Outcast

by C. J. Redwine

  Grabbing a sturdy elm branch, I swing off the walkway that borders the village and into the forest beyond. Moving lightly along that branch, I scan the surrounding trees, pick another branch that can hold me, and leap from one tree to the next only to do it all over again. In moments, I’ve left the quiet noises of the village behind and am embraced by the occasional call of the birds above me, the creak of the branches below me, and the reverent hush that holds the woods captive.

  When I’m far enough away that I feel comfortable stopping, I climb into the cradle of a cypress and pull out the book.

  The last book I found was a collection of short stories full of magic and make-believe—so different from the life that I knew—and they fed my soul in a way that nothing ever had. I’d read them to Willow in the quiet early morning hours after a hunt when Dad was already asleep. The words felt like a treasure. Something that was untouched by anyone but us.

  But one day I wasn’t careful enough, and Dad overheard me reading. Furious that I’d kept the book out of a night’s haul, he’d confiscated it.

  We never saw it again.

  Now, I hold the book of poems carefully and slide a finger over the thin, yellowed pages while I read. The words are lyrical, like the river’s steady cadence as it rushes over the rocks in spring. I read poems about battles, beautiful streams, and the loss of a girl named Claribel. Images of noble soldiers, lonely journeys, and love that is strong enough to endure every separation fill my mind. I feel a sense of peace for the first time in years.

  Then I turn a page and read a poem whose last lines stop me cold. Drawing in a breath of chilly air, I speak the words aloud while my heart picks up speed.

  Our echoes roll from soul to soul,

  And grow for ever and for ever.

  My throat closes as the memory of slashing the unarmed highwayman’s throat fills me. What are my echoes? What mark am I leaving on this world to roll soul to soul, growing forever?

  The questions, the doubts that I’ve struggled with snap into focus with one clear thought: I will not become the man my father wants me to be. I will choose my own path. My own echoes.

  And if I have anything to say about the matter, Willow will get to choose her echoes too.

  Chapter Six

  “Where have you been?” I whisper as Willow glides into her room just minutes before dawn on what will be my fourth day in a row of scout duty.

  She shoots me a quick glare and whispers back, “Get out of here before Dad hears you.” With deft movements, she shrugs her bow and quiver off her back and then reaches for the knife strapped to her waist.

  “He won’t hear anything if we keep our voices down.” I step closer as I see the dark gleam of blood on the serrated edge of her knife. “Your knife is bloody.”

  “That’s what happens when you stick it in somebody.” Her voice is as quietly controlled as mine, but her fingers grip the hilt with white-knuckled ferocity. She grabs a rawhide cloth from her dresser and carefully wipes the blade clean, while I cross my arms and stare her down.

  I’ve spent my days scouting, and all has been quiet. No highwaymen. No lone thieves prowling for an easy victim. No travelers looking for a shortcut to Rowansmark.

  When I haven’t been scouting, I’ve used my time to read poetry and think about how to change the course I’m on and rescue Willow at the same time.

  I haven’t come up with any answers, and the longer we’ve gone without threats to put down, the harder it’s been to dodge the restless violence that simmers in our father like a cauldron about to boil over. When he took Willow with him to “check the perimeter” twelve hours ago, a knot of worry blossomed in my gut. As I look at Willow now, that knot turns into a stone.

  “What happened?” I ask.

  “The usual. Killing people. Hunting things. The family business.” She avoids my gaze and sets her weapons against the wall beside her bed.

  “Willow, this isn’t the usual. There were no reported threats. And when there are threats, we deal with them just outside the village borders. You should’ve been gone three, maybe four hours.” I glance at the graying light seeping in past her curtains. “You’ve been gone for twelve. What happened?”

  She sits on the side of the bed and concentrates on unlacing her boots. “We found a threat.”

