Hunter's Legend

by R. J. Vickers

  Hunter moved as if to take my arm; then he must have thought better of it, because he shoved his hand into his pocket. “I was hoping you’d come up with something.”

  “I don’t know a single person in this city, aside from the old treasurer and the family I haven’t spoken to in years,” I said. “I’m sure old Brogan would love to hear about how we used to be too poor to afford proper housing, and how neither of us had a family or a surname we would admit to.”

  “Why can’t you go to your family?” Hunter asked.

  “Why can’t you go to yours?” I replied at once. “I said some awful things to my family before I left them. My entire upbringing was a lie. I couldn’t forgive them for that.”

  Hunter kicked a dislodged cobblestone. “My family doesn’t know anyone outside the slums. Even if I wanted to reconcile with them—which I can’t, without getting killed—they’re the most useless pile of dung you could ever find.”

  “Great,” I said. “So I suppose you’re going to ask me, ever so nicely, to go talk to my family.”

  “Right. Unless you have a better idea.” Hunter cocked one eyebrow at me.

  I was bereft of other options. “I suppose I’ll go find them now,” I grumbled.

  “No better time,” Hunter said.

  I crossed my arms and stomped off, muttering under my breath. “Why is it always me? Why do I put up with this?”

  After so much time away from the city, I had forgotten its usual rhythms of life. Today, for instance, was Sullimsday, the high day of each quarter, which meant Market Street was packed with people and stalls for the Sullimsday Market. Making my way down the street toward my parents’ house was therefore more of an endeavor than I had expected. I guessed around half of the stall-owners were Market District residents who either built up their stocks for a single sale each quarter or used the income from the Sullimsday Market to supplement their usual shop earnings, while another half were farmers and merchants from outside the city who traveled to sell their wares to the largest possible audience. Seeing so many country folk in one place nearly tempted me to volunteer my services in some rural endeavor—spinning wool, for instance, or crafting fire-braids—just to escape Baylore.

  Instead I ignored the vendors’ calls and pressed on through the crowd, narrowing my shoulders to squeeze between avid customers.

  It was growing late in the day before I came upon the street where my family lived. I had not seen them in close to six years now, so I was hoping against hope they had not moved somewhere new.

  No—the shop was there as ever, and I even recognized my mother’s washing hanging from the tiny upstairs balcony. Our house was one of three upstairs dwellings set above the Weaver’s Guild establishment best known for its enchanted trinkets. Just before the shop was a store famous for enchanted garments, and after it was a larger barn-like workshop that specialized in magical transportation.

  Their flower garden was the only notable change I could see—what had begun as a few potted plants set on the balcony had become a net of vines creeping up the rail and onto the roof, one of which was just beginning to send out dainty purple flowers.

  Everything was so familiar it was almost spooky. It was as though no time had passed. I had managed to vanish from their lives without leaving a mark.

  My nerves were starting to make a clamor. I walked up to the shop doorway, which was closed for market day, and stood for a long moment just staring at the wood panels. Then, swallowing back fear, I knocked.

  It was a long time before anyone answered the door. In the wait, I contemplated turning and fleeing before anyone got a glimpse of me. I could tell Hunter that my parents had turned me away at the door. I could even tell him they had moved away without a trace. But Hunter would know the lie for what it was.

  It was my father who answered the door. “Yes? The store is closed t—” he began. When he realized who stood there, his face drained of color. “Cady? Cady?” He stood another moment longer, his jaw working, before he whispered, “Where have you been? Is it really you?” In the years since I had last seen him, the parts of his hair that were no longer silver had turned grey, and he looked thinner and more fragile than I remembered.

  I clasped my hands behind my back, fingers twisting together. “Of course it’s me. I’ve been working and traveling. I’m not back just to visit, though. I—I have a favor I need to ask of you, if it’s not too much.”

  To my astonishment, my father flung his arms around me and pulled me into a fierce hug. He had never been one for affection. “Why have you been away so long? We’ve missed you terribly! Your mother was so miserable we contemplated leaving the city.”

  I stood there, bewildered, and let him hug me, though I did not return the gesture. When he released me, I said stiffly, “You know why I left. Nevan told me what you did. You took away any chance I had at a future, just for your own profit. Did you ever love me at all, or was I just a financial convenience?”

  My father’s eyes widened. “You mean your hair? Your mother guessed at it, but I thought you would never…”

  “I found a silver hair,” I said flatly. All Weavers are born with a head full of silver hair, each of which can be used for a single enchantment. “If I had been born untalented, that couldn’t exist. I asked Nevan about it, and he told me the truth. It was his father who bought my hair, wasn’t it?”

  My father seemed to shrink in on himself. “Would you join us for dinner, Cady? We need to talk. The choice your mother and I made was not an easy one, and we hoped to protect you from any guilt or anger by pretending you had never been a Weaver yourself.”

  Guilt? Why would I have felt guilty for losing my hair, the source of all my magic? “I’ll join you for dinner,” I said coldly. “But in turn, will you hear out my request?”

  “Of course. Anything for you. I can think of no greater tragedy than losing our only child.”

