by Page Morgan
THE LAST HUNTSMAN
Page Morgan
Contents
1. Tobin
2. Ever
3. Tobin
4. Ever
5. Tobin
6. Ever
7. Tobin
8. Tobin
9. Ever
10. Tobin
11. Ever
12. Tobin
13. Ever
14. Tobin
15. Ever
16. Tobin
17. Ever
18. Tobin
19. Ever
20. Tobin
21. Ever
22. Tobin
23. Ever
24. Tobin
25. Ever
26. Tobin
27. Ever
28. Tobin
29. Ever
30. Tobin
31. Ever
32. Tobin
33. Ever
34. Tobin
35. Ever
36. Tobin
37. Ever
38. Tobin
39. Ever
Acknowledgments
Also by Page Morgan
About the Author
Copyright © 2019 by Angie Frazier
Second Edition 2020
* * *
www.PageMorganBooks.net
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All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof
may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
* * *
First Printing, 2019
Print ISBN: 978-1-7336820-2-2
Digital ISBN: 978-1-7336820-3-9
For my daughters,
Alex, Joslin, and Willa
1
Tobin
This was a mistake.
I knew it the moment she entered her bedchamber.
The drapes closing off the alcove inside Princess Mara’s rooms moved in a breeze from the open balcony. I’d been hiding behind them for a quarter hour, measuring the minutes by the slide of the setting sun as it burned through the coral silk. At last, she had arrived. The hilt of my sword slipped in my hand. I shouldn’t have come. I should have refused the order.
Mara’s shadow rippled along the drapes, and I held my breath as other voices broke the quiet. The princess wasn’t alone. I hadn’t expected her to be. She spoke softly to her handmaids, ordering them to take their leave for the night. All part of the plan. Her note that morning instructed me to arrive unseen and wait until after dinner.
In all the years I had known Mara, never once had she beckoned me for a meeting like this. I’d crossed paths with her in the fortress corridors countless times, and every now and then, even been welcomed into her sitting room, especially if she had a book she wanted to pass on to me. But Mara had never before ordered me to her side.
The note weighed on me all day, my mind carefully sorting through the possible things she could want to discuss. It would not be a book, that much I knew.
I closed my eyes, irritated by the lack of information. Irritated I’d followed her orders at all. I obeyed Emperor Frederic—not his daughter.
As the handmaids shuffled into the antechamber, I tightened the muscles along my spine and lowered my shoulders. A moment later, the arched oak door groaned shut. Only one pair of footsteps returned.
Her silhouette showed on the drapes again, and a hand parted the silk. Princess Mara stepped inside the alcove. Her height and the raven’s wing black of her hair were the only traits she had inherited from the emperor. Where his skin was ruddy, hers was pale. Where his eyes looked like the stone of the fortress walls, hers were a soft brown. She looked at me now, and I fought the urge to shift my footing. Most people in the fortress didn’t dare look me in the eye.
“My lady.”
She let out a long sigh. “I’m sorry to have kept you waiting, Huntsman.”
It would be a lie to say I didn’t like my title. Huntsman had strength. It gave me authority most men in Morvansk didn’t have, though I’d paid a steep price for it. Once, Mara had asked for my real name. Huntsman, I’d replied. At the fortress, that’s what I was. Her exasperated sigh had reminded me of my mother, who’d become used to biting her tongue when I showed up at home with bruises or gashes. Better not to know, Mother would mumble.
“You summoned me, my lady?” I said, eager to get on with things.
She hesitated another moment. Mara, though quiet and reserved, and often overlooked, had a sharp intellect. She was perceptive, too. Somehow, she’d known I would be interested in reading the books and scrolls that filled her sitting room’s shelves. And though I assured her with every book I returned that I’d enjoyed it, she’d know when I was being honest, and when I was only being polite.
“I am aware of the truth,” she finally said. “You do more than just hunt game for the emperor’s dinners.”
There had been many rumors at court over the last eight years about my true profession. It wasn’t surprising that Princess Mara had heard them. I stayed silent. I wouldn’t tell her she was wrong when she wasn’t.
She pursed her lips and pressed me with a defiant glare. “The emperor orders you to rid Morvansk of its burdens, does he not?”
Mara never addressed Frederic as “Papa” or “Father” the way her elder sisters always had. At five years my senior, she was twenty-four, and the youngest of his children remaining in the fortress. Despite that, she wasn’t doted on. Emperor Fredric didn’t dote on anything or anyone.
“I follow his orders, yes.” I had permission to hunt his protected forests. I also had permission to hunt and kill Morvansk enemies when the emperor so ordered it.
But I didn’t have permission to be here, inside his daughter’s bedchamber.
“I wish for you to follow mine as well,” she said.
My boots scraped the stone floor as I stepped away. “I work for none but the emperor.”
“But I am the princess.”
“It’s not enough. I cannot help you, I’m sorry.” I bowed quickly and stepped around her.
