Then, the words had sounded like madness. But here, in the silence of the forest, with her instincts speaking far more loudly than her good sense, his warnings were fresh in her mind. Here it seemed possible that every tale he’d told her as a child could be true.
Yeva disguised her movements by striding faster, letting the bow slip down off her shoulder and swatting at it as though it inconvenienced her. She always carried an arrow free of the quiver, in order to shoot quickly should a rabbit dart in front of her. Now, her fingers wrapped around it.
Behind her and to her right came a dull thud as a clump of snow slid from a pine bough. The image flashed in her mind of a shadow behind the tree she’d just passed, its thick branches weighted heavy with snow. Four steps behind her, maybe five.
Her right hand tightened around the bow’s grip as she stepped over the snow-covered shape of a branch along her path. Two steps farther, and the branch cracked behind her.
She whirled, nocking the arrow and drawing it back in one movement, sighting down it at the figure in front of her before she registered what it was.
“Yeva!” it cried, throwing itself backward onto the ground.
Yeva was following it down with the point of her arrow by the time the voice registered. “Solmir!” Her hands tried to let go of bow and arrow both, in surprise and relief. She managed to throw the bow aside instead, sending the arrow to thump harmlessly into the ground.
“What are you doing?” she cried, heaving a breath into lungs that were fighting to work properly.
“Looking for you,” gasped Solmir, still sprawled on his back in the snow, staring up at her. “What are you doing?” Wild-eyed, hair in disarray from his tumble, he looked more like a boy of twelve than a man of twenty-five.
Yeva lifted her hand to brush it, shaking, across her forehead. “I thought you were—something else.”
He picked himself off the ground, brushing the snow from his cloak. “Something else? What, a bear tiptoes over your path to catch up with you?”
She shook her head, adrenaline leaving her angry, but not without relief. “Why are you here?”
Solmir’s expression was blank for a few long seconds. “It has been a fortnight,” he said. “I came as I promised. Your sisters said you were out gathering barks and winter herbs for remedies. The trails are not hard to follow.” His eye fell on her bow, chin lifting to point at the rabbits dangling from her belt. “I see your medicine chest will be full indeed.”
Yeva fought against the flush rising to her cheeks. “Why did you sneak up on me?”
“I had thought to surprise you,” Solmir said. “Foolish. Don’t worry, I don’t intend to try it again. At least not unless I am certain you are unarmed.”
She began to bristle, but he held up his hands, palms outward. A gesture of peace. “Please, I didn’t come to argue. I know that Yeva comes armed. I would not have her any other way.”
Have her. The blush won, and Yeva cast her glance away to focus on the snow trampled by his body when he fell. “My father is out again. You have missed him by more than a week.”
“I know, your sisters told me.” Solmir paused, the hesitation betraying that he was choosing his words carefully. “Did you speak to him? About what I asked two weeks ago?”
“It—did not come up.” Yeva could not quite bring herself to look at him.
“Oh. I see.” The silence stretched between them, only the distant sound of snow falling from another branch to lessen it.
“He was only here for a short time,” Yeva burst out, the silence drawing the words before she could stop them. “I am sorry. It wasn’t because—because I intended to refuse.”
“But you do intend to refuse?”
Yeva lifted her eyes at the catch in his voice to find him looking at her, gaze full of that same mute appeal it had held when he first made his offer. “I know I should not.” Her voice was a whisper.
Perhaps Solmir saw something in her face to give him hope, for he strode forward to bridge the gap between them. “I am not asking you to love me,” he said, his voice ringing in the quiet winter air. “Only that you let me love you. As I do.”
Yeva wished she could remove her cloak—the cloying warmth of it stifled her thoughts. “You don’t even know me,” she protested.
“I know enough,” said Solmir. “You and I are the same.”
“That is not reason for marriage!”
“It is!” he countered.
“I am not gentle and wifely, I am coarse and—and impossible! This is impossible.”
