The Hunt

by Frost Kay

  A babble of a creek reached her ears, and she slowed as it came into view. She gritted her teeth and did what she had to do. Tempest hissed as the icy water washed over her toes when she waded into the creek. Hopefully, she didn’t die of exposure. Too much time in the icy water was a death sentence.

  She picked her way down the creek as fast as she dared. It was one thing to have one’s feet in frigid water, another thing to be submerged in it. The sun moved across the sky and began to sink. Shivers wracked her body, and she stumbled, slamming her left foot against a sharp rock, but she didn’t even feel it.

  That wasn’t a good sign. Time to leave the water.

  Tempest slogged out of the widening stream. She wrapped her arms around her body and forced herself to pick up each foot instead of dragging them like she wanted to. A dull roar of thundering water filtered through the woods, and her shoulders sagged in relief. The river was close and that meant villages. A boy could easily disappear in a town or village.

  She trekked to the edge of the creek and pulled her filched blanket-belt she’d created. Tempest tipped her head to the right, her long hair dangling. She wrapped her left hand around the mass and lifted the blade.

  A clawed hand squeezed her right hand and forced her to release the knife while another arm banded around her left arm and middle. Tempest choked on a gasp as pain radiated through her fingers and up her arm. Heat suffused her back, and a spicy scent invaded her nostrils.

  “Led me on a merry little chase, didn’t ya, luv?” the kitsune whispered hotly against her neck as he pinned her to his own body.

  Tempest

  She hated the lot of them.

  Not because they tortured, starved, or beat her. No, because they continued on like everything was just fine. Tempest had been prepared for the worst, but the kindness they doggedly showed unnerved her more than any threat. Except for Pyre.

  He seemed hellbent on charming her one moment and then was icy cold the next. The whiplash put her on edge more than anything, and he knew it. The devil.

  Fourteen days had passed since Briggs and Pyre had captured her and brought her back to recover in the cottage. Fourteen days of being babysat by Briggs as well as being visited by Nyx and the kitsune shifter himself. Fourteen days of listening for any slivers of information she could use to work out what was going on. Fourteen days of being frustrated that she did not find out nearly enough to satisfy her raging curiosity.

  Each and every day, without fail, Briggs would come and sit in an old, worn rocking chair by the fireplace and read. It made him appear old before his time—sitting by the fire, nose twitching to keep his spectacles in place, poring over a leather-bound tome about who knows what. His spectacles had surprised her, and she’d said as much.

  He’d said he was just as likely to have poor eyesight as any human. Like Nyx, he displayed no outward signs of being a shifter, but, given his size, Tempest had come to assume he was probably a bear.

  A hibernating one, given how laid-back and quiet he is.

  Tempest did not mind his company; rather, she had come to enjoy his easy, non-intrusive presence. But her problem was that, for the life of her, Tempest could not work out why he had been sent to watch over her. She couldn’t possibly escape. They’d made sure not to give her anything for the pain this time as she healed. Except she wasn’t injured anymore. At least, not to the extent that the shifters believed.

  She’d become a regular liar.

  Tempest snorted so loudly at the thought that Briggs looked up from his book, a frown creasing his brow.

  “Something wrong, Temp?” he asked, using the nickname her uncles had bestowed upon her and that Pyre had so brazenly stolen for his own use.

  Pyre had gleefully used her real name the first morning after her failed escape attempt. Once her hair had revealed its true color, it wasn’t too difficult to figure out who she was. News of the first Lady Hound had spread over the kingdom.

  She shook her head. “Just remembering something amusing one of my friends said, back in the capital.” It was a lie, and a poor one, but Briggs respected Tempest’s privacy enough to leave her to her own thoughts and returned to his reading—or, at least, he was pretending to.

  Just as well he cannot see inside my head.

  Tempest bit her thumbnail anxiously as she fake-limped over to the window. It was raining outside; fat, heavy drops of water slid down the warped pane of glass like they were racing each other. If Briggs could read her thoughts then he’d know what she was really up to and she’d really be in danger.