Her hand caught my elbow. “But Huntsman, we are friends—”
“I do not keep friends at the fortress, my lady. You’ve been kind to me, and for that I thank you. But I cannot be your huntsman.”
I sensed her disappointment as she quickly released my arm. But she was stubborn.
“I admire your loyalty to the emperor. I wish for your loyalty, as well.” Though she sounded composed, Mara’s breathing had turned uneven. I’d learned to pay attention to the cadence of a person’s breathing. It always changed the moment they realized they were about to die. But Mara didn’t need to be afraid of me.
“You do have my loyalty, as a subject,” I answered. “But nothing more.”
I slipped through the drapes and out of the alcove. The corridor was not an option—the handmaids would be waiting there, in case the princess changed her mind and beckoned them back in to help her undress for the night. I moved to the balcony. Removing myself from precarious situations had been part of my training. Being within the princess’s chamber, meeting in this private way…I’d already anticipated the danger in it.
“Huntsman, wait.” Mara burst out of the alcove behind me. “The emperor has arranged for me to meet with the Prince of Klaven next week.” She glanced over her shoulder, toward the antechamber, and added quietly, “A betrothal meeting. But I don’t believe he truly wants to unite with Klaven through a marriage.”
I’d been sent to the neighboring empire of Klaven three times to keep order. That was what Frederic called my duties: keeping order.
/> On the balcony, lanterns smoked along the balustrade and blinded me to the moat below. I grabbed hold of the stone railing and planted my feet firmly on the edge.
“You are more than old enough to marry, my lady,” I said. Then, realizing it might have sounded disrespectful, added, “And the Klaven prince is a suitable match for you.”
“Please!” Her voice faltered. “I realize we are not friends, as I thought. I am sure I don’t know you at all. Not even your real name. But I…I believe I can trust you.”
I smothered a low bark of laughter while I felt for crevices in the exterior fortress wall. Trust me? I should have never taken those books from her. I shouldn’t have humbled myself by asking her to explain some of the more complicated texts, or allowed her help with a handful of assignments from my own tutors.
“All I want is information you might be privy to,” Mara said. “Killing isn’t in your nature, Huntsman. I can see that when you look at me.”
I licked my lips and found a foothold in the wall. The next balcony up belonged to an unoccupied guest chamber. Once inside, I would make my way to the emperor’s hidden passageway through the fortress. It led to the dungeons, where I could exit properly.
I needed to push her away. And I knew how. “The two-dozen men I’ve killed in the name of the emperor might feel differently about that.”
She didn’t gasp as I’d imagined she would. But she did stay quiet. I’d shocked her, then. Good.
“I’m not privy to information, only orders,” I went on, quietly so my voice wouldn’t carry. “And killing is all that I am.”
I climbed, one foothold leading to the next, cursing myself. I’d let the princess get too close. Yet not close enough, if she actually believed I’d have information about this business with the Prince of Klaven and a possible union between the two empires.
The truce between Morvansk and Klaven had been in place for less than a decade, the scabs from the last war still thin. Klaves and Mors were uneasy with one another, though the killing had stopped. For the most part, at least. A marriage between the two empires could be a good thing. Though what did I know? A huntsman didn’t belong in the emperor’s inner circle where such topics were discussed.
I was merely one of Frederic’s useful tools.
I reached the next balcony and pulled myself up, then peered over the balustrade. The princess’s shadow spread like an ink stain over the stones of her terrace. I’d disappointed her. It had always been bound to happen. I went inside, regretting the last ten minutes. I’d failed to keep in mind another thing I’d learned over the years: The less I knew, the better.
2
Ever
The tavern smelled like smoke and spilled ale. I ran a wet cloth down the bar, wiping away the crumbs and smudged fingerprints I’d overlooked at midnight when Father booted out the last patron and locked the door. Sunlight streamed through the front windows now, showing me everything I’d missed: a puddle of ale, a dried splatter of candle wax, slivered nutshells on a bar stool. It had to be cleaned up before Father came downstairs. I didn’t want to suffer his foul mood this early in the day.
The front door rattled as I dunked the mop into a bucket behind the bar.
“Piss off! We don’t open until noon,” I shouted. As if the knacker didn’t know. Volk’s was the only tavern in Rooks Hollow, and we never opened our door before the sun hit the center of the sky. It gave the drunks a few hours to sleep off and sweat out whatever they’d had the night before, and it gave me time to clean up after them.
The door rattled again, shaking the tasseled drapes over the windowpane. Any louder and the idiot would bring Father downstairs in a fit of fury. Taking the mop with me, I went to the door and drew back one drape. The scowl on my lips creased even deeper.
“What do you want?” I asked in the husky voice I used whenever I was around anyone other than my father.
Bram Nikols stood behind the beveled glass. He had a brown tweed coat thrown over one of his big shoulders and a sly grin firmly in place.
“That’s not the kind of hospitality I expect from Volk’s.”
