by Page Morgan
“And your name?” I asked.
The girl hesitated long enough to make me wonder if she was also going to use a false name.
“Ever,” she answered. “My father only calls me that when no one is around. All other times, it’s Everett. Everett Volk.”
“Well, Everett Volk, I’m starving. Can you smuggle me some breakfast?”
There was no ignoring the relief that smoothed her brow when I used her boy name.
“My father runs the tavern here. I can find something easily enough.” She moved for the ladder once more. “Don’t…go anywhere.” Then, probably realizing the absurdity of the statement, she grinned.
Her head disappeared, and a moment later came the blare of chickens. Rolling the loft door aside again, I watched Ever wade through the hazy meadow to the building with the cranking chimney. My eyes strayed to her hips and rear end. Her trousers hung loose and straight, revealing nothing of her figure. Her smile, though, had been feminine. So much about her was.
I closed the loft door quietly and sat back down on the patchwork quilt. This place was better than the woods by far, and it seemed it would be my home, for a few days at least. This loft would be a perfect place for me to focus on Frederic. I didn’t care how long it took or how difficult it was, I’d eventually find a way to reach past his guards and clerics and pages—and end him.
11
Ever
My thigh slammed the edge of the table as I turned for the larder, the pulse inside my neck like smashes against a gong. He was in the loft. The loft! How had this happened? What had I done? And he knew I was a girl. He’d seen straight through to the truth.
When I’d watched him through the mirror, he hadn’t seemed real. But when I’d found him near to drowning in the Melinka, and had then felt his weight and trust against me as I’d stumbled with him back to the barn, he’d become undeniable. And he wasn’t just some nobody boy. He was a member of Frederic’s court. The inked M on his arm had nearly stopped my heart, and I’d considered bringing him back out into the woods and leaving him there. A Morvansk court member was hiding on my father’s property. I couldn’t fathom what my father would do if he discovered the huntsman.
I shoved a heel of rye bread, a wedge of waxed cheese, two crisp, green apples, and a quarter-empty jar of pumpkin butter I’d canned last fall into an old, woven potato sack. The floor behind me moaned.
“Going somewhere?” my father asked. I tied off the sack, willing the blood to flush south of my cheeks.
“Fishing.” It was a fast answer, dredged up from the time Bram asked me to join him. I had no idea why I’d thought of it.
My father scratched his neck. “You don’t fish.”
He kept me under scrutiny as he moved to the hearth and stirred the contents of a soup I’d put on that morning, pungent with mushrooms and onions.
“Besides, the search for the hound’s killer is still on in the forest. I wouldn’t discount one of those idiots mistaking you for the rogue.”
“I’ll be careful,” I said, sounding appropriately annoyed. “And anyway, I’m sick of rabbit.”
He scowled and turned back to the pot, steam misting his face. I made it outside without him arguing with me again. He’d relented, and it was beyond unusual. On any other morning I would have questioned why, but right then all I wanted was to get back to the huntsman.
My legs slowed. He’d been on Princess Mara’s mind the night before she was murdered. A huntsman should have been well beneath her notice. How had they known each other? I shook my head. It wasn’t my business. And with the mark of Morvansk on his shoulder, it would be best if I knew nothing more.
I climbed to the loft, determined to give the huntsman shelter for just two days and then send him on his way. If Frederic did invade Klaven, having a member of his royal court under our roof would be a stupid risk.
The huntsman was crouched in the shadows of the eaves. At first sight he looked to be lacing his boot, but I then saw him push a blade back into the boot’s built-in sheath and cover it with the hem of his borrowed trousers. He straightened his legs and hitched up the pants. My father’s waistline was far wider than his.
“I didn’t expect you back so quickly,” he said in a rich, deep voice, so different than yesterday’s raspy stammering.