  I frown. “Where? There were no reports—”

  Her gaze snaps to mine, and the darkness in her eyes is an accusation I don’t know how to answer. “Dad needed a threat, so we found one. Took us hours of moving through the Wasteland looking for travelers, but we found some. And we made an example out of them.” Her voice shakes, and she presses her lips closed. A shaft of light leaks past the shutters and illuminates a bruise swelling along her cheekbone.

  “Did a tracker give you that?” I gesture toward her face.

  She shrugs and refuses to look at me. My heart thuds heavily in my chest. A tracker didn’t do that to her. Dad did. Without me there as Dad’s favorite target, he took out his rage on her instead.

  “Willow.” I breathe her name while rage pushes against the dam I’ve built to contain it. “I’m sorry. I should’ve—”

  “Come with us?” Her tone is hard, but the fierceness in her face is a mirror of the protectiveness I feel toward her. “You can’t do it, Quinn. We both know that. This life is destroying you.”

  “It’s destroying us both.” I sink to my knees beside her bed and meet her gaze. “Every time we hurt someone who doesn’t deserve it, we lose something we can’t get back.”

  “The men tonight were bounty hunters searching for a Baalboden courier who stole something from Rowansmark. They want the price that’s been put on the courier’s head. You know bounty hunters will cut through anyone who stands between them and their prize. I’d hardly call them innocent.”

  “Were they a threat to the village?”

  Her eyes drift away from mine. “No.”

  No, they weren’t, but it hadn’t mattered because Dad was more interested in killing than he was in protecting our borders.

  “I’ve been thinking—”

  “I was afraid of that.” She rolls her eyes.

  I nudge her knee with my shoulder. “Just listen. I’ve been reading the book you gave me.”

  She flops backward onto her bed. “If you’re about to give me advice based on a poem written by some dead guy, you can forget it.”

  “Not advice.” I lean my elbows against the frayed quilt that covers her bed and then hold my breath when I hear footsteps on the stairs that lead from the main room to our bedrooms. Seconds later, I breathe again when I hear the unmistakable shuffle-scrape of our mother’s steps heading past our rooms and toward the cupboard where she keeps the corn liquor hidden behind a set of fancy sheets we once took from a dead highwayman.

  “I’m tired, Quinn. I want to go to sleep, not listen to poetry.” Willow keeps her voice down as we hear Mom fall to her knees in front of the cabinet.

  “No poetry. Just . . . you’re right. This life is destroying us. And now you’re taking the brunt of Dad’s sickness instead of me and—”

  “And you’re afraid I’m going to end up just like him.” She barely whispers the words, but they seem to grow larger, filling up the room and taking on a life of their own. I clench my fists and remember the Willow of my childhood—the sister who laughed and loved with wild abandon until she killed her first highwayman and earned the black feather she still wears dangling from her ear cuff.

  I can’t tell her she’s right. I can’t put into words the fear that haunts me when I see how easily she obeys Dad. How quickly she shakes off the things she’s done in the name of protection. Instead, I say, “We have to stop this. We have to stop him.”

  “How?” Raw desperation is on her face.

  “Maybe the elders can help. If we show them that Dad is more interested in torture than in obeying them, they might—”

  “Try to lock him up and get killed for their trouble?” Willow sits up again and looks at m
e. “There’s only one way to stop Dad, and we both know it.”

  I swallow hard as we stare at each other. Killing Dad is a fantasy that lurks at the edges of my thoughts on the really bad days, but it isn’t something I can truly stand to look in the eye. Not if I want to stop being the murderer he’s raised me to be. Not if I want to choose a different path for myself. Before Willow tells me she can handle the task herself, I say, “If we’re there to protect the elders, Dad will be outnumbered. They’ll see him for what he really is. They can lock him up, and all of this will stop.”

  Slowly, Willow nods. “That could work. One problem, though. How are you going to force Dad into revealing his true self in front of the elders? It’s not like they’re going to agree to come on a hunt with us. And if they did, Dad would just be on extra-good behavior and then punish us—punish you—afterward.”

  “We don’t need a hunt,” I say as the plan that’s been taking shape inside my head for the past three days clicks into place. “All we need is for one threat to make it past our borders and be imprisoned instead of killed. Dad won’t be able to leave that alone.”