  She rested her forehead against the warped glass and sighed. What was she thinking in taking the king’s offer? As each day passed, the pressure in her chest increased. It felt as if the walls were closing in on every side. How was she supposed to find the Jester? His men had captured her, and it was unlikely that she’d ever kill him. Which meant if she escaped, disgrace and prison awaited her. Disgrace she could handle, even the dungeon she could bare. But it was the idea of being chained to the king that made her stomach knot.

  What was even worse was that the shifters were slowly growing on her. None of them were what Tempest had expected them to be. Even though she was their enemy, they treated her as a guest. A small part of her believed if she were a shifter, she would have reacted the same way to an enemy in her territory, especially after Nyx’s story.

  “What is on your mind, Temp?” Briggs asked softly after an hour had passed by in hazy silence. “The rain cannot be all that riveting.”

  Tempest shrugged her shoulders, then sighed emphatically. “I do not know why Pyre is still keeping me here. I have nothing you need, nor am I a danger to you. We are at a standstill. What is the point in that? All he’s doing is wasting food and resources on me.” The other shifters from her first hazy night floated through her mind. “The other shifters won’t appreciate that.”

  She did not need to look at Briggs to know that he was smiling at her.

  “That sounds awfully like you’re concerned for the clan’s wellbeing, you know.”

  “I have to assume there are children and other innocents who live around here, right?” she fired back, turning to face Briggs as she did so. Just as she suspected, the man was smiling at her, but it wasn’t in the least bit condescending. Instead, he seemed rather pleased that Tempest clearly had a heart—and a conscience. “It is difficult enough to feed oneself, let alone an enemy.”

  “Is that what you are—our enemy?”

  Careful, Tempest. “You’ve broken the law by keeping me here. By all accounts we are natural enemies.”

  Briggs closed his book and laced his fingers together. “Natural enemies? All I see are two people here with different ways of life. Why should that make us enemies?”

  “I’m not referring to our bloodlines.” Time to take a risk. “I was referring to your other alliances.”

  “If you actually communicated with anyone maybe you’d not be so ignorant.” He leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes. “You and Pyre would not be at such a standstill if you tried to trust him even a little, Temp,” he murmured. “We are not the enemy.”

  “And who is my enemy?”

  “Those who would seek to hurt innocents.”

  “I agree. I’ve sworn to protect the innocent.”

  “And yet you serve a man who deceives and kills his own people for his own selfish gain.”

  Now they were getting somewhere.

  “Every ruler has selfish whims, and while King Destin rules with swift justice—”

  “Justice?” Briggs said tersely, opening his eyes. “That man knows nothing of justice, only of greed and depravity. You’ve asked questions about the plague, but something tells me you know it’s not a plague but a poison.”

  Finally, we were getting somewhere. “I do believe it’s a poison.”

  “And who do you think is responsible for such a crime?”

  Wisely, she kept her mouth shut.

  He shook his head. “You don’t ne
ed to say anything. The blame is always placed before Talagan feet. The innocent judged as guilty and the guilty pretending to be innocent.”

  She bristled. “That is a blanket statement. Not all humans are evil, just as not all shapeshifters are evil. I don’t consider you a vile degenerate because of your heritage.”

  “But you don’t trust me,” Briggs said softly. “Even now, every line of your body is stiff as if preparing for an attack. I’ve cared for you for weeks now and still you’re wary.”

  “Old habits.” Tempest shrugged. “Not everyone is who they say there are. Blind trust isn’t something I give. Ever.”

  “If I was human, you wouldn’t act the same way.”

  She snorted. “If you were a woman, I wouldn’t act the same way. It has nothing to do with you and everything to do with the threat you pose to my person.”

  “My point exactly. You’re threatened by what you don’t understand. You’ve been conditioned to be suspicious of shapeshifters since you were a child.”