“I have chores to tend to.” I hoped I sounded indifferent as I crossed the loft and held out the bag. He took it with a small bow of his head. He stood with his back to the mirror. I’d cut away some of the canvas cover the day before for bandages, leaving a corner of the silver filigree frame exposed.
He opened the bag and peered in without revealing just how hungry he was; I’d heard his stomach churning earlier as I’d sewn his wound.
“Everett,” he began, closing the top, “how did you come to be in the woods yesterday? Were you hunting with the hounds?”
I hadn’t expected the question.
“Yes,” I answered after a moment, then remembered I didn’t have a hound to show him. “On my own though. I hunt on my own.”
There was a break in his earnest expression, a small twitch of his mouth. “Are the rabbit plentiful here?”
“Very,” I answered.
He wrapped the mouth of the potato sack around his good wrist. “And the quail?”
“Quail? Sure,” I said. He bit down on an amused smile. What? Couldn’t any idiot land himself a quail for dinner?
The huntsman set the bag of foraged food on the quilt, which he had neatly folded.
“Tell me what you were really doing in the forest. You don’t hunt, Everett. If you did, you’d know there aren’t any quail out there.”
Oh, perfect. I’d lied about hunting to a hunter.
The mirror’s filigree frame loomed behind him. I’d never told anyone, and definitely would not let loose with my secret with a marked Morvansk court member.
“It’s none of your business what I was doing in the forest,” I replied. “You should just count your blessings that I was, and that I saw you spinning with the current and decided not to let you drown.”
Harsh. Too harsh. I had something to hide, and he saw it clearly as he nodded and licked his lips. His top lip, I reluctantly noticed, arched into two, sharp crests. Did men usually have lips like that?
“You’re right,” he finally said. “I’m lucky you were there.”
I waited, expecting more. A “but” or “however.” It didn’t come.
“It’s your turn,” he said. I tilted my head, uncertain what he meant. “To ask a question. You removed my shirt. I assume you know what the ink on my shoulder means. You must be questioning what I was doing in a Klaven forest.”
I knew more than he was aware of. The idea of that made me feel as though I had an advantage, though I didn’t know what it was.
“You don’t owe me an explanation,” I said, even though it was the complete opposite of what I wanted.
The huntsman gently massaged his bandaged arm. “Then I suppose you don’t need to explain why you’re pretending to be a boy.”
I stepped backward. “I didn’t intend to.”
He gave no expression, no smile or frown, as I turned to descend the ladder.
“I’ll be back with more bandages later,” I said. “They need to be changed soon.”
I didn’t wait for him to nod or thank me. This huntsman’s presence in the loft excited me too much to be anything other than bad.
12
Tobin
It was four days and a night to Yort from Rooks Hollow. A twenty-foot deep moat surrounded the fortress, the bracken water overrun with weeds and stocked with eels. Two drawbridges spanned the moat, one used as a front entrance. The second drawbridge, a side entrance hidden by a copse of trees, was the one Frederic’s royal court members were instructed to use.
I would not be admitted at either of these entrances. Every guard, every attendant was probably under orders to detain me—or kill me outright—should I attempt it. Sneaking into the fortress, itse
lf a multi-tiered stone bastion constructed to withstand wave after wave of enemy attack, would not be mindless work. I needed to find a weak spot, a fissure in the fortress’s defense. Only then would I be able reach the emperor, unimpeded.
I peeled the last strip of black wax from the wedge of cheese Ever brought earlier that morning. It was sharp and dry, but it was food, and I had no right to complain.
Ever. Had she been given a girl name at birth, or was Everett all she’d known? I’d told her I didn’t need to know why she posed as a boy, and I didn’t. But I wanted to know.
How could anyone in this village look at her and not see the truth? Clothes and hair only did so much when it came to ruses. Unless she’d grown amongst them this way. If her hair had always been cropped, if she’d always dressed in trousers and shirts, it would have been easy to pass as a boy before she’d started to mature. Still, I wondered if Ever was now the object of hushed gossip.
