by Anna Burke
This time of day at home I would be spinning, or perhaps wandering the village to put off the long companionable silence of the looming winter evening.
No.
Any dissatisfaction I may have had with the village could be surmounted if only I could return. I could get used to Avery. I could get used to a life of mindless superstition, sitting around the hearth and telling stories of harsh winters past.
My mind trembled, trapped between the worlds.
There had to be a way out.
I let the water work the knots out of muscles tight with anger and tried to think, pushing down the unease that thoughts of returning to Avery Lockland stirred.
The Huntress was back. However much I wanted to hate her, I could not escape alone. I needed more information about why I was here and where in the hundred thousand hells we were, and to do that I needed to find a way to actually get information.
The library.
I jerked out of the water, startling the pup, and almost laughed. I had a library right here. Surely somewhere in one of the scrolls was something I could use if I only knew what to look for. I had been an idiot not to see it before; there had to be some sort of record in the library of this place, and if not, the library’s contents should be able to tell me something about the people who built it. I could begin my search tonight. The anger I’d felt earlier ebbed and the comfort of purpose settled over me, reassuring in its weight, until a fall of torchlight blinded me. I threw a hand over my face to shield my eyes and felt the surge of hope shatter around me, leaving me naked and raw in the curling steam.
“I—,” she said.
I opened my eyes to find the Huntress staring at me with her mouth slightly open as she failed to finish her sentence. She wore only a cloth, and the torchlight fell on her bare shoulders and loose hair with more charity than the harsh glare of the winter sun. It made her look soft, almost vulnerable.
The illusion lasted no longer than the time it took the breath to catch in my throat.
“I did not mean to startle you,” she said, her voice once again cold.
I said nothing. My lips were dry despite the steam wreathing my face, and I had never felt more exposed in my life.
The light fell across her back as she turned to leave. I gasped. Four deep gouges parted the flesh over her shoulder blades. “What happened to you?” I asked.
“Bear.” She shrugged, then winced as blood seeped from the wounds. I thought of the bearskin cloak she’d worn on her return, and the long claws dangling from the skinned paws.
The sweat prickling my brow had nothing to do with the heat of the spring and everything to do with the layers of parted skin before me. I was out of the water before I could change my mind, clutching the linen to my chest. She should hardly have been able to walk with damage like that, let alone ride.
Leave her, I told myself. She stole you from your home. Let the wounds fester. Let her rot and watch while the wolves rip her carcass limb from limb. My stomach heaved. Without the Huntress, there would be nothing to keep the wolves from turning on me.
“Hold still,” I told her, water streaming down my back from my wet hair. My hand shook as I placed it gently on the bare skin beside the gash. Leaves rustled, but I could barely hear them over the pounding in my ears. Her skin was hot to the touch, but not feverish, and smoother than mortal skin had any right to be. My thumb brushed the line of her shoulder blade without my volition, and I shook my head to clear it.
“It’s nothing,” she said.
I slid the towel down toward her hips, my eyes tracing the long, vicious curve of the wounds, and disagreed. “This needs to be sewn up and cleaned.”
“I said it is nothing.” I had never seen a beast caught in a trap, but with her lips half curled in a snarl and the whites of her eyes flashing, she reminded me of nothing more than that. Let her die then, I thought. I was no healer.
My palm seared, and something inside me unfurled. The sensation made me dizzy. I swayed as the torchlight flared.
“Rowan.” She steadied me, the feral look gone from her eyes, and her hand burned on my shoulder. She stole your life, I told myself as heat rushed to my face. She took everything from you.
That did not explain the terrible longing that spread from her fingers like a fever.
“At least let me clean it then,” I said, because anything was better than the lingering echo of tenderness in the way she’d said my name.
She stared at me for the space of several heartbeats, then nodded. “The water will loosen the worst of it,” she said as she dropped the towel and stepped gingerly into the pool. I shut my eyes, still half-blind from the light, but the sight of her body seared the back of my lids like flame.
She hissed as the water hit the wounds. I knelt beside the pool and put my hand on her uninjured shoulder before I could stop myself. The dark water washed away the blood from the cuts, revealing several layers of muscle and a flash of white that I hoped was not bone. The skin around it puckered angrily, severed as smoothly as if the bear had wielded a knife instead of claws. I had never seen a wound like that on a living person. It hurt to look at. Her muscles knotted beneath my palm, and I saw a muscle leap in her jaw as she clenched her teeth against the pain.
“How can you bear it?” I asked in a hushed voice.
She sank deeper into the water, leaning her head against the stone floor. It was disconcerting to find myself looking down on her. Her eyes were half-closed, the lids bruised with an exhaustion that looked decidedly human, and the dark water covered her chest and pooled in the hollows along her collarbone. One of the gashes curved over her shoulder. I found myself wondering if it would scar, or if she healed with the same flawless ease as her roses.
“Pain is not so hard to bear,” she said, looking up at me. “Just takes a little practice.”
I laid the back of my fingers against the skin below her wound, checking once again for heat. “Have you had a lot of practice?”