  I almost believed him.

  My mother was laying out the table when I followed my father upstairs. It looked large and empty with only two places set. Though her hair only showed a few streaks of white, new worry lines had appeared on her forehead; I knew my disappearance had caused her great distress. More surprising was how few silver hairs she had left. She was nearing retirement, whether she liked it or not.

  Still, I could not feel guilty. I had grown up feeling worthless, learning to read and do sums while my friends began their apprenticeships in magic. I had been teased and harassed and pitied; I never had any true friends apart from Nevan, the boy next door, who had known me too long to dismiss me for my lack of talent. It had been on the eve of his departure for Baylore University that he had revealed the truth to me at last. And that same night, I had packed my belongings and left my family’s home without even a note. It was no wonder they had assumed me dead.

  The kitchen windows were steamed up from a pot of sauce bubbling away on the stove, giving off an aroma of herbs and rich tomatoes, and from the house next door—connected just through the kitchen wall—I heard children laughing.

  “Ambria,” my father said gently, “I have something to show you. You might want to set that bowl down.”

  My mother turned at the sound of his voice, and instead of setting the bowl on the table, she dropped it. “Cady!” she shrieked. “What are you doing here? You’re alive? How?”

  “Please sit down. You too, Cady,” my father said. While my mother sank into a chair, shaking, my father picked up the four shards of the clay bowl. I approached the table yet did not dare sit until my father had taken his place.

  “What is the meaning of this?” my mother whispered, grasping my father’s hand. “Cady? Where have you been?”

  “I’m sure she will explain in her own time,” my father said. “But first, we owe her the truth. She heard what was done with her Weaver’s hair.” He gave my mother a significant look.

  Though my mother looked shaken, that knowledge appeared to reassure her. I could not understand it.

 
A floorboard creaked underfoot as I moved to take a seat. After the plush finery of The Queen’s Bed, the simplicity of my parents’ home was comforting.

  “There’s a reason we never had another child, Cady,” my father began. “We would not have stripped you of your magic unless it was of the utmost necessity. When we first bought our home above this store, we were left penniless and desperate for a time. That was when your mother conceived you. We were barely able to afford food for ourselves, let alone the materials we needed to help our new business find its feet. Your mother was so weak and sickly when she gave birth that the exertion nearly killed her. She was bleeding herself dry, feverish for days on end, until she fell into a sleep from which she would not awake.

  “I was desperate. I knew of a Drifter who lived in the area, a man famed for his prowess at healing, and I sought his help. But I had no means to pay for the job. The only item of value I could scrape together, short of selling our home, was your hair. I sold it to our neighbors, Nevan’s parents, and the Drifter saved your mother.”

  My eyes stung, and my hands shook beneath the table. I couldn’t believe it had taken me six years to confront my parents for the simple truth. If I had gone to them at once, angry and resentful, they would have set me straight. Instead, in my usual way, I had chosen to avoid confrontation and instead vanished.

  “We never told you because we wanted to protect you,” my mother said weakly. “If it had been me, I would have felt both guilty for nearly killing my mother and resentful that my talent had been sacrificed in that way. It would be easier, we thought, if you believed nature had simply played a cruel trick on you.”

  I nodded slowly. If I’d had a child of my own, I probably would have made the same choice. Yet the alternative was that I had grown up with the belief there was something wrong with me; that something about me was so ordinary, so worthless, that the cloudy gods had not seen fit to spare any magic on my behalf. It was too much to take in.

  “Tell us, now. Where have you been these last six years?” my father asked.

  “We tried tracking you down,” my mother said. “We searched at the University, and asked everyone we knew in the Market District. We even asked the city guards if they would keep an eye out for you. But we found nothing. Not even a trace.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said. The words sounded wooden, and I could not meet her eyes. “I did my best to make myself untraceable. I gave myself a new last name and found work in the last place you would expect. I spent four years as a scribe for the city treasury.”

  My father’s white eyebrows raised in surprised delight. “A scribe! Who would have thought?”

  “You always were the bright one,” my mother said, studying her hands. “I knew you would make something of yourself.”

  I forced a smile. The work had been an occupation, nothing more. I would have loved moving up to a more skilled position as one of the actual council members, though that would have been next to impossible for me to achieve.

  “What happened then?” my father asked. “You said you were only a scribe for four years.”

  “I did a bit of traveling,” I said. “I just returned to Baylore yesterday. I’ve been all over the countryside more times than I can count, and I’ve made the journey to Larkhaven several times.”

  My father had just picked up his cup, but he set it down again with a clatter. “Alone? How did you manage that?”

  “I wasn’t entirely alone,” I said. I did not want to give any details. It would be a scandal for certain if they learned I had been traveling with an unmarried man.

  “Do you have a suitor?” my father asked slyly.

  “Were you married in secret?” my mother said with alarm.

  “No! Nothing of the sort. I just don’t want to talk about it.”

  My mother fetched dinner from the stove, her hands shaking. She had cooked a rich stew with tomatoes, lamb, and potatoes.

  I waited for my father to take a bite before I tasted the stew.

