White Hart

by Sarah Dalton

  “I had to. It was just me and Father. When he hurt his leg, I had to look after him.” I shrug. I rub another berry on my forearm. “We didn’t have money or things..”

  “You could have sold the stag for a fortune. If you really wanted to survive, why didn’t you do that?”

  “The thought of selling Anta is a terrible one. My first memory is looking out of the window and seeing him as a calf. Father said he saw the stag calf when I was born, and Anta never went away. When I was old enough, I started to climb on him, and he’s protected me all these years. He’s my friend, my one friend in the world.” I stop talking, realising that I’ve let my mouth get away with me. I scowl and turn away from him, with tears threatening, building at the surface of my eyelids. No, I must brick them down again.

  “We’ll find Anta.” Casimir reaches across and puts his hand on my arm. “I promise you Mae, we’ll find him.”

  *

  People shouldn’t make promises they can’t keep. Someone needs to make it a law of the realm. Anything to prevent hearing those words: I promise.

  We wander aimlessly through the forest calling for Anta and searching for his tracks. But he is nowhere to be seen and I worry that our shouts will attract the attention of whatever unsavoury beings are hiding in the depths of the forest. The only good thing is that we find another source for water to refill our canteens.

  For a while I ride pillion with Cas. You would think that the night spent under the blanket would make me more comfortable with him, but it just makes it worse—as though the intimacy has broken down something inside me and now I am too aware of everything: aware of his firm body, the warm tones in his voice, his expressive eyes, and the way he smells of berries. For the first time ever, I worry about what I say, whether it is stupid or petulant or my voice cracks. Our conversations from the morning repeat in my mind, looking for faults. I lost control of myself when I talked about Anta.

  I let my guard down. And now he can stamp all over my heart whenever he feels like it.

  I’m a fool who forgets her priorities. Anta is my priority, not some stupid prince.

  Every turn brings a fresh hope, and every time, it disappoints. I see no white flashes through the trees, no glimpses of his great antlers. Beneath my legs, Gwen’s chestnut flank seems strange. She moves too smoothly and with too much grace. Everything feels wrong.

  We break for food, but I can’t rest even then. My eyes search the trees around us.

  “We’ll find him,” Cas insists. This time his voice is smaller. He’s beginning to lose his own hope.

  I punch the soil. “Where? How? We’re lost!”

  Today the forest is cold and green. There is no warm sun filtering down. These trees have a green trim of leaves, but the branches are twisted and quite bare. Generous bushes and thorny plants twist around the path edges.

  Cas remains silent. The day continues until the cold sun fades, and we find a place to set up camp. It’s a second day without finding the Wanderers’ tracks, and one whole day without Anta. This feels as low as when the birds were attacking me.

  Cas chats away about everything and nothing. I don’t hear most of it. Instead I wrap my arms around my knees and stare out into the shadows around us. When the clicking comes back, Cas talks louder, trying to drown out the sound.

  He sleeps close to me again, to keep away the freezing chill. This time I dream of both Father and Anta. In my dreams, they are both dead, and I am alone in the world. My worst fears come true. When I wake, I feel as though I dreamt the truth, and Anta really is lying stiff beneath the fallen leaves. My throat tightens as I think about it.

  The early morning brings frost. There’s a stiff, sharp citrus scent to the frozen air. My boots slip on the icy leaves as we pack our meagre belongings and head out onto the path.

  Here the forest climbs up a steep incline, and Gwen treads carefully as we follow it to the top. The higher we go, the colder it gets, and soon enough we are trudging through inches of snow. The horse does her best, but her hooves slip on the icy ground, and more than once she almost falls.

  I shake my head and dismount. “This is no good. We have to turn back. We’ll have to head through the forest and away from the path. It’s the only way to avoid the slope.”

  Cas swings his leg over Gwen’s back and lands on the snow with a soft thud. “You’re right.” He pulls the reins over her head and turns the horse around. She shivers with the cold, so I pull a blanket from our pack and lay it over her back before continuing the treacherous journey back down the incline.

