by J. M. Page
"Robbie can probably help you with that," she choked out, inclining her head to the bird.
Hunter still looked at her, dumbfounded for a moment before he shook his head. "No, that's alright. I can clean it myself. It's nice out."
And before she could say anything else, he'd left the cabin again.
Something about him seemed... different somehow. He seemed less carefree. More scrutinizing.
Snow shifted uncomfortably on the rug in front of the fire, opening her mother's diary again. But try as she might to read it, the words swam in front of her eyes, blurring together until they were indecipherable.
"Robbie?" she called to the android.
"Yes, Princess?"
The smell of roasting meat mingled with the smoke in the air and she figured Hunter must have decided to cook the bird outside, rather than in the kitchen. Another odd thing for a merchant.
"Can I ask a favor of you?"
"Anything, Princess," the android replied.
Snow took a deep breath, feeling guilty for giving in to her apprehensions, but knowing that she'd never be able to rest otherwise.
"While I'm sleeping tonight, keep an eye on Hunter. I know I said that he's okay, but... Just in case."
The robot's eyes glowed brighter with understanding. "Protecting the Princess is my prime directive," he said.
Snow gave him a curt nod, something uneasy pulling at her stomach. "Thank you."
"Dinner's served," Hunter said, kicking the door open with more force than necessary — Snow had asked Robbie to oil the hinges after she'd tended to his own joints.
They ate dinner in silence, Snow still trying to get a read on Hunter, Hunter still as guarded as the Queen's palace. With a full belly, she could hardly keep her eyes open. She didn’t sleep well and often had trouble managing it at all, but the past few months had been brutal and for the first time she felt almost safe. As she drifted off to sleep in the room that had once belonged to her mother, she was grateful that she'd asked Robbie to keep sentinel.
Nearly a week passed in the same fashion. Snow would get up and start reading through her mother's diaries, hoping for any kind of clue. Maybe someone had visited the cottage after her death and left something for Snow? It seemed plausible enough, but she couldn't seem to find it.
Hunter spent a lot of his time in the forest, hunting for their meals and cutting wood for the fireplace in the baking blue starlight.
The days started to blur together and they kept conversation to a minimum. Despite that, Snow got the impression that Hunter was agitated, though she couldn't say why. Maybe it was just the lack of progress. The words they exchanged grew fewer and further apart and she began to wonder when he would decide to abandon her altogether.
She wouldn't blame him, of course. She'd started to lose hope herself, and as she turned the last page on the last diary, her heart heavy with emotion, she sighed. The familiar prick of unshed tears pressed against her sinuses, but even though Hunter was outside, she wouldn't set them free.
When he returned from chopping wood that afternoon, she was still in the same position. Frozen with the realization that this had all been a dead end. And now the Queen had a week's head start on preparing her defenses.
"Well?" he asked, seeing the pile of diaries next to her spot on the floor.
She only shook her head.
Hunter cursed and slammed his fist into the door, startling Snow and alarming Robbie, whose eyes flashed red.
"Step away from the Princess," he said.
"Oh, shove it. I'm not going to hurt her. I'm just frustrated," Hunter said.
Snow clutched her hands together in her lap, staring down at them. She couldn't help but feel like this was all her fault. Like she'd led them down the wrong path and maybe ruined everything. She felt foolish. Stupid and dense. She knew the answers were out there somewhere, she just wasn't clever enough to find them.
"What is the source of your frustration?" Robbie asked, his eyes reverting to the brilliant blue that mimicked the star in the sky.
"Nothing you can help with," Hunter grumbled.
Snow's brow furrowed and she stood up to better address him. "Now, that's not very fair. You don't know what Robbie's capabilities are. He might be able to tell us something."
"Yeah, and I might be able to take down the Queen with my pinkie finger," Hunter scoffed. "Sorry Princess, but you're not going to find anything here. It's a dead end."
"Have any better ideas?" she challenged.
"Maybe."
"Let's hear it then."
Hunter looked at her for a long moment, something just on the tip of his tongue, fire blazing in the molten gold of his eyes. But instead of answering her, he shook his head. "I'm going to find dinner," he grumbled, leaving without another word.
Snow growled and kicked over a stack of firewood as he fled.
"I apologize for my lack of assistance, Princess," Robbie said.
Snow sighed and hung her head. "It's not your fault, Robbie. We were just hoping to find something here."
"What sort of something?" the android asked.
She shrugged, throwing up her hands, loosening her carefully-held control in the heat of the moment. "It would probably help if I knew that." She huffed out a hopeless laugh. "I don't know what I expected, I guess. I hoped that someone would leave something for me. A secret or something."
"Have you checked the basement?" Robbie asked.
Snow's gaze snapped up to him. "What basement? Can you take me there?"
Robbie’s neck creaked as he shook his head. "I cannot go there."
"Why not? Where is it?"
He shuffled out of the room without answering her, heading down the hallway to the bedroom she'd slept in — or at least tried to sleep in — for the last week. She'd spent so much time in that room, it was hard for her to imagine she could have missed something.