  “Dad won’t let a threat get past our borders.”

  “No, but I will.”

  Before she can argue, I head out for the day’s scouting mission with one goal in mind: find someone worth taking as a prisoner. Someone Dad won’t be able to resist trying to kill no matter who’s watching.

  Chapter Seven

  Two days later, I get my wish. Once again, I’ve spent my day scouting to the south of the village. The afternoon sun softens the chill in the air, though my fingers still ache with cold as I sit in an enormous white cypress holding the book of poems in my hands while I eat the chunk of bread I packed for my lunch. I’m engrossed in a poem about a dreamlike land filled with lotuses when the woods suddenly fall silent around me.

  Someone else is here.

  Quietly, I lay the book aside and pull my legs beneath me so that I’m crouching high up in the center of the tree, looking down on the forest below. A whisper of sound drifts from my right, and as I turn my head I catch movement. Instantly, I run the length of a thick, twisted branch, my footsteps landing silently out of long practice, and then leap onto the back of a tall, broad-shouldered man as he passes beneath me.

  He doesn’t drop to the ground as most threats do when I land on them from above. Instead, he slams a boot into the dirt for balance and twists his upper body, trying to use my own momentum against me.

  I let him.

  When he flings me around to face him, my knife is already at his throat, the blade catching against his skin until a thin red welt forms.

  He goes still.

  I look him over. Red hair, pale, freckled skin, and gray eyes watching me with steady confidence that belies the fact that I’ve got him at a disadvantage. This isn’t a highwayman who will attack with frantic force, lacking strategy and finesse. This isn’t an innocent traveler terrified to encounter someone who seems intent on robbing him at the very least.

  This is a man who knows how to take care of himself and who understands that panic is his enemy.

  “If I’ve blundered into somewhere I shouldn’t be, I’ll leave quietly and never come back,” he says calmly, raising his hands, palms out, to show me he means no harm.

  Or to distract me from his next defensive move.

  “I don’t want to kill you.” The words surprise me as much as they seem to surprise him.

  His brow rises. “I don’t want you to kill me either.”

  “But I can’t just let you leave.”

  His cloak opens as he raises his arms farther, and I see the golden talon patch on his left shoulder. He’s a courier. From the city-state of Baalboden, several weeks’ journey to the northeast. He follows the direction of my gaze, and the lines around his eyes tighten.

  “Are you the courier everyone is looking for?” I ask, my muscles tensing in case he decides to attack or flee.

  He studies me in silence for a moment, and then says, “You don’t look like a bounty hunter.”

  “I’m not. I’m part of the protection team for my village.”

  “I’m not a threat to your village.” His gaze is open.

  My laugh is sharp and bitter. “Everyone who has the misfortune of wandering too near our borders is considered a threat. And if there’s a threat, I handle it.”

  “By killing them?” the man asks, his voice still calm and steady.

  My voice is just as calm. “Not if I don’t have to.”

  His eyes meet mine, and I feel as if he’s taking my measure. Dad does the same thing when he thinks I’m in danger of not following his orders, and I always end up feeling that I’ve been found wanting. Somehow this man’s scrutiny makes me feel as if he’s decided to treat me like his equal. I’ve never been treated like an equal. It’s both gratifying and somewhat unsettling to see something other than fear or contempt on another man’s face.

  “My name is Jared Adams. I mean no harm to your village.” His gaze stays locked on mine. “I usually travel to and from Rowansmark much farther east than this. I didn’t realize I was trespassing, and I’m happy to turn around and disappear from your woods forever.”

  “Why are you so far from your usual path?”

  He hesitates, but I get the sense that it’s because he’s figuring out how to explain something to me, not because he’s searching for a lie. “There’s been a misunderstanding. I need to fix it without being caught by Rowansmark, and they’ll be looking for me on my usual route.”

  “You’re accused of being a thief.”