“But you will learn those things, Yeva! There is time for you to learn gentleness after we’ve had our adventures, after I become baron. When there are children you will—”
“Children!” she exclaimed. Suddenly the forest seemed to close in around her like the woven bonds of a cage.
“Yes! Children. You act as though I’m trying to hold you captive. If you would only cool your temper and listen to me, I am trying to offer you a life beyond this!”
“I don’t want a life beyond this!” She paused, breath steaming on the frigid air as she panted. Even as she spoke them, she knew the words were not entirely true. There was a yearning in her, something that had lodged deep in her heart since the first time her father had told her of the wonders that lived in the forest’s heart. But what she wanted, Solmir could not offer. She drew another breath, slower this time. “I’m not what you want.”
“I’m not trying to fight you,” he said quietly, breath misting in the air between them. “You must know how hard it will be to survive this winter here. I would wait, and bide my time, and let you come around, but neither of us has that time. Every week that passes could bring a storm that makes travel impossible. If someone in your family should become unwell, what would you do?”
Suddenly it was not Solmir’s face that Yeva saw, but the wild, unnatural focus of her father’s stare before he left, determined to catch the thing that he imagined was tracking him. Yeva closed her eyes. Her heart fluttered against her rib cage like a bird trying to beat its way free.
“Please,” said Solmir. “Let me help your family. Let me help you.”
Yeva remained silent for some time before opening her eyes. Solmir’s face was inches from hers. Only her breath steamed the air, as he held his and waited.
“I cannot accept your offer,” she began in a whisper. His face went wooden, and she hurried to continue. “Not without making clear my situation. My family’s situation.”
“There’s nothing that would change my mind.” His voice was tense with cautious anticipation.
“M-my father is unwell.” Her voice broke, to her horror. Yeva found her throat closing, the anxiety that had hunted her the past week bubbling up without warning. She had discussed it with no one, not even her sisters, but now the need to speak overtook her. “I fear—I fear he is going mad.”
Solmir stepped forward, his hands going to her shoulders. He gently pulled her close. “Then we will find him help. Together.”
Yeva wanted to pull away, but the fear lodged inside her since her father shoved her down fought its way out. And Solmir was warm, and as his hand pressed at the small of her back, pulling her closer still, she found that part of her didn’t mind his touch at all. She knew she could not reasonably spend her life wandering these forest trails in search of something she could not even name—not when Solmir’s proposal offered answers to every misfortune her family had suffered.
“Then I accept,” she whispered, mumbling the words into the leather of his tunic.
His arms tightened, robbing her of breath, and then released her again. “Come. Let us get your barks and herbs into the stewpot, and tell your sisters the happy news.”
Solmir visited almost daily after that, joining Yeva at her tasks. She stuck to her snares in his company, bringing her bow along only for defense. Her daylong hunting expeditions turned into pleasant strolls, Solmir at her side, discussing horses, and hunting, and how to skin leopards. Though
she longed for the solitude to which she’d grown accustomed, she found herself growing fond of Solmir nonetheless, with his boyish enthusiasm for all things hunting. At first Yeva feared he might take advantage of the quiet, empty forest to embrace her again, but he remained a respectful distance from her, only offering her his hand now and then to help her over a log or across a frozen stream.
The relief that he was willing to help her father was dampened, however, by the uneasiness still haunting her. She could not quite place it—true, she did not love Solmir, but that was hardly reason not to marry him. She was fond of him, and growing fonder every day. The life he’d spoken of was a far better and richer one than Yeva ever could have hoped for, and yet there was a shadow over her heart, a tight emptiness she could feel every time she took a deep breath. She told herself it was fear for her father. She told herself it would pass once her father returned. She told herself she would be happy, then.
Solmir left in the afternoons to return to the inn where he was staying, giving Yeva a few precious hours before dusk in which to do some real work, checking her traps a final time and using her bow on any stragglers heading back to their dens for the night. She was not as productive as she had been before he began accompanying her, but she still brought home enough food for her sisters and Albe.
