The Last Huntsman: A Snow White Retelling

by Page Morgan

  “She died in Pendrak, you nugget brain.”

  “Three days. They say Frederic will be in Klaven in just three days. Leading the soldiers himself.”

  “There are dozens of border villages like ours. He might not come here first. We might have time.”

  “Time for what? How can we withstand an attack?”

  “Pendrak will send soldiers, I’m certain of it.”

  More arguments notched the noise level. I leaned against the edge of the building and rested my forehead against a wall of rough stone. There were dozens of border villages, yes, but Rooks Hollow was the closest to Yort. If Frederic planned to invade—and I knew he did—this village would not be left untouched. And he was leading the soldiers himself.

  Blood rushed through my ears, drowning the hectic noise in the street. Yes, this was exactly what I needed. I would not be going to Yort to find him.

  The emperor would come to me.

  I slipped back into the darkened alley, a plan finally forming. I’d nearly reached the opening into the meadow when a clear voice tunneled down the alleyway: “You can’t keep avoiding me, Everett. I think it’s time we talked about what you really are.”

  13

  Ever

  Bram grabbed my arm and yanked me to a stop in the alley between the tavern and Vlask’s lace shop.

  “Let go.” I twisted from his grasp and tried to run to the open meadow. Bram slid into my path.

  “Everett, stop. I just want to talk to you.”

  “I’m busy.” I glanced toward the main road, wondering if I should try to run in that direction.

  “No, you’re not,” Bram said. “I’m tired of all this pretending. You know that I know.”

  I could barely see him. The adjoining roofs of the tavern and lace shop created a barrier to any last drop of dusk.

  “You don’t know anything.” My voice shook. Worse, it had been my real voice.

  Bram laughed. “This thing between us will be easier if you admit the truth.”

  Thing? What thing? I took a few backward steps. But once again, he darted across my path.

  “I saw you.” The intensity of his stare gave off heat. “Out back of the barn. Men don’t piss squatting down, Everett.”

  My heart streamed out in unsteady thumps, and my cheeks warmed over.

  “Just leave me alone,” I said. Bram clutched my arm.

  “I want to know why. Why you’ve always pretended to be…this,” he said. “Does Ben force you to?”

  My muscles tensed with the urge to stomp his feet. I hated that he knew, that I’d been so careless as to be seen out back of the barn. I hated that he’d brought up my father. Bram knew nothing—absolutely nothing.

  “I’m not going to tell you anything. Just let it go.”

  His chin dipped. “I can’t.”

  “Why? It has nothing to do with you.” And it never would. How was I going to make him see that?

  “Now that I’ve seen what you are, I can’t stop”—he stepped closer so that his breath moistened my ear—“thinking about you. Looking at you.”

  I remembered all of his invasive stares, and cringed.

  “I didn’t make you look at me,” I said, embarrassed. “I don’t owe you anything, Bram.”

  I tried to move past him again, but his fingers closed over my wrists. The huntsman had done the same thing earlier, but his fingers had felt like lightning. Bram’s were fleshy chains.

  “Let go.” I struggled to roll my wrist free.

  “Tell me.”

  “No!”

  There was a flutter of movement in my peripheral vision. Down the dark alley, something stirred.

  “I won’t expose you, just tell me. Maybe I can help.”

  I turned back to Bram, ready to say I didn’t need, or want, his help. I gasped a ragged breath—a face hovered behind Bram’s shoulder.

  And then he collapsed, soundlessly, at my feet. His body thudded against the dirt and just as quickly, disappeared into the depths of the alley. The huntsman leaped forward and grasped my hand.

  “Let’s go,” he said, pulling me toward the meadow.

  “What did you do to him?” I looked back, my feet tangling together as we ran. He steadied me, but didn’t slow.

  “He’s just unconscious,” he answered.

  The barn was a black mass in the center of the meadow. We barreled toward it.

  “You weren’t supposed to follow me!”

  The huntsman flung us inside the barn and closed the double doors. We stood in blackness, his boots scruffing back and forth over the wooden planks.