  His speaks with absolute conviction. “I didn’t steal anything. I have a daughter in Baalboden. Rachel. It’s just the two of us. She needs my protection. She needs me to come home. I would never do anything to jeopardize her. I’m being accused of something I didn’t do, and I’m trying to figure out how to make it right so that I can go home again. I’m not a threat to you, I promise.”

  I believe him. But I also believe that the courier who is wanted by Rowansmark and whose capture would result in immense wealth is exactly the kind of prisoner my father wouldn’t be able to resist. His fury that a courier made it past our borders—a wanted courier, at that—and his greed for either the reward or whatever Jared supposedly stole from Rowansmark would overcome him.

  “I can’t let you go,” I say. “Yet. I can’t let you go yet. We’ve already had issues with bounty hunters in the area.” If a six-hour journey away can be called in the area. “The village elders need to question you.”

  A muscle in his jaw bunches. “I won’t give them the item Rowansmark says I stole. If that’s your plan, then you and I are going to have to fight this out right here.”

  His hands are still raised, but something changes in his stance, and an answering thrum of adrenaline races through me.

  “I don’t want to fight you,” I say. “I don’t want to take another life, but—”

  “Son, I’ve been fighting for my life longer than you’ve been alive. If we fight—”

  “If we fight, you’ll die.” My voice is weary. “I’ll see your moves before you make them. I’ll counter them before you’ve figured out your own mistakes. I’ll move faster than you think I can. I’ll strike with precision and force, and you’ll be on your knees, already dying by the time you realize you should beg for the mercy I’m not allowed to show.”

  A frown digs in between his brows. “You’re very sure of yourself.”

  The fury I keep pent up inside of me heats my words. “Torture and bloodshed are an instinct that’s been honed in me since I could walk. I’m sure of my abilities. I’m also sure that you don’t have to die. You can go home to your daughter. You simply have to come to the village as my prisoner and meet with the elders.”

  “And if they decide not to let me go?”

  I hold his gaze and will him to hear the sincerity in my voice. “Then I’ll release you myself. I’ll protect you, and I’ll get you out.”

&n
bsp; He studies me in silence for a long moment while above us, bright-red cardinals flit from branch to branch, chirruping in the wintry air. Finally, he says, “Why are you really taking me as your prisoner? You could let me go, and the elders would never even know I was here. Or you could ask me questions yourself without risking that the elders will want to keep me indefinitely, or worse, turn me over to Rowansmark.”

  I find myself wanting to give him the truth. Maybe because, unlike my father, he looks at me with respect. Maybe because any violence within him is so tightly controlled, even I can’t find it. Or maybe because I’m about to use what I think is a good man as bait to take down a monster, and it feels disrespectful to keep him completely in the dark.

  “I need a prisoner worthy of the elders’ attention,” I say. “Just for tonight. I have to prove to them that there’s a better way to protect our village than mindlessly slaughtering any strangers who come near.”

  He holds my gaze as I slowly remove the knife from his throat. “What’s your name?”

  “Quinn Runningbrook.”

  “Well, Quinn Runningbrook, it seems I can either fight to the death in the middle of this forest or choose to trust that you are a boy who keeps his word.” He lowers his arms and then extends one hand toward me. “Because you could’ve killed me when you first dropped from that tree, and because I believe that you’re honestly trying to do the right thing, I’m going to trust you.”

  Gingerly I take his hand and shake it, bracing for any sudden moves on his part. His trust feels like an unexpected gift, and it makes me uneasy. What if I’m wrong about the elders? About Dad?

  Feeling like the freedom I want to gain for Willow and myself is balanced on the edge of a precipice, I hold my knife loosely in my hand and walk Jared toward the village.

  We’re nearly to the border when Dad drops from a tree and snarls, “What do you think you’re doing?”

  His eyes are locked on Jared, and his knife is already in his hands. We’re too far from the village to hope for an audience, and even if there were a few people on the outer walkway who could see us, only the elders have the power to stop my father. My plan is falling to pieces around me.