The hens clucked their madness below the loft, and I put down the cheese. I reached for the blade sheathed in my boot. My coat had not yet been returned to me. I missed the blades rigged into the sleeves’ springing mechanisms. Felt bare without them. The ladder rattled, and I hoped the visitor was not Ever’s father. I didn’t want to hurt or kill him, but I would do what I needed to in order to stay alive long enough to find Frederic.
“Huntsman?” Ever’s soft voice carried into the loft. I lowered my trouser hem, the spike in my pulse unexpected.
“I’m here,” I answered. She came into the loft; in one hand, she balanced a brimming glass of clear liquid. In the other, my coat and clothes.
“It’s for your arm.” She gestured to the glass. “To clean it.”
Not water, then, but spirits. With the loft doors closed, the golden bath of the setting sun touched only on the owl’s roost. Still, the radiance of Ever’s green eyes managed to cut through the blue and brown shadows.
I started to unbutton the clasps on my borrowed shirt. She widened her eyes before turning to busy herself with the cloth rags she’d brought. So, she hadn’t seen an abundance of male body parts in her time as an imposter. I didn’t like making her uncomfortable, but my bandages did need changing.
“Could you trust your father with the secret of my being here?” I asked. Perhaps she’d prefer to send him up to do this instead. I tossed the shirt to the quilt, and oddly, hoped she didn’t. The fewer people who knew I was here, the better.
Ever faced me, her eyelids wildly blinking as if my bare chest was a mirror reflecting the glare of the sun.
“If my father learned you were here, he’d kill you.”
I remembered the gallows waiting for me in the village common. “Because of what happened with that hound?”
Ever smiled. How could teeth look feminine? Hers managed.
“No. He’d probably thank you for that.” She walked toward me, holding her body timidly to the side.
She reached for the blood-spotted bandage. Her fingers hesitated as she unwrapped the knot. The lightweight canvas stuck to the seam of my wound when she pulled it free.
“Then why would your father kill me?”
Her eyes hitched on the M inked into my shoulder. “Because of who you serve.”
I stopped noticing the tattoo a long time ago. At first, I’d found all kinds of reasons to show it off. I’d been certain no other fourteen-year-old in Morvansk had one. The dark ink stood out every time I took off my shirt or bathed. Always there for me to see, to remember. The novelty of it eventually faded. Unfortunately, the ink did not. With each kill, it became harder to look at the mark and not think of how I was, in fact, nothing more than a servant. The worst kind.
With my fingertip, I traced the M and the way the second foot dipped dramatically, curling into fancy scrollwork. Without warning, Ever grasped the glass and dumped the liquid onto the oozing stitches. The alcohol was a knife, slicing through muscle and bone and squeezing tears up to blur my vision.
“You can tell your father—” I blinked away the tears. “You can tell him I no longer serve Frederic.”
She dabbed my sizzling arm with a rag; each dab changed into a knuckled punch. “You want me to lie to him.”
I intercepted her hand. “It’s not a lie.”
She searched my face. I held her eyes as firmly as I did her thin wrist. Two points of color rose on the apples of her cheeks, and Ever rolled her wrist free.
“Have you been exiled, then?” she asked, and resumed cleaning the stitches with a lighter hand.
“In a sense.” I’d noticed she’d stopped lowering her voice, however it was still guarded.
“I was under the impression most people in Klaven were in favor of uniting the empires,” I said to change the subject. I dipped my chin to get a better view of her face, of the smoothness of her skin and the straight bridge of her nose.
“Many were. My father wasn’t one of them.” Ever vaulted an eyebrow. “He despises your emperor.”
She guided a new bandage around my arm. Her fingers brushed my skin on each go around with the bandage. Somehow, her inadvertent touching lessened the sting of the seeping wound.
“Then your father and I have something in common.”
Though I doubted he despised Frederic more than me. What reason could her father, a common Klave, have for such hatred?