  “Now,” my father said, setting aside his spoon. “You said something about needing us for something. Why did you come back to us now, after so much time?”

  I sighed. Now I knew the truth, guilt and shame weighed me down. To avoid them for so long, and seek them out only when I needed their help…. Worse still, how would I explain my predicament without bringing Hunter into the question?

  “I have an employer who needs a reference for taking up residence in the Gilded Quarter,” I said carefully. “He’s not from Baylore, so he has no family or contacts in the city. And he has wealth, but no noble bloodlines, which means he counts for nothing in the eyes of the Gilded Quarter residents. Do you know anyone who could help us out?”

  “Were you working for him while you traveled?” my father asked astutely.

  “Yes.” I jumped at the easy explanation.

  He nodded. “That Drifter friend I mentioned—he often travels in the higher circles of society. I could ask him for advice. Failing that, there must be some wealthy customer around who would provide the recommendation in exchange for a new enchanted object.”

  I swallowed. I had not expected such generosity, after how I had treated them. “Can I—do anything for you in return?”

  “Just come visit more often,” my father said. “We would love to see you every now and again.”

  “I’ll try,” I said. Glancing out the window, I realized it had grown dark already. Hunter would be worried. “I have to go now.” I ate a few more bites of the stew before pushing the bowl away. “Thank you for dinner, Mother. It was delicious. Would you be able to find that reference by tomorrow?”

  My parents looked at each other, worried. “We’ll see what we can do,” my mother said, playing with the edge of the tablecloth.

  “Could you send the reference to The Queen’s Bed before noon, if you have time?” I cringed at their expressions—The Queen’s Bed must be more noteworthy than I had realized.

  “We’ll try,” my father said. He embraced me again when I stood, and this time I hugged him back. My mother did not move to touch me, so instead I smiled uncomfortably at her. Something between us had broken, and I wasn’t sure it could ever be mended.

  “I’ll see you around?” I said.

  My father smiled at me, his eyes uncharacteristically moist.

  *

  The last of the market was packing up as I wove my way among the empty stalls; the customers had gone home, and most valuable goods were rolled in blankets or loaded onto carts. The streets hummed around me as I passed, wrapped in thought.

  Though it had been good to learn the truth, I was not sure how I felt about becoming part of my parents’ lives again. The way I had been living for these past six years was not proper for a young woman, and I would rather leave Baylore forever than tell them the truth about my relationship with Hunter. It was fine when I was on my own in the world, but to face their judgment and try to justify my decisions…

  Hunter said nothing when I took a seat beside him in the dining room, but when the man he’d been speaking with turned away, Hunter whispered, “You were out for ages! I almost sent a damned search party out after you!”

  I gave him a prim look, though warmth flooded my insides. It was always such a surprise to hear how much he cared for me.

  He returned to his conversation then, and I realized I was ravenous. I had been so nervous and wound-up while speaking to my parents that I had barely taken two bites of the meal. “I might have found us a reference,” I said out of the corner of my mouth at another gap in the conversation.

  He pinched my knee. He must have been driven to distraction trying to guess how the meeting with my parents had gone.

  I ended up going to bed long before him, and I was asleep when he joined me and threw a pillow at my head to wake me.

  “Lazy little wench,” he teased. “Tell me what happened! I won’t be able to sleep a wink unless I know.”

  Rubbing my eyes, I sat against the headboard and tugged the blank
ets around me. “I still don’t want to tell you that one secret,” I said. “But I was mistaken. What my parents did to me, they did out of necessity. They were heartbroken when I left.” I ran a hand through my tousled hair. “It may have been for the better, but I put them through a miserable six years. They thought I was dead.”

  “And that reference?” Hunter prompted.

  I sighed. “Is that all you care about? If we’re lucky, someone will be sent our way tomorrow morning. My parents know plenty of people, but they’ll have to call on a friend of a friend. They rarely do business with nobility.”

  “I don’t care if it’s the bastard son of a madman, as long as we get our reference.” He kicked off his shoes so violently they hit the desk. “Get back to sleep. Tomorrow will be another big day.” At that, he threw a second pillow at me.

  “Goodnight to you, too,” I mumbled, crawling back into the warm nest I had made beneath the covers.

  Chapter 4

  U nfortunately, Brogan arrived right on time. He was already sitting in the dining room when Hunter and I came downstairs, eating breakfast in a show of studied impatience. He frowned in our direction when we joined him before returning to his meal.

  “Our reference has promised to arrive before noon,” I said. “I’m sorry I can’t be more exact.”

  “And how do you know this person?” Brogan asked suspiciously.

  “Old family friend.” Hunter waved his hand airily. “But why waste time? While we’re waiting, can we discuss the price you’re asking for this sculpture house?”

  I silently thanked him for diverting the conversation before Brogan questioned us on the name and gender of our mystery reference.

  Brogan scratched his wobbling chin with one thumbnail. “For an outright purchase, you would be looking at no less than fifty thousand varlins.”

  I kicked Hunter under the table. We would be ruined if he acted rashly—I had never seen such a sum in my life. The entirety of what had seemed our vast fortune amounted to some twenty thousand varlins.