  “Bram knows to look for me here. When he wakes, he’ll come here first,” I said, wanting light. My fingers made contact with the cool glass lamp near the door, but I changed my mind. If the barn was dark, Bram might first try the tavern.

  “What were you thinking?” I ran my sweaty palm across my forehead. “How long until he wakes up?”

  He exhaled loudly. “He’s probably already awake.”

  I started toward the doors. “If I meet him in the meadow he might not come into the barn.”

  I tried to push open the doors, but they wouldn’t budge. My hands slipped upward and met his. The huntsman was holding the doors closed. How had he moved so quickly?

  “He was getting angry, Everett. If you’d kept fighting him, he would have hurt you.”

  I tried to peel back his fingers and force him to release the handles. No luck. But he let go and drew me away from the doors.

  “Honestly, I think he was only going to try to kiss me,” I said, thankful I couldn’t see his face.

  He released my shoulders. “It didn’t look like it would have been a very pleasant kiss.”

  “He wouldn’t have thought so either, when I kneed him in the groin.”

  The huntsman laughed softly. But I could almost feel the moment he grew serious again. “He’s dangerous.”

  I agreed. Especially now. “If Bram finds you here…”

  “I’ll hide. You should get to the tavern. At least there your father can keep you safe.”

  The tavern. The crowds would have dispersed in that direction, and my father hadn’t seen me for hours.

  “I do need to go,” I said reluctantly. This time he didn’t stop me from opening the doors. “And you should know there are rumors that your emperor plans to invade Klaven.”

  The huntsman said nothing. He had moved from the barn’s entrance, out of sight.

  “Your emperor is said to be leading the soldiers himself,” I added. Another lapse of silence suggested he’d already climbed to the loft. He did move stealthily. But then his gravelly voice came from the black recesses of the barn.

  “He is no longer my emperor.”

  An hour before sunrise, I sat up in bed and rubbed the grit of sleep from my eyes, still relieved. Bram hadn’t shown his face at the tavern all night.

  I pulled on a pair of trousers and took up the wide, red sash from my bedpost. While I bound my chest, I thought of the mysterious huntsman, and how he’d appeared in the alley so quietly. And then Bram had been unconscious without a single punch thrown. I didn’t understand how.

  The kitchen was cold, the hearth still at rest. I crossed the dewy meadow with a few slices of bread, a bowl of wild berries, and a half pint of goat milk. The night had not been warm, and passing it alone and in the dark must have made it feel even longer and colder.

  Nessa’s bell clanged as she lumbered toward me inside her grazing paddock. I rubbed her snout before she jerked it away and returned to her feast of grass.

  Ignoring the hens, I climbed to the loft. Briefly, I worried the huntsman might still be asleep. But already I doubted he would allow someone to sneak up on him.

  At the sight of the loft, the rest of the world ground to a halt. It was empty. The quilt was neatly folded atop the grain barrel, along with the clothes he had borrowed. I set down the bowl of berries and ran my hand over the soft quilt; cold and damp. He’d been gone for some time.r />
  I didn’t understand. Perhaps Bram had come to the barn. Had they had some kind of encounter? The idea passed. The huntsman would have come out the victor, not the one who had to flee.

  I fought the deflating sensation inside my chest. I hadn’t even worked up the courage to ask him about Princess Mara. The princess had been thinking of him the night before she was killed, and after seeing him, and then meeting him…after he’d performed such a stealthy rescue in the alleyway the night before…I think I understood why. There was something captivating about the huntsman.

  I uncapped the jar of milk and drank it. The loft seemed too quiet. But what other outcome could there have been? With Frederic rumored to be coming, he wouldn’t want to be anywhere nearby.

  I pulled off the canvas covering the mirror and sat down. I ate the crusty bread and a few berries, staring at the glass. I could ask. The mirror could show me where he’d gone.

  I didn’t ask, though. It would have been desperate and pathetic, and anyhow it was better that he’d moved on. He was of Morvansk. He claimed he’d renounced his emperor, but could a marked Morvansk servant ever really be trusted?