“You could say that.” Her lips curved in a smile that turned into a grimace as my finger brushed the edge of the gash.
“I’m sorry.” I pulled my hand away.
“Don’t be.”
She closed her eyes, and I sat with my hands pressed tightly together, willing myself not to touch her or to stroke the damp hair back from her forehead. “Was it a large bear?” I asked to break the silence.
“Large enough.”
“I thought bears hibernated.” Except hers, of course.
“They do. This one was sick. Something drove it out of its season, and I did not want it killing my Hounds. Even a sick bear can kill a wolf.” Her voice tightened on the last words.
“Or a hunter.”
“I was careless. It happens occasionally.”
I had a hard time picturing this woman performing a single careless act. Even now, submerged in water and her skin in tatters, she carried herself with more grace than I could hope to achieve in a lifetime.
“Have you lost many wolves?” I said, registering her words.
“I lost two to your villagers this past month, and tonight I may lose another.”
Her face did not move, and her voice was even, but there was pain there beneath the ice. I remembered the pelts piled high on the sledge and a realization rose from the corpses like the steam from the pool. “That was the price. That’s why you killed them. A life for a life.”
“Yes.”
“Is the life of a wolf the same? Those men had families. Wives.”
“It is the same to me.” She opened her eyes in time to see me shiver, the towel doing little to ward the chill off my skin. “Leave me,” she said, her eyes almost black against the water. “If you truly want to help, start heating the wine.”
Her blood stained the water of the pool.
Pain.
It was one of the things that bound her, her blood a reminder that all things could feel, all things could suffer, and nothing the witch had done could change that.
N
ow, as the steam rose and white stars burst in the cavern depths, she wondered how much of this the witch had foreseen. Perhaps the girl would have come anyway, even if she had killed the father. Perhaps it was woven into the fabric of her prison that she would never be at peace, and that always the mountain would rise, sending another of its envoys to the heights to break what should be left unbroken.
I could have brought winter down on all of them.
The thought drove away the pain, filling her with a savage longing. She could have let him keep the rose. She could have let it take root, there in that scrap of a cottage on the edge of Lockland land, and put out tendrils of frost, eclipsing all hope of spring.
She smiled, the bitterness rising like bile.
She could have driven cold into the marrow of their bones before the end, regardless of the cost.
Instead, she had Rowan.
Chapter Nine
The Huntress winced as the hot wine hit her back. I winced with her. The wounds looked even worse in the light.
“Give me the wine,” she said, taking a long swallow when I handed the jug to her. I sopped up the last of the boiled wine in the wounds with a clean rag as she drank, my hands still shaking. I was beginning to regret my offer. This was far beyond my skill to heal.
“This would be easier if you were on the table,” I said for the third time.
“Fine.” She snarled the words but at last obliged me, laying herself out on the wood with her face averted. Half dressed, the skin of her back gleamed in the firelight, and the coppery smell of blood mingled with the scent of bath oil and pine. I eyed the needle and suture before me, glad that she could not see my unease. I had never sutured skin before, and I had a feeling it was going to be very different from leather or cloth. I took a sip of wine to steady my nerves, then took another.
“Do you want something to bite down on?” I asked.
“No.”
I swallowed, my throat already dry again, then threaded the needle with the line.
“Why are you helping me?” Her voice was flat, and all I could see of her expression was the tension in her shoulders.
“I don’t know,” I answered, the truth slipping out. “But if it festers and you die, I’m dead, too.”
“So, you have decided to live?”
“I have decided I don’t want to be eaten by that bear of yours.”
She made a sound that might have been a laugh. Like this, prostrate on the table with her face hidden, I could almost forget that I did not know what she was. You’ve been alone for too long, I told myself. Do not be fooled by beauty, or by blood.
“What convinced you?”
“This,” I said, pushing the needle through. The feel of her flesh parting made my stomach churn, and I nearly lost my nerve. The Huntress held unnaturally still until I tied off the first stitch, but sweat sprang to the surface of her skin. “What would you have done without me?” I asked, forcing myself to breathe. Looking at the wound was making my head spin.
“Curled up in a ball until it healed enough to let me throw a spear.”
“And if it hadn’t healed?”
“It would have.”
I threaded the needle again and begged to differ. Wounds like this could be fatal.
“I’ve received worse,” she said, reading my thoughts.
Her skin, aside from the rents, was smooth and unblemished without so much as a birthmark, let alone a scar. I ran my hand along one of the muscles of her back, bracing myself to place the next stitch. My breath sounded very loud in my ears. I shoved the needle through again and whimpered.
“Rowan.” The Huntress sat up, placing her hand over mine and taking the needle from me. I stared at it, trembling, willing myself to stop shaking. Skin was just leather. I could do this. I had to do this because there was no one else. Would never be anyone else for as long as I lived, trapped here on a distant mountain unless I could find my way back to a home I was not entirely sure I wanted.
“Let me help you,” I said, my voice steadying. “Please.”