  “It’s more like a mountain here,” Cas observes. “Look at the rocks peeking out of the snow, and the icicles hanging from the trees. I can imagine we’re in the Benothan ranges of the north.” He blows onto his hands for warmth.

  “Have you ever travelled that far?” I ask, my interest piqued.

  “No, Father would never allow it. But I would love to follow the river Sverne all the way to the ranges, and then travel back down to Jakani near the Anadi Sands. They say the people wear silk from head to toe.”

  “My ancestors are from the Haedalands,” I muse. “Father says it is a place of bright colours and spice.”

  “Would you like to go there?”

  “Oh yes,” I say. “But…”

  “But what?”

  “No, it’s stupid.” I fold my arms so that my cold hands are tucked beneath my armpits.

  “Tell me,” he insists.

  “I don’t speak the language. My skin is lighter. I don’t know their customs. I would feel like an outsider.”

  Cas lets out a low laugh. “That’s not stupid at all. I would feel exactly the same.”

  When I try to picture Cas in the Haedalands with his princely demeanour, my lips twitch. He catches my eye and must notice the glint in it, because he begins to chuckle.

  “Hey,” he says. “I can fit in with locals.”

  We carry on, feeling lighter than before. He’s right that the terrain is completely different here, as though we’ve passed over the northern border. I know we haven’t, but the effect is extraordinary.

  Cas shakes his head. “These woods, they are unlike anything I’ve ever seen. The creatures, the unknown trees, the plants that grow here and nowhere else… The strange changes in climate… Surely all of this means there is still magic here. Why can’t Father use this magic for the Red Palace? Why is it that only the craft-born can tap into the magic that is so obviously here?”

  “I don’t know,” I mutter. It has reached the point where I no longer like having to keep a secret from Cas. We have shared moments and conversations that could turn us into friends. I don’t know much about having friends, but keeping such a huge secret from the other person feels wrong.

  “I suppose just because the land is magic, it doesn’t mean we can harvest it,” he muses. “Not unless we have the ability deep within. I can’t wait to find Ellen and see what she’s capable of. This forest has shown me so many things.”

  I raise an eyebrow incredulously.

  “I know, not all of them have been good.”

  “We’ve nearly died at least three times,” I say.

  “Like I said, not all of them have been good. But they’ve all been fascinating. Don’t you think?”

  I don’t have time to answer. Cas slips on the ice and takes a tumble, letting go of Gwen’s reins at the same time. He rolls down the side of the hill, and I hurry after him, picking up Gwen’s reins at the same time.

  “Are you hurt?” I shout.

  Cas picks himself up and dusts down his clothes. “What an idiot I am. I’m not meant for this place.” He sighs and takes Gwen’s reins. “Ignore everything I said. This place is rotten, and I am a fool to think otherwise.”

  I can’t help it. I burst out laughing. “After everything we’ve been through, it’s a fall that makes you so angry? We’ve been attacked by raining birds, frozen to near death by fog, and drained of blood by vines, yet a tumble is all it takes for you to lose faith
in the woods?”

  Cas regards me with his narrowed eyes. His mouth is set in an unamused line. The seriousness of his expression only makes me laugh even harder.

  “And this is what finally makes you happy? My demise? My fall? Well, I think that shows a lot about your character, Mae,” he says bitterly.

  I laugh so hard that I fall back and land on my bum. Then I hear a snort and realise that Cas is laughing too. He begins with a soft chuckle while shaking his head, but before long, he has tears streaming down his face. I grab his arm and pull him down in the snow. He gathers snow into his hands and throws it at me. I ball it up and push it down his back which makes him shoot up and dance around, jiggling the back of his tunic to get it out. I’m laughing so hard my stomach aches.

  Cas groans loudly, shaking his body and jumping up and down. “Come on,” he says. “You’ve not said ‘We should get moving’ for ages now.”