  I covered the mirror once again, not wanting to see the huntsman. Not wanting to see anything at all.

  14

  Tobin

  Volk’s was by far the busiest establishment along the main road in Rooks Hollow. A large, egg-shaped rock propped open the front door, and inside, the tables were rimmed with men, shoulder-to-shoulder. I straightened my injured arm as I climbed the porch steps, biting back a grimace at the pain.

  Ever was somewhere behind the wall of people, most likely tending the taps and serving drinks. I’d felt bad leaving without word the night before, but hiding in the loft put her in danger. If I needed to stay in Rooks Hollow—and I did—I needed to do it in the open.

  I paused by the door. The six-inch blade in each of my boots steadied me as the crowd started to take notice of the stranger standing within the entrance. I’d suspected that an outsider entering the village on the brink of Frederic’s invasion would not be met with warm, open greetings, and it was exactly as I’d anticipated. The stream of conversation died, and heads and eyes swiveled in my direction.

  I made my way to the bar. Each stool was occupied, so I carved a narrow space for myself at the corner. A moment later, the hum of chatter started to resume.

  Down the glossy oak bar, the valves on the tapped kegs were being manned by, well…not a boy. Ever kept her profile to me, the brim of her cap hiding her eyes, and the kerchief still tied around her neck. That item was probably vital. I’d lay down a hefty wager that her neck was slender and feminine. I shouldn’t have wanted to see it as much as I did.

  A man stood beside Ever and matched her height. Her father, I assumed. Though his eyes were rooted on me, he took wary, sluggish steps toward my corner. The inked M on my shoulder seemed to throb.

  “Is there something you want, traveler?”

  Ale or anything harder would dim my focus. Besides, I had to reserve the money I had. The brigands in the field had taken Mara’s coin purse, but before that, I’d transferred a small amount inside a hidden trouser pocket.

  “Do you let rooms?” I asked.

  Ever’s father looked down the slope of his nose at me. His moment of hesitation gave me my answer. They did have rooms, and he was simply trying to decide whether or not to give me one of them.

  “Where are you from?” he asked. I’d spent the day perfecting my story, but it suddenly seemed riddled with holes. And my inked arm continued to burn.

  “Seleni,” I answered. It was a slightly larger town in Klaven, about three days west of Rooks Hollow. I’d been there once, on orders.

  “What’s in Rooks Hollow for you?” he asked.

  “Nothing that I know of yet,” I answered simply.

  A story, any story, too intricately laid would be as suspicious as giving no story at all.

  On the opposite end of the bar, Ever delivered a mug of dark red ale to a man. Her brilliant eyes lifted to mine on her way back to the taps. She looked terrified, and a deep twinge knocked around in my stomach. I wanted to reassure her, but she immediately turned away.

  “You listening, traveler?” Her father snapped his burly fingers in front of my nose. I’d missed what he’d been saying.

  “Sorry, I’m a bit road weary,” I answered. He scowled, but I could see by the way he slowly released a pent up breath that he wasn’t ready to toss me out just yet.

  “The room’s a storg a night,” he finally said. “A quarter storg for food and drink.”

  I nodded, and he shuffled back toward Ever, thrusting a thumb in my direction. Her fingers slipped off the lever of the tap once while she drew out my ale. She was wearing a boxy jacket, cropped at the hip, which gave her no figure whatsoever. Her wrist trembled slightly as she walked the mug of ale over and set it on the bar top. I laid a quarter storg flat beside the mug.

  “Thank you,” I said, barely loud enough to be heard above the tavern’s conversation, and the lively notes of gusli and svirel music.

  “You’re welcome,” she whispered, and then hurried back to the taps for the next order.

  I sat on the barstool the rest of the night, eating a spicy stew and nursing my ale. No one spoke to me as I sat, the hours ticking by. Ever continued pulling drinks, running out orders to tables, and enduring biting remarks from her father when she walked too slowly or spilled. The way he growled at her made me wonder if he raised his hand to her. He obviously wanted her to pretend to be a boy. Did he discipline her the way most fathers disciplined their sons? The pit of my stomach churned at the possibility.