But sure enough, Robbie opened the closet door, pushed aside the clothes, and slid the back wall away to reveal a door.
"The basement," he said. "I cannot go there."
Snow frowned, crowding around him in the tiny space to get a better look at the door. "How do I...?"
Robbie took her wrist gently and lifted her hand, pressing her palm flat against the face of the door. The spot under her hand warmed and tingled before she heard a dull click and it hissed open.
Snow pushed the door open a bit more, the dim light that made its way through the closet just enough to see a spiral staircase disappearing into blackness. She looked back at Robbie, his huge frame hunched in the narrow closet.
"I cannot go there," he repeated.
Snow nodded. "Okay, just wait in the bedroom," she said, fumbling for a light switch she couldn't find. Once she stepped through the door, a soft glow followed her, tiny spotlights by her feet illuminating every step downward.
Her skin prickled and the air grew cold as she descended. Snow didn't know what to expect, but she couldn't quash the hope that this was the break they'd been waiting for. That she'd been waiting for. She still wasn't sure Hunter was going to stick around much longer. She wasn't sure she wanted him to.
At the base of the stairs, another light clicked on and Snow was faced with a console of monitors, like some sort of security room. She trailed her fingers over the dusty dormant surfaces and they all came alive under her fingers.
Lights shone through the glass monitors, but they didn't display anything. She'd expected there to be views of the outside of the cottage. Some kind of monitoring system against intruders and enemies. But instead, every screen remained perfectly blank, waiting on her input.
She tried typing commands into the keyboard. She even tried asking it out loud to do something, but none of those methods produced results.
This had to be what she was looking for though, right? This had to be something.
And Snow resolved to stay put until she figured it out. No matter how long that took.
Chapter Eight
Hunter
Dead
end after dead end. That's all they were finding. Hunter had nothing to go on. Nothing to base any hope on. Nothing to report back to the Queen.
Though she kept calling him.
Every day.
He'd been ignoring her calls, knowing it was a foolish thing to do. But what was he supposed to do? Admit his failure?
The only pride he had left in his life was being the best at his job and now even that was in jeopardy because of this woman. This girl.
And he didn't even know why he still felt conflicted about bringing her in. They'd hardly talked in the last week, but that was down more to his brusqueness than her lack of effort. He didn't know how to talk to the Princess. He didn't know how to keep his story straight when those hauntingly deep dark eyes seemed to wrench the truth from the depths of his soul, desperately trying to extract it from his lips.
He was better off just staying silent.
But now it seemed she was giving up hope, too. Maybe that was for the best. Maybe they should all just give up and acquiesce to the Queen. Things would be simpler. Maybe not easier. Maybe not more pleasant. But simpler. Without the dilemma of beguiling Princesses testing his loyalties.
He'd grown familiar with the woods in the past week, and started laying out traps, not knowing when they'd be leaving and wanting to be prepared. At least he felt moderately safe on the far reaches of the Empire. He didn't think the Queen would send anyone this far out to harass him.
He picked his way through thick underbrush and found his first trap tripped, but empty. The second trap was untouched. The third, though, had a small gray mammal — it resembled something like the rabbits that had been brought to Zomer where they multiplied and flourished. He released the trap, thankful that it had done its job in killing the creature with one quick and painless move. It hadn't suffered.
He thanked it for donating its life to their nourishment and reset the trap, heading back to the cottage.
They would have to leave this place soon. If there was nothing to find, there was no point in sticking around. Though the Princess seemed comfortable in hiding, locked away for all hours of the day, he didn't think she'd remain content that way for long. Not now that things had been set in motion.
That she was so comfortable being held prisoner by her own fear was enough to give Hunter pause. Though she'd been trapped in one place for so long and he'd had the freedom to roam the galaxy, were they really so different? The Queen's reign of terror kept them both trapped in different ways.
He shook his head, stepping through the door of the cabin as the blue star of Aleri set on the horizon, painting the sky with glorious watercolors.
But Snow wasn't in her customary spot with a book. It was silly to think that she would be, now that she'd exhausted the supply of books, though her absence did trip a warning in the back of his mind.
Could she have found something and abandoned him?
No. He'd seen the ship still parked just beyond the clearing of trees on his way back. She was still here somewhere.
"Snow?" he called, heading towards the back of the cabin, toward the bedroom he hadn't dared go near in the week they'd spent in close quarters. Her presence when she was awake was enough to make Hunter question too many things. He couldn't imagine the things her innocent sleeping form would inspire in him. He’d heard her crying out though. Terrors attacking her while she slept. Already, just thinking about it, he could feel the instinct to protect her clawing its way out of dormancy within him.
But she wasn't sleeping now, either.
Robbie stood in her room, blocking access to the closet door.
Hunter's brow furrowed and he stepped forward. "Where's the Princess?" he asked.
"In the basement."
Now Hunter's brows shot up. "There's a basement? And you're only just telling us about it?"
"I cannot go there. The Princess asked me to wait in her bedroom."
Hunter frowned, peering around the android to see the sliver of light escaping from the hidden door that was left ajar. "The basement's through there?"
"Yes."
"Did the Princess tell you to prevent me from entering the basement?"