  “We should get moving,” I say.

  Cas chortles and shakes his head. He reaches down and takes my hand, pulling me to my feet. He pulls me too hard, and I end up bumping into him. His face turns serious for a moment. “No, we really should get moving. Anta is out there alone.”

  The spell has been broken. The brief few moments, where my troubles disappeared like melted snow, hit me with the full force of an avalanche. What right do I have, joking and playing when Anta is out there amongst Father’s killers?

  “You’re right,” I say. “You’re so right.”

  We pick our way down through the slope until reaching the flat areas of the forest. Cas leads Gwen off the track and into the trees. It’s warmer down here, but there’s still a chill, and I hug my body for warmth.

  The forest is quiet, but we make a lot of noise moving through the undergrowth. Thorns catch on my legs. I don’t even flinch. The scrapes and scratches of the forest are something I’ve acclimatised to now.

  It has been over a day and a half since we were last attacked by something in the forest, and in a way, that makes me even more nervous. What can it throw at me now? I touch the half-healed cuts on my face and wonder.

  “Mae?” Cas asks. He brings Gwen to a stop and points to the right. “Does it look like someone went through those bushes over there?”

  I turn to where he’s pointing to see broken twigs and a print of some kind. My heart soars, and I immediately think of Anta, but when I examine the print more closely, I realise that it is of a boot, not a hoof.

  “We should follow these tracks,” I say. I don’t know where they lead or whom we’re following, but it’s better than nothing.

  “Don’t you think you’re being a little impulsive?” Cas says with a raised eyebrow. “After all, every other time you’ve insisted we should do something, we usually end up stuck in killer vines or something.”

  “They could take us to Anta,” I say.

  Cas sighs. “How can I say no to your big brown eyes?” he mutters. “Very well. But you had better be prepared to think us out of another dangerous situation. There’s no way the woods have done with us yet.”

  He walks away, and I find myself staring after him. “I have big brown eyes?”

  “You know you do,” he replies, his tone rougher than usual. “And you know that they get you your own way.”

  I pull myself out of my thoughts and follow him. My heartbeat quickens as we carry on down the track. After a while, my thoughts turn to what lies ahead. Will these tracks lead us to the men who killed my father, and if so, what will I do?

  *

  The footprints continue on. We’re far into the woods by the time we find a print with freshly churned mud. Then the prints stop altogether.

  I slip down from Gwen’s back. “It’s impossible to simply stop like that.” I search the forest around me, looking for places he could hide.

  “Maybe he climbed a tree,” Cas suggests. “It’s beginning to get dark. Perhaps he sleeps in the trees.”

  The two of us search the area with our weapons drawn. There is no one lurking behind the bushes or up in the trees. Each time I check around a corner or search the low branches, my heart skips a beat with the thought that we might find the Wanderers.

  “There’s nothing here,” Cas says eventually.

  I don’t want to give up yet. I move farther into the woods and cut back thorns with my dagger. I bend down and search an old fallen tree, hollowed out over the years.

  A scream rips through the silence, and I straighten up and turn around sharply. My breath catches in my throat as I squint through the dusk at a shadowy figure running towards Cas. The figure holds a long, deadly sword in his hand and raises it high above their head.

  “Cas!”

  Without a second’s hesitation, I’m running towards the prince. I clutch hold of my dagger in my right hand and throw my body towards Cas, knocking him to the floor. The figure swings the sword, and I have just enough time to meet the sword with my short dagger. The blade of the attacker’s sword runs along my knife’s edge until it catches my hand, cutting into my flesh.

  Cas pushes me off him and dives at the stranger, knocking him to the ground. He grasps the stranger’s hand and squeezes so hard that the attacker cries out in pain. I wrench the weapon from their grasp and hold the blade to their throat.