The days stretched on into weeks, and there was still no sign of Yeva’s father. She watched for marks of him in the forest, but the trail of his passage from the house had long since been erased by snowfall, and she could not tell in which direction he had traveled.
Her dread grew. It woke her at night with a pounding heart, distracted her during the day when she ought to be listening to Solmir. Her sisters said nothing, and she offered nothing in return, but the tense silences in the evenings were eloquent nonetheless. She felt stretched as taut as the wires of one of her snares, waiting for the tiniest shift to send her springing into action.
So when a commotion outside interrupted the quiet just before dawn, Yeva was up off her pallet by the fire and halfway to the door before Doe-Eyes had even lifted her head.
Yeva threw open the door, but before she could scan the area for signs of her father, a shape launched at her out of the inky blackness. Behind her Doe-Eyes yelped recognition. Someone lit a lamp, and as its illumination fell upon the doorway, Yeva recognized what had thrown itself at her.
“Pelei,” she whispered, dropping to her knees and not bothering to reprimand the dog when he began mopping her face with his tongue. She was too busy staring through the night beyond him, searching for her father’s form, waiting for him to emerge out of the darkness.
The dog was whining insistently, shoving his nose against Yeva’s neck and sniffing anxiously. Yeva dropped her eyes. “Where’s Father?” she whispered, her heart constricting. The dog began to wriggle away but she gripped his front legs, holding him still. “Pelei? Where’s Father?”
She could say nothing else, repeating the words over and over until she felt hands at her shoulders drawing her back. “Yeva! He cannot answer, Father isn’t here!” It was Lena, her voice choked with fear.
“No!” Yeva tore her arm from Lena’s grip. “Pelei, why did you leave him? Father!” she called, into the night, knowing at any moment she would hear his voice call back to her.
“He’s not here,” whispered Lena. “Yeva—he’s not here.”
Yeva turned to see a trio of pale faces in the lamplight, all staring at her. “He has to be,” she whispered back. “Pelei would not have left him. Pelei never would have left him. Something has happened.”
She rose to her feet and began to dress in silence, not even bothering to warn Albe—he whirled around, turning his back as she traded her night shift for her trousers. Lena tied the dogs by the bedroom as Asenka tried to speak to Yeva, her voice shaking.
“What are you doing?”
“Go back to sleep,” Yeva said calmly. She was putting things into a leather bag Asenka had made from rabbit skins. A water flask, flint and tinder, dried meat and some tubers wrapped in an extra cloak. Lengths of wire, goose feathers, a pot of glue for arrow fletching in the field. Needle and thread. Bandages. Medicines for pain, bleeding, frostbite, broken bones, every eventuality she could think of.
“Yeva, you don’t know where he is.”
“I will find him.”
“It’s dark—please, calm down—wait until morning.”
“No time. His trail may be lost by then.”
Asenka grasped at Yeva’s arm with uncharacteristic strength. “Yeva, stop. We need you here. You can’t go tearing off into the woods. I am as worried about Father as you are, but we need you too.”
Yeva hesitated, arm flexing under Asenka’s grip. Her sister was right—if something had happened to their father, then she was the only one who could ensure her family would not starve this winter.
But if something had happened to their father . . . Yeva’s heart shriveled, and her instincts took over. She shook her sister’s hand off, then closed up the satchel and swung it onto her back. “You have enough food for several weeks. I’ll be back before then, I promise.”
“Yev—”
“I promise.”
She took one last look at the house: Lena with her arms around the dogs, holding them back; Asenka, white-faced and leaning against their father’s chair by the cold hearth; Albe in the corner, hands clenched together and hair sticking straight up. All of them still, round-eyed and frightened as they watched her.
A sharpness stung her heart in the brief, heavy silence while she stood in the doorway. She could not leave them—and yet she had to find her father. If he was alive she would bring him home. Solmir would help her find a doctor for him, and together they would take him away from the wood that had driven him mad. And she and her family would have peace. If he was alive . . .