"No."
Hunter wasn't sure why that left him feeling so satisfied. Was she beginning to trust him? Or did she just not think he'd be back so soon?
"Let me by then, please," he said, surprised when Robbie actually complied and side-stepped out of the way.
He thought about calling out to her, but decided against it. Announcing his presence was rarely his move.
Snow's groan of frustration echoed, climbing up the spiral staircase, followed by, "I don't understand what I'm supposed to do. Just help me, please," she said, her voice on the verge of hysteria.
Hunter knew if his loyalty to the Queen were true, that he should be pleased at her lack of progress. But her plaintive wail just filled him with the pressing want to fix the things plaguing her.
And where did that come from? He knew better than anyone — everyone only looked out for themselves. Helping someone without getting anything in return was a fool's errand. It only led to heartbreak and disappointment. The last time he’d helped anyone… Well, he’d learned his lesson, alright.
But helping Snow... That wasn't really without return for him, was it? If she was successful it might extend his life expectancy a few years.
If Snow failed though, and Hunter’s betrayal of the Queen was revealed, he’d surely be dead. No matter how he looked at it, the Queen continued to be his best hope for survival, despite her threats.
"Please." The tiny word drifted up this time, small and feeble. It seemed the Princess wasn't as immune to emotions as she wanted to seem. And as it did every time he caught a glimpse of it, her vulnerability ignited a need for action in him.
“Voice recognition accepted,” a computerized voice said.
He took three silent steps down the staircase before another voice floated up.
"If you've found this, I fear things are worse than expected," the voice said, a recording by the sounds of it.
"For years after your mother died, those close to the King grew suspicious of his new bride. It wasn't until shortly before his death that the King too started to have misgivings about her. He did what he could to insulate you from her wrath, but her vengeance knows no bounds," the voice said. Hunter realized he was gripping the stair railing with all his strength, his knuckles aching with the force. He descended a few more steps, as the disembodied voice talked about the lengths the late-King had gone to in order to protect his young daughter.
"There is a list of people, those who will be able to help you in your bid to take the throne back. I hope it serves you well, My Princess." There was a long pause and Hunter thought he heard a sniffle echo up from the darkness, but he couldn't be sure.
"And don't be sad for my loss. It was an honor to protect you and watch you grow all these years. I'm only sorry I'm not here to help you now."
It seemed like that was the end of the recording, so Hunter made a point of taking the next couple stairs with heavy footfalls. "Snow, are you down here?"
Chapter Nine
Snow
She heard the footsteps first and quickly moved to block the hologram projection from view, even as it receded. "Snow? Are you down here?" Hunter called and she scrubbed her palms down her face, wiping the wetness on her pants legs.
Seeing Plick again had shattered the bottle where she stuffed all her inappropriate-for-a-Princess emotions. Hearing him, seeing the warm regard in his eyes, forced a lump to her throat and before she'd known it she'd been crying.
But Princesses didn't cry.
And they especially didn't let their suspicious traveling companion see them doing it.
"Yes, I'm down here," she called back, her voice sounding much stronger than she felt. She turned back to one of the monitors, where a document had appeared. It was pages and pages of names and contact information and it gave her hope. Seeing so many names — names of people t
hat would help her in her cause — brought a little light to the darkness that had loomed over her this past week.
Hunter appeared at the base of the spiral staircase and walked up behind her, but Snow didn't turn to face him. She was sure the evidence of her weakness still streaked her face.
"I told Robbie to stay in the bedroom and keep watch," she said.
"He's still there," Hunter replied.
"That's not..." She stopped and sighed, shaking her head, knowing without looking at him that he had that confident grin plastered on his face. The smartass.
"I thought I heard another voice. Did you find anything?"
She shook her head, her fingertips hovering over the keyboard.
"What's that?" Hunter asked, leaning in to look at the monitor with the names on it.
Snow minimized it like she'd been caught doing something awful. She couldn't say why she still didn't trust his intentions, but she knew that something about Hunter worried her. And it wasn't just the way her heart skipped a beat when he came back to the cottage with a fresh kill every night for them to eat. Plick's voice still rang in her ears, but this time it was from the past.
You can't trust anyone, Princess. Not anymore. The Queen has eyes and ears everywhere.
"I'm not sure it's anything," she said, finding his eyes watching her through the reflection of the monitor's surface. His lips pursed and his forehead wrinkled. "I'd say that anything is better than nothing. Let's look at it."
She turned sharply in the chair, her eyes narrowing in scrutiny. "Why do you still care? Why are you still here? Why haven't you given up yet?"
"I told you—"
"That you're in as much trouble as I am, just for helping me. I know. But I don't believe it. Why, really? Why are you so determined to help me take down the Queen?"
Hunter's jaw worked for a moment and then he sucked his teeth, jerking his head back to the staircase. "Come on, let's have dinner."
"But..."
"It's not bird tonight. Come on," he said.
He left without waiting for her response, just expecting her to follow, it seemed. She sent another look over her shoulder at the console and resigned herself to stepping away from the mystery for a little while. It would still be there after dinner.
