully bounced among the wildflowers and chased tiny creatures with no concern for keeping up with us.
Darric led the way with an uncanny lightness to his feet. He didn’t disturb the soil or rustle the brush, his footsteps barely audible above the chirping of birds and crickets. He listened intently for any small sound that might lead us onto the trail of our prey.
The Sights of the Onyx Guard were known as shadows riding through the night. Unavoidable cloaked assassins. Watching him move through the forest, I understood how easily he had walked into a bandit cave full of dozens of armed men and repeatedly lived to tell the tale. He was trained for it, and still lethal.
My movement was unlike Darric’s in every way. My dress dragged along the dirt, swishing and tossing leaves beneath the fabric. The wool tangled in a broken root, and I stumbled and fell backwards into Flint. He dropped his bow to catch me, but the momentum knocked him off balance, and we both tumbled to the ground.
“Damn it!” Darric spun around and held out his hand to help me up. “She is noisier than you, Flint.” In one swift motion, he yanked me up from the forest floor. “The gown won’t do. You make entirely too much
noise with it.”
I dusted dead leaves off my dress. “Well, I’m not running about in a pair of trousers.”
“You won’t need trousers because you are not coming with us again. The first day of bear season is not the place to start learning to hunt.”
“I can tie up the bottom of your dress for ya,” Flint offered.
“No.” I did not want anyone seeing Luken’s dagger. Over the last month, I’d found comfort knowing I had a secret form of protection.
Darric rolled his eyes and continued moving, but I caught the hint of a smile before he turned away. Was everything a joke to him?
We climbed a rock path to a ledge overlooking a small glen near the Riving. Thin birch trees jutted from the stone around our hiding place, and the river branched into a trickling stream that ran along the glen’s edge. The surrounding area was full of rocky cliffs riddled with crevices, and a musky scent filtered through the air. Darric took a seat by the ledge and propped himself up on one of the trees.
Flint sat against the rock face and patted the ground beside him. “Now we wait.”
I slid next to him and readjusted my dress over my legs. “For how long?” I asked, pulling my braid off my neck to lay it across my chest. The end pooled into an almond spiral in my lap.
“Long, long.” Flint had failed to mention that hunting with the two brothers at odds would include sitting in a confined space with them for an unknown period of time. “We’ll move in a couple hours if there’s no activity here.”
“I thought this would be more exciting,” I complained, disappointed.
Darric quietly chuckled. “Excitement is the last thing you want when hunting short-faced bears.”
“Is there really the potential of going back to the Hovel without a face?” What I’d perceived as a witty comment started to become less amusing.
“Short-faced bears are tough as steel and unyielding. They are aggressive and will pursue a threat until it’s dead. Best to kill them before they have a chance to kill you,” Darric answered, keeping his eyes on the glen.
“They only got six months to fatten back up an’, ya know, make more bears before goin’ back to sleep. It makes ’em kinda edgy,” Flint whispered.
“And you’re hunting them in the first weeks they are awake? When they’re hungry and in a fit of bear lust?” I confirmed, astounded.
“Still glad you came along?” Darric provoked.
“It sounds like a death sentence.” I wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of proving I should have stayed at the Hovel.
“There is only one way to bring down a short-faced bear,” he began. “You have to pierce an arrow through its heart.”
“That’s why a bowman is handy.” Flint pulled an arrow from his quiver.
“There is a location on the side of the chest where widely spread ribs and softer skin meet near the heart. You wait until the animal gives you an opening and aim behind the shoulder. One well-placed arrow will kill the beast instantly. If you miss, the animal will charge,” Darric explained, and I gulped. “Short-faced bears don’t typically back down from a threat. Good luck if you miss. It will probably be the last thing you ever do.”
Foreboding overwhelmed the atmosphere, and my nerves settled like a rock in the pit of my stomach.
Movement in the glen silenced our conversation. Pine trees swayed at the edge of the forest, defiant of the others surrounding them.
Darric balanced on the balls of his feet and peered off the ledge, and Flint crawled to join him. The woods stilled. My heart thumped. A large mass of rich chestnut-brown fur became visible through the foliage, and a face with dark crimson eyes emerged from the greenery.
Darric put a finger to his lips. I held my breath, fearing even the slightest sound would ignite chaos.
The short-faced bear swaggered out of the tree line and towards the stream with heavy steps, limping slightly on his front paw. If I had not been holding my breath, I would have gasped in shock at the sheer size of the animal. Even while he stood on all fours, his head towered six feet from the ground, and his paws were as wide as my shoulders. He lowered his massive head and drank the fresh water as a second smaller bear broke through the forest. Smaller was a relative term, because she stood a mere six inches shorter.
“A pair,” Darric mouthed to Flint.
“Both?” he murmured back.
Darric shook his head and pointed to the larger potentially injured male by the stream. “He’s old,” he observed, keeping his voice low. “The female is too young to take.”
Flint nodded in agreement.
Their reasoning humbled me—leaving a healthy young female to continue her life and opting to kill an expiring male. Still, I felt sorry for the grand and beautiful bear. It was a shame his epic life would end this way: hacked to bits, eaten, and skinned.