  “So you’re telling me that the poison doesn’t originate from the Jester?”

  “The Jester’s never been a mass murderer.”

  And how would you know, Briggs? She’d come back to that. “So where is it coming from?”

  “I don’t think you’re ready to hear it.”

  “Don’t keep me on pins and needles.”

  The healer leaned forward, his expression intent. “Do you honestly believe the Jester—or anyone from the clan, for that matter—is responsible for the poison that’s killing people all throughout the forest?” Briggs’s tone was sharper now. Tempest realized he was watching her from one half-closed eye, which she suspected missed absolutely nothing. “There are members of this clan who have lost all their family, you know,” he continued. “Mothers. Fathers. Children. Best friends. And that’s not to mention the entire villages who have been wiped out far closer to the Talagan mountain ranges.”

  “Some believe a sacrifice is justified for the greater good,” she remarked. “Winning a war against the Crown would change things for all shapeshifters.”

  Briggs’s laugh at Tempest’s remark was entirely humorless. “Tell me, Tempest. Who would win in an all-out war: Heimserya or the old kingdom of Talaga? You’re a smart, capable young woman. I do not believe you are so naïve as to think the answer is the latter.”

  Tempest said nothing. He was right. The shifters wouldn’t wage an absolute war. She would not put it past the shifters to undermine the kingdom that took them over one hundred years ago by way of sneaky attacks and civilian casualties. There’d be no hope of a full-frontal attack. They’d go about it a different way.

  How would she do it? The hairs along the nape of her neck rose. The surest way to change the state of the kingdoms would be to get rid of the ruler and his line. Is that why the king wanted the Jester’s heart? Because the lord of the underworld was plotting to have him killed?

  Briggs eased out of his chair and onto heavy feet, closing the distance between himself and Tempest in two easy strides. He pointed out of the rain-smeared window in the direction of the other cottages Tempest knew to be just out of sight.

  “If the shifters—if my people—were responsible for the poison that’s spreading around the forest, then answer me this, Tempest. Why are we the only people who are dying? Why is it our villages that have been affected?”

  “I’d hate to think you’re mixed up with someone like the Jester. I think you’re a good man,” Tempest whispered. “You’ve shown me kindness but there is a storm coming and bodies will litter the ground if we do nothing. I refuse to stand by and watch. We’ll have to choose a side.”

  “What if the sides aren’t human against shifters? What if they are corruption against innocence? Where do you think you’ll find yourself, Lady Hound?”

  “With the innocent.” Her first thought should have been the Crown. The thought didn’t sit well with her, just as Briggs’s increasingly difficult questions made her stomach twist uncomfortably.

  “I hope so,” the healer murmured. “The innocent need someone like you.”

  Tempest bit her tongue and slumped back into bed, rolling onto her side so that Briggs could not see the ongoing conflict within her mind.

  She had no answers. She needed answers. The healer had finally opened up to her, and she knew what he was hinting at. The shifters were trying to turn her against the Crown. Without trying, Tempest was infiltrating their ranks.

  If they wanted a Hound for their cause, she’d give them one and then she’d destroy the Jester’s vile court, stone by stone.

  Tempest

  Tempest was becoming seriously affected by cabin fever. It wasn’t surprising; almost three weeks stuck inside a cottage barely bigger than her room back in the Hound barracks was bound to make her tetchy and restless. It didn’t help that Tempest was entirely healed from her wounds, which meant she had to keep pretending to be hurt.

  But the last few weeks in the cottage had granted Tempest one thing: time. Time to think about King Destin’s veiled threats. Time to consider what the people of Dotae thought of the shifters who did most of the kingdom’s labor. Time to contemplate that everything she had been told about the sickness decimating the villages simply did not add up. To top off Tempest’s frustration and confusion, since deciding to play to Pyre’s little game, Pyre himself had deigned not to show up to see her even once in the last week.

  All in all, Tempest felt rather like a trapped animal.

