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Facing her mother’s room would wait for another day.
She pulled off her plain, homespun tunic and skirt and neatly set them on the chair. Both were the dull