  By the time Ever closed the front doors to Volk’s and locked the bolt, my vision was hot and dry, my throat parched. I’d stretched out my drink for too long.

  “Everett,” her father, whom I learned was called Ben, shouted from the kitchen. “Show the traveler to his room.”

  No one had bothered to ask me my name. Most likely, they were all hoping I’d be gone by tomorrow.

  Ever readjusted her cap and waved for me to follow. For the first time in hours, I stood and found my legs had fallen asleep. The prickles and tingling set in as I trailed Ever up the stairs in the wake of the shadows cast by her oil lamp. She led me in silence past one door, and a little further down, another. The third door was ajar. She gestured for me to go in. The room was only large enough to hold a slim, four-poster bed, a bureau, a curtained window, and an oval, braided rug.

  The door closed behind me, but the oil lamplight stayed. I turned. Ever was inside, holding the knob in her free hand, her knuckles white.

  “What are you doing here?” she asked. “Are you insane? Everyone who was in the tavern tonight probably thinks you’re a spy from Morvansk.” She took a ragged breath. “If my father discovers where you’re from, if he learns about your tattoo... What were you thinking?”

  I shrugged out of my coat and laid it on the bed. My arm blazed with pain, but I tried not to let Ever see it.

  “I need to stay in Rooks Hollow right now,” I said. She tipped her head, assessing me.

  “Because of Emperor Frederic?”

  I nodded.

  She closed her eyes and leaned back against the door. The glow from her lamp lit the underside of her chin.

  “Your father,” I said cautiously, recalling the way Ben’s every word to Ever that night had caused her to flinch and cower. “Are you afraid of him?”

  I didn’t like how the question nagged at me. I shouldn’t care about anything other than killing Frederic.

  Ever opened her eyes and leveled me with a stare so bleak it ground my breath to a halt. “No. No, he’d never hurt me. He’s just…angry.”

  She crossed the small room, past me, and pulled the curtain to look into the black night. “He loves me,” she said, her voice small. “In his own way. The only way he knows how.”

  She let the curtain fall into place. “This wasn’t the life he wanted. Me, dressed as
a boy. Him, covering it up for sixteen years.”

  Sixteen years living life as a boy. It seemed impossible that it had worked.

  “Then why did he choose it?” I asked.

  Ever took off her cap and slapped it against her thigh. Her short brown hair was glossy in the lamplight, wisps of flattened curls reaching out to frame her face.

  She was unexpectedly beautiful.

  “It’s…it’s too complicated,” she said, and then noticed me staring at her. Her expression tightened. “And I don’t know you. I can’t trust you.”

  Ever stormed past me. I caught her elbow, but I’d grabbed her with my injured arm and couldn’t hold back a grunt of pain.

  “The stitches,” she said. “Are they healing?”

  I hadn’t checked since that morning when I’d dunked my arm in a silt-caked stream. If I told her that, she might ask to see them. I didn’t want her to do anything so intimate just now. Especially not when I couldn’t stop thinking about how pretty she was.

  “Your father will be wondering where you are.” I released her. It jolted her into motion, and she went for the door again.

  “There’s water there.” She nodded toward the ceramic ewer and bowl on the bureau.

  Ever closed the door behind her, leaving me the oil lamp. I sat on the edge of the bed, unbuttoned my shirt, and listened through the floorboards as her father spouted off at her for taking so long, and to clean up the bar. This wasn’t the life he wanted. Meaning what? That he’d had been forced into raising Ever this way? Disguising her?

  I tossed my shirt aside to unwrap my stained bandage when I realized something: Ben Volk was hiding his daughter from someone. Who? And what would happen if whoever it was found her?

  15

  Ever

  The huntsman wanted to kill the emperor. He didn’t need to spell it out for me. He’d decided to stay in Rooks Hollow to lay some kind of trap for Frederic when he and his soldiers swept through. If my father knew the young man boarding under his roof planned to ensnare the very person we’d been hiding from my entire life, there was no telling what he’d do. Kick him into the street? Collaborate? I hadn’t even determined what I wanted yet.