The old bear turned his right side to us, giving special care to his front paw. The correct position. I waited anxiously for Flint to lace his arrow into the bow and take the killing shot. Instead, he handed the bow and a single arrow to Darric.
Darric nocked the arrow into place and, crouching to his knees, pulled back the bowstring. It revealed a source of brotherly scorn; Flint had base skill in archery, but Darric considered himself a better marksman. Always the expert yet keeping the knowledge to himself, he refused to allow anyone to learn from him.
“Wait.” I placed my hand on his shoulder. He looked at me, slightly irritated. “I didn’t know you could use a bow.”
“Of course I can use a bow,” he snapped in a careful whisper.
“But I thought Flint—”
“This isn’t the time,” he interrupted, setting his aim on the bear.
“I can’t create the same power Darric does,” Flint murmured, crestfallen. “He’s never missed.”
I furrowed my brows. Were Flint’s skinny arms truly ineffective against thick fur, skin, fat, muscle, and sinew? I was not physically stronger than Flint, yet I had more control and strength in archery.
The extraordinary blind confidence rushed through my veins. I slid to the opposite side of Darric and balanced on my toes. Below us, the male bear walked like a majestic piece of living artwork.
I pulled an arrow from my quiver and positioned it across my bow, aiming into the glen. I had to work fast or I would miss the opportunity. The bear’s right arm lifted and lowered over the vulnerable location behind the shoulder, the skin moving with the rhythmic beats that pounded life through him. An accurate shot would be about timing—letting the arrow loose at the exact moment when the heart was exposed.
Darric’s eyes left the bear and stared at me. He released the tension on his string, and my heart raced. Was he giving me the kill shot? This was terrible. How could he think so little of his brother? I had not thought this through before I’d decided to draw my bow, but I pushed the consequences from my head to concentrate.
The flood of certainty seeped through my muscle. The doubtless guarantee that if I timed my release correctly, I would hit my target. I controlled the arrow’s fate. I eased the cordage back to my cheek and let out a slow breath.
“Relax the tension in your right shoulder. Fluid movements increase accuracy. Don’t overthink this,” Darric uttered softly next to my ear, giving me the courage I needed to achieve this ridiculous act of intrepidity. “It’s not questionable. You will make the shot.”
“What’d ya say?” Flint asked, hearing Darric’s whisper. His eyes bulged upon seeing my weapon at the ready.
Following Darric’s instruction, I lowered my shoulder, and the muscle tension cooled into a fluid ease. The heart was bared. I let my fingers slip from the bowstring.
“AYA, NO! You’ll ruin his shot!” Flint flung his body at me and grabbed the nape of my dress, yanking me to the ground.
I landed hard on his bony fist, which sent a shock of pain through my spine. The bow tore from my grasp, and I watched helplessly as the arrow soared into the blue sky and arched downwards into the glen.
The roar of a bear in absolute agony echoed through the valley.
Darric jolted to his feet. “Oh, shit,” he drawled.
I shot up from the ground to survey the damage. The male hobbled to the safety of the forest, a thick stream of dark blood pouring from his right leg, where my arrow had pierced him. He held the injury to his chest and glared at the ledge where the three of us stood awestruck. His crimson eyes stabbed me in the heart with a look of pure malice and sorrow.
Darric’s breathing steadily quickened. His eyes darted around the area, analyzing, planning.
The female rose onto her back legs. Her nose twitched, smelling the foreign scent in the air. Her eyes darkened into a terrifying blood red. She lowered her head, and two thousand pounds of brute force barreled towards us.
“Go! Move!” Darric hollered.
Flint immediately turned and fled down the pathway. He stumbled and slid as the rocks came loose under his feet.
The bear tore through the brush. Wind filled her fur, which shook and shimmered over her muscles, making it appear like a solid mass. She crawled up the cliff face, throwing boulders half her size out of the way like small pebbles. The horrific smacking sound her lips made as they pulled back in a snarl shattered the last bits of my courage.
Darric shoved me down the path. I slid chaotically, trying to keep my ankles from buckling as he forced me to maintain speed. We hit the grass just as the bear burst through the trees atop the ledge. Darric slammed into my back, knocking me forwards, and wrapped his arm around my waist to haul me with him.
Above us, the female short-faced bear smelled the rock ledge. She inhaled dirt into her nostrils and expelled it in a puff of dust before swiftly following our path.
Flint raced through the woods, jumping over logs and tripping on overgrown brush. “Where?” he screamed back to Darric.
The bear accelerated down the pathway, her heavy, hot breaths echoing in my ears. The ground shook with each of her bounding leaps. We had to do something. We couldn’t outrun her. We were going to die. Mauled to death. Crushed under her weight. Torn to pieces by her claws.
Darric frantically looked for some method of escape. “Flint!” he called, dragging me towards a hole in the cliff face. We dived into a rock crevice with barely enough room for the three of us to stand.
Dreams of the Fae: Transcendence Page 22