  The attacker wears a hood over their face. A black cloak hides their form. Cas removes the hood and a burst of red hair is exposed. The stranger pants and blinks the hair from their blue eyes. I realise with a start that the attacker is a young girl about my age.

  “Take your filthy hands off me,” she spits.

  Cas squeezes her wrist once more. “That’s no way to speak to your prince.”

  I give Cas a frustrated kick in the shin. “Don’t tell her that, you idiot.” I press the blade closer to her throat. “Who are you and what are you doing in the Waerg Woods?”

  “I’m not telling you anything. You’ll have to kill me first.” She scrunches her eyes shut and elongates her neck as though she expects me to slit her throat.

  I loosen my grip on the sword, surprised that she is so willing to die and thinks we’ll kill her without hesitation. The girl opens her eyes, sees me falter, and springs to her feet, knocking me back in the process. Cas tries to keep hold of her hand, but she is like a wild thing, with red hair whipping about her face. She wrenches herself free, and I chase after her, throwing the sword to the side, since I have no intention of using it.

  She’s quick, but I am too. She darts to the left, and I chase her, my toes almost hitting the backs of her heels. I push myself forward, wrapping my arms around her body, and bring her down hard against the ground, bruising my arms in the process. She wriggles around like the frustrated toddlers you see in Halts-Walden market.

  “Stop struggling,” I say breathlessly. “We are not going to kill you.”

  “But we’re not letting you go, either,” Cas says. He has a length of rope in his hands. He reaches down and grasps the girl by the hair. “Hold her still, Mae.”

  I take her hands and pull them behind her back. Cas wraps the rope around her wrists and then uses another piece of rope to tie her feet together, leaving enough length between her ankles to take short steps.

  I glance at him quizzically. “How did you learn to do that?”

  He doesn’t answer. Instead, he pulls the girl to her feet and places my dagger at her throat. “Who are you with?”

  The girl bites her lip and looks away. “I will never tell.”

  Cas grasps a handful of her hair, and she cries out. “Who are you with?”

  This is a side to Cas I never expected to see. His grey eyes are hard, like opal stones.

  “I will never tell you.”

  He slaps her face.

  “Cas!” I shout out.

  He never even turns to me. His eyes never leave hers. “Don’t you want to find your father’s murderers?”

  “Of course, but—”

  The girl gasps. She opens her mouth as if she wants to say something and then cl
oses it again.

  I step towards her. “You know something. Tell me what it is.” My hands clench and unclench at my sides.

  The girl keeps her mouth completely shut and eyes me warily. I know that there is something she is hiding, but it’s clear she’s not going to tell us. Not through brutality, anyway. Cas lifts his hand, but I calmly take hold of it and press his arm back down to his side.

  “Leave it,” I say.

  “But—”

  “We should get moving.” I raise my eyebrows at him, and he relinquishes with a sigh.

  Chapter Ten – The Nix

  Darkness descends, and we have no choice but to settle down for the night with the strange girl among us. I check that her ropes are tight, sit her down by the fire, and roast root vegetables.

  The girl watches my every movement. My stomach churns when I think of the people she belongs to—the same ones that killed my father?

  When the food is cooked, I divide it up between the prince and me. He sits and watches our prisoner, hardly ever moving his eyes from her. For a brief moment I wonder if he is attracted to her, but then I brush that thought aside, first because it’s stupid, and second because not long ago I had to stop him from slapping her in the face.

  “You’re not feeding me, then?” she says with a sneer on her face.

  Cas and I stay silent, eating our portions. The girl struggles against her ropes for a moment and then goes still.

  “I know what you’re doing,” she says. “You think if you starve me that I’ll talk. Well I won’t.”

  Her voice has the slightest hint of a tremor, and I flash Cas a look to say that she will crack soon enough. His head is bent low over his food, and the flames cast his eyes in shadow. With the new hope of finding the Wanderers, Cas is more determined than I have ever seen him before. I often find myself turning to him, examining the new tension in his features, made curious by his silence.