Bram shouldn’t expect anything at all. I never showed him hospitality, period.
“Well,” he said. “Are you going to let me in?”
“What for?” I asked through the glass. My father hadn’t bothered to instill manners in me. Tavern boys didn’t need them, and that’s what I was. At least, that’s what I was to everyone who didn’t look too closely.
Bram was not one of those people. Lately, he’d begun looking at me in a way others didn’t. A way that made my skin burn, especially when his eyes slid up and down my figure, as if searching for something. And that made me angry.
“I’m thirsty,” he answered.
“Go find a trough.” I dropped the drapes on the charming smile he’d taken to flashing me.
A full minute passed before I heard him leave the porch steps. I mopped up the spilled ale, scraped the cold wax, and swept away the nutshells before my father stomped downstairs, fastening the top three buttons on his shirt. I set out his mug of ale before he could even glance his usual good morning scowl my way.
“Bean stew tonight,” he grumbled as he took his mug and disappeared into the back room.
I followed, relieved the fire in the stove had taken and the kitchen was warm. My father liked it sweltering. The heat repulsed visitors, and keeping people away was something Ben Volk worked hard to perfect. He sat in one of the chairs at our small table, sipped his morning ale, and took a roll of storgs from his pocket.
“In with the rest,” he ordered, letting the blue and orange papers unravel on the table.
I picked them up, the paper soft and worn, and went to the lock box, set snugly between the larder and the butchering block.
“There’s nearly enough in there for you now. It will have to be done soon,” he said, wrinkling his nose. “You’re even beginning to smell like a girl. Damn it, what do you do, secret away scent?”
I slammed the lock box shut. “I smell as bad as you!”
He set his mug on the round shelf of his belly. “I smell like a man. Boys smell like sweat and dirt and anger. Girls smell like…like a garden. You smell like a blasted garden, Ever.”
He’d been hurling the same insults for weeks. My eyes were too round, my lashes too thick. The cloth binding my breasts wasn’t working the same way anymore, and my hips were beginning to flare. It seemed he was determined to blame me for being born a girl instead of the boy he’d pretended to raise for the last sixteen years.
“It will have to be done soon,” he repeated before draining his mug with a long slurp. He was going to send me away. He’d always planned to. The truth would be impossible to hide forever.
“I’ll be in the barn,” I said.
I grabbed my field cap from the peg next to the back door and stepped into the worn pair of mucking boots. The field behind the tavern rolled with morning mist, curling into fingers that reached for the sky. Our field, wide and long, sloped gently westward toward far off hills, and east toward the dense forest. Rooks Hollow was one of the dozens of farming villages in Klaven, and though I didn’t particularly love it here, I also didn’t want to be sent away. If I left, I wanted to leave because I chose to go.
I opened a paddock gate and sunk to my ankles in wet mud. Nessa, our heifer, acknowledged me with a lazy turn of her head, and moaned through a mouthful of cud.
“It’s rude to speak with your mouth full,” I said, and kicked off the soles of my boots on one of the lower clapboards. Inside the barn came the clucking of laying hens. Hilda stuck her long, graceful neck over the stall door.
“Hello to you,” I said softly as I ran my hand up the mare’s velvet snout, then shifted behind her twitchy ears.
Here in the barn, I let my voice rise to its natural pitch. The animals didn’t care if I was a boy or a girl, and my father never came out here. The animals were my responsibility, and the barn was like my own home of sorts. After mucki
ng Hilda’s stall, spreading down clean hay, and refilling her feedbag, I climbed the ladder to the loft.
Round spools of hay sat on their sides, or upright, some torn into with a pitchfork. The hay’s sweet, pungent scent tickled my nose as I walked to the corner, where the roof angled and cut toward the floor. Clearing away some of the hay, I saw the familiar water-stained canvas sheet. It had been days since I’d last climbed to the loft to see the mirror, and over two years since I’d found it in an alleyway and brought it back to the barn. My heart danced a jig against my ribs. My arm shook as I reached for a fold in the canvas. With a slight tug, the sheet fell stiffly to the floor.
A thick band of silver filigree framed the oval mirror. I tilted my head, inspecting myself. I touched my smooth cheek, where boys my age were starting to get whiskers. Next to them, I did look feminine. The delicate structure of my jaw, the thick, long lashes that gave my eyes a sleepy look, even my plump lips added to the disaster. Embarrassed, even all alone in the loft, I pressed the loose, brown linen shirt tighter against my chest. My father had been right. The rise of my breasts was not completely hidden underneath the tight binding cloth. Blood rushed to my cheeks and ears. Why was this happening now?
The lock box was nearly full of storgs. Soon, my father would start bragging how his son was going off to Pendrak, the center of Klaven, how he’d been apprenticed to a physician there. Me, a physician. Me, who couldn’t stand the sight of blood even after beheading so many chickens. I wondered if the villagers would believe my father. I wondered if they already knew the truth.