“Everett,” I began. A shallow dimple formed on the side of her chin. So, she liked it when I addressed her by her boy name. “Why is your father so strongly against my emperor?”
My emperor. I’d said it out of habit, not loyalty. I winced as she tied off the rag.
“Why are you?” she asked.
I stooped to pick up my shirt and pulled it over my head. “He killed my family.”
I hadn’t been sure I would be able to say the reason aloud. Until then, I’d barely been able to think it.
Above us, the owl’s warble filled the heavy drop of silence. Ever stared at me, unblinking. Her chest, flattened by some kind of binding, rose up in a slow, deep breath.
“Your family? Why would he… I’m so sorry.”
My family and the princess. But to tell Ever that would serve no purpose. She knew of Mara’s death by now. She’d spoken in the past tense of how citizens of Klaven had been supportive of uniting the empires. If I told her the emperor had ordered Mara’s death, the reason I was privy to such information might come out. It would frighten her, and I didn’t want her to know who I was.
“He’s cruel,” I replied. “He thinks of no one but himself and his own power.”
“I didn’t realize he was so brutal.” Ever then cleared her throat and picked up the glass. She tucked it into her trouser pocket, where it bulged against her leg. I looked for too long at the shape of her thigh. She didn’t notice though, as something else seemed to catch her attention. She reached into her pocket and pulled something out, clasped in her fist.
“I found this in your coat pocket when I washed it.” She held out Mara’s string of pearls. I took the bracelet and quickly shoved it into my pocket. I couldn’t look at it. Not right now, with Ever watching.
“Did that belong to your mother?” she asked.
“No,” I said, more gruffly than I intended.
Ever bit her lip and averted her eyes. “I need to go. The tavern will be busy soon. I’ll come back in the morning before—”
A hail of frantic shouting interrupted her. Ever ran to the loft door and rolled it open. Dusky light fell inside the loft, and the shouting intensified.
“What is it?” I asked, worried the villagers had discovered where I was.
Ever shook her head. “I don’t know. But no one rides through the village like that with good news.”
She rolled the door back into place and started for the ladder. “Stay here. I’ll come back as soon as I can.”
I crossed the loft and stood between her and the ladder. “It’s nearly dark. If I follow at a distance—”
“If you follow me, someone will see you. In a village whe
re everyone knows everyone, you’ll be the strange face in the crowd. You’ll draw attention to yourself, and then to your arm.” She waved her hand impatiently toward it. “And if they find out I’ve been hiding you...”
A tower bell clanged a chaotic rhythm, its blare a metallic scream to all the villagers to gather.
“Why are you hiding me?” I asked. “Why take such a risk?”
She lowered her chin and pulled on the short brim of her cap. “Because you needed help.” She kept her face concealed by the brim’s shadows. Her feeble answer only caused me to wonder more.
Ever edged around me, and swung her feet onto the ladder rungs. “Please, just stay here.”
She disappeared before I could agree. I waited for the braying of the horse and fussing hens to die down before descending the ladder myself. At the entrance to the barn, I took a cautious peek around the trim. Deep blue haze mottled the view of the meadow. Perfect cover. I stepped out, not fearing the noose. The commotion building along the main road had nothing to do with me. If they’d found me, people would be swarming the barn.
A figure darted past a globe lantern fixed to the corner of a building, and then veered toward the main road. I recognized Ever’s small frame and sprinted through the meadow to follow. I understood her not wanting me to leave the barn, and her fear of my being caught. But as Frederic’s huntsman, I had learned the skill of invisibility.
Men and women passed the opening of the alleyway where I stood in the shadows. Ever had dissolved into the crowds. With my arm tucked closely against my ribs, I leaned out from the alleyway entrance. The villagers milled before a stone bell tower, sounding its last echoing gongs. I heard the voices closest to me.
“He can’t invade!”
“He won’t; he hasn’t any proof someone from Klaven murdered the princess.”