If he was not—then she would find him anyway. She stepped out into the predawn gloom and let the door close on the lamplight behind her.
Pelei’s tracks through the snow were obvious despite the darkness. The dog had been moving quickly, bounding across deep snow and leaving a trough created by his body. Yeva followed the trail, grateful for the dog’s large size, and that he had forged such a path for her. She fell into the rhythm of her stride, mind reverberating with each step and each breath that steamed away behind her.
Keep moving. Keep running.
The sun rose behind a heavy curtain of clouds, leaving the forest in a false twilight that threatened to play tricks on her eyes. She kept her head down and kept moving, ignoring the burning in her legs that began just after noon. If her father was injured or trapped somewhere, she would not have much time to find him. This cold could kill someone within hours if they were not properly prepared—and even her father, master of these woods, could falter.
Pelei’s tracks grew fainter as the day wore on, hidden under a light dusting of snow that had begun to fall. By the time twilight crept in again she was forced to stop and make camp, as much to rest her burning legs as to wait for daylight to show her the way onward. She slept little, fear shrieking at her to keep moving despite logic telling her she must rest. She passed the time mending holes in her cloak with the needle she’d brought with her.
As soon as the sky lightened, she packed up the camp and doused the fire. She sucked on some of the dried meat until she was able to chew it as she moved out. She had not gotten more than ten steps, however, when a voice cried her name. She stopped, the sound ringing in ears that had grown used to hearing only the quiet evenness of her own breath.
She stopped long enough to let Solmir catch up with her, his breath coming in great ragged gasps. “Wait,” he panted. “Wait. Wait.”
“I can’t,” she said tightly. She could not afford to dwell on her fear, or else she felt she might be paralyzed by it. “He could be hurt.”
“I’ve been following you all night,” he gasped, hands on his knees as he struggled for breath. “Please. Your sisters explained. Let me help.”
“How?” Yeva shook her head. “I’ll move more quickly on my own.”
“Two sets of eyes,” he managed, lungs still heaving.
Yeva felt the hairs on the back of her neck prickle. Had she not used the same justification to try and convince her father to let her come with him? She closed her eyes. “I am sorry, Solmir,” she said quietly. “I have to go on alone. I can run farther than you—you’re in no shape to continue on. And I must.”
He coughed breathlessly, but could manage no more words, merely lifting his gaze enough to watch her with silent appeal.
Yeva’s lungs constricted and she clenched her hands into fists, trying to fight the urge to give in. “If you would help me,” she murmured, “then—would you look after my sisters while I’m gone?”
“But—”
“Please,” she said simply. “Please, Solmir.”
“But what about Albe?”
Yeva’s lips twitched—the first hint of a smile she’d felt since Pelei had returned. “Yes,” she agreed. “You will need to look after Albe too.”
“That’s not what I meant.” He was regaining his breath somewhat, but his face still burned with the flush of exertion, and his voice was still ragged.
“I know. But he is more brother than servant, and he doesn’t know these woods. He can’t provide for them. You can.” She stepped forward to clasp his hands in hers. She had never voluntarily reached out for him before, and he seemed almost as surprised by the gesture as she was herself. “This is what I’m asking you to do.”
Solmir was silent for a time, breathing hard through his nose. “When you return—”
Yeva nodded. “When I return I will marry you. And we will see my father settled, and go out hunting as often as you like, and sit at the baron’s table together. But for now I have to find my father. And I need your help—at home.”
Solmir freed one hand from Yeva’s grasp and lifted it to take hold of her chin in his fingers. He leaned forward and brushed his lips against hers, the briefest of touches before he pulled away again. “For luck.”
She knew she ought to feel changed by his kiss, that her lips ought to tingle or her heart swell—but her lips felt only numb with cold, and her heart pounded only with urgency and exertion.
Hunted Page 6