Her hand tightened around mine at the last word and I looked at the ground, not wanting to meet her eyes. Without meaning to, I could see the firm line of muscle on her stomach, and below that the slight curve of her hips. She was as lean as her wolves, but in the firelight that leanness had turned into something far more dangerous.
It is magic, just like the lock at the top of the stairs. Just like the roses. Magic, not feeling.
“Rowan.” She said my name again. I knew with devastating certainty that what I saw in her eyes in that moment would haunt me the rest of my life, no matter what else passed between us, no matter how deep my hatred, no matter how many years and leagues separated me from this place.
“Turn,” I told her. The needle slipped in my hand and I caught it, staring at the bright tip. Leaves rustled. The quiet space I’d found in the snowdrift crept in and I stared at my palm. It remained unblemished, but there was an odd feeling, like building pressure, where the thorn had pierced me. Ignoring it, I placed my hand over the longest of her gashes, trying to count the number of stitches I would have to brave to finish what I’d started, and feeling foolish and fearful and all too aware of the unreal rustling that never strayed far from the edges of hearing.
My palm itched.
My palm burned.
Something in me moved and then a white-hot lance of pain shot out of my hand and into her shoulder. The Huntress threw back her head in agony and I tried to pull my hand away, but it was bound to her by a snaking vine of thorns.
“Don’t. Move,” she gasped.
As if I could move.
As if any of this were possible, or even within the realm of reason. The thin, green shoot sprouted thorns as it grew into her flesh, long and curving and black where they pierced her skin, and then they tightened, a mockery of my efforts to sew her up.
Then it was over.
I lifted my hand slowly, staring at the small, red dot of blood at the center and trying not to look at the tangle of briars on her back. Her breathing steadied. I clung to the sound, my eyes transfixed by the impossibility of what they had just seen.
“Rowan.”
I looked up from my hand. The Huntress stared at me with a horror I felt mirrored in my bones. A strange sound filled the kitchen, a high thin chattering that stopped, for a moment, when I bit my tongue, blossoming into pain and copper in my mouth as my teeth resumed their chatter. At least the sound drove out the rustling leaves.
Bile rose in the back of my throat, and I held my hand as far away from my body as I could, as if by distancing myself I could deny the thing that lived within me. Gray crowded the corners of the room, gathering like snow clouds.
“No,” I tried to say, but the noise I made was hardly human. I backed away from the Huntress, no longer seeing her, seeing only the red dot at the center of my palm while my other hand scrabbled behind me until it found what it was looking for. I raised the knife I used to chop vegetables and brought it down into the soft meat of my hand, feeling nothing and seeing only the vine, black in the firelight, snaking up the Huntress’s back. I raised the knife again, searching, convinced that if I could find it, if I could pluck the thorn from my poor, violated flesh, I would wake up and this would all have been a nightmare.
She stopped me as I raised the knife for another blow. I strained against her, blood flowing down my wrist, my screams flaying my abused throat until the warmth of her bare shoulder pressed against my mouth and the knife clattered to the floor as she pulled me hard against her, trapping my wounded hand between us as my screams subsided into sobs.
“I want to go home,” I whispered into the shadow of the Huntress’s neck when the sobs, too, faded. She stroked my hair and did not answer, but I heard her thoughts as clearly as if she’d spoken them into my ear.
She could never let me go, now, even if she wanted to.
Another sob shook me. When it passed, I felt the weight of her chin resting on my head, and I gradua
lly became aware of the heat of her body, real and solid, a barrier between me and the roses on her back and the ice lodged somewhere deep within me. My heartbeat slowed to match hers.
I shivered when she pulled away at last, feeling newly exposed, as if the Huntress, terrible as she was, had held off something more terrible still. I must have made a sound, a whimper or some other pathetic animal plea, because her hand went to my cheek with a tenderness I had only ever seen her show to her wolves. I leaned against it. She might have brought me here, but she had not handed me the rose.
“If I had known what he would do, I would never have let your father live,” she said, her tone gentle. “It is death to pluck them. The rest of your village knows that.”
“Then why didn’t you kill him?”
She gave me a sad little smile. “When I found him again, I thought I might. And then I saw you.”
I blinked at her, my eyes raw and my body aching. “You asked me if he’d given me the rose.”
“I wasn’t sure then if it had taken root. Later, I thought I’d been mistaken, but that wasn’t why I took you.” She removed her hand, and my cheek burned with cold without her touch. “I took you because your father loved you, and because the only thing crueler than losing one you love is living with that loss. Death would have been a mercy.”
I should have felt something at her words. Instead, I felt empty. Numb. “Will I die?” I asked her.
“Not from this,” she said, lifting my hand to examine the damage I’d inflicted on myself. “And not by my hand, or by yours, if I can help it.” That strange, sad smile was still on her lips. “And not by briar. They are just thorns, Rowan, and roses. Nothing more.”
The wolf rested his head in her lap. He had decided to live through the night, despite his wounds.
“And I have lived despite mine,” she told him.