  She’d spent most of the last five days looking out the two small windows that sat on each side of the door like beady eyes. Tempest tapped her fingers on the glass of the left window and held back a scream that was longing to be let out. It had rained constantly for a full five days; now, finally, it had let up. A weak ray of sunshine filtered into the cottage through the warped windowpane, promising better weather to come.

  Not that she was allowed to enjoy it.

  Tempest banged her head against the glass over and over again as if she might have been able to smash it through sheer willpower alone.

  That was how Pyre found her on the afternoon of Tempest’s nineteenth day in his custody.

  The cottage door flew open and crashed against the wall near her elbow. Tempest scowled as the kitsune swaggered in, cool forest air cutting some of the heat from the fire. She turned slightly and curled her hand around the door and slammed it closed.

  “Someone’s a bit testy.”

  So he’s to bless me with his presence today. Which personality would she get, the charmer or the interrogator?

  She grunted and eyed him from beneath the curtain of hair that hung over her face. The shifter couldn’t help but make a spectacle everywhere he went.

  “I’ve been told you’ve been highly productive with your time, Temp.”

  His use of her nickname grated on her nerves. So it was the Charmerit—her least favorite characteristic.

  He was maddeningly at ease as he strolled over to the fireplace and lounged in Briggs’s favorite chair, since the man had disappeared on other business that morning. Tempest kept a constant watch on Pyre out of the corner of her eye, though she didn’t move from her position at the window.

  “It’s hardly as if I have anything better to do,” she muttered.

  Pyre indicated to a pile of old, leather-bound books sitting on the kitchen table. “Surely reading would be a better pastime than trying to crack your skull open?”

  “I’ve read them all.”

  “I somehow doubt that.” He laughed, which only made Tempest angrier. She turned around fully to face him, crossing her arms over her chest as she did so.

  “And what do you even know about me, Pyre, to believe I couldn’t possibly have read all those books already?”

  He chuckled, but his face looked altogether more serious in response to Tempest’s indignation. “Well, three of them are written in Talagan, for one—”

  “I don’t see your point.”

  Pyre crossed his
arms and cocked his head to one side, his fox ears twitching in interest and surprise. “You understand Talagan? I thought you hated all things shifter.”

  She held up a finger. “I’ve never said that. And even if I did harbor a bit of hatred, I hate getting up before sunrise, but still I do that when I know I have to,” Tempest countered. “Understanding Talagan is important to be able to translate texts from before the original rebellion. It’s standard for Hound trainees to learn the language.”

  The look Pyre gave Tempest then was almost appraising. Something dark slithered through his eyes, but it was gone in a moment as his rakish façade slipped back into place once again. He arched his back lazily against the chair and stretched his arms above his head.

  “Too bad the only pre-rebellion texts you’ve likely ever seen are ones that don’t contradict the Crown’s poisonous view of my country.”

  Tempest scowled. “And there you go again, assuming I’m a hopelessly naïve, blind follower. I know things are not always what they seem. And besides, it was actually my mother who originally taught me the language, so I could read Talagan folktales with her. Hardly the most inflammatory of texts, one way or the other.” Make of that what you will.

  “Your mum was Talagan?”

  “Oh Dotae be good, no,” Tempest corrected quickly. She looked out of the window, closing her eyes against the sunshine streaming through it for a moment. She realized she was holding a tense breath in her lungs. Fighting with Pyre wouldn’t bring her any closer to her goal. Tempest let out a low whistle through her teeth. Now, to set the bait. “We lived close to the mountains, though. I think she’d grown up there, too. She loved Talaga. She loved shifters. Too bad they didn’t love her.”

  Pyre stood up, taking a few, careful steps toward Tempest before coming to a halt closer to her than she would have liked. Initially, she’d frozen but she worked at keeping the tension from her body. Nothing would be gained if she couldn’t get over her aversion to his presence. He hadn’t intentionally harmed her yet. Despite his mercurial temperament, she didn’t believe him to be a complete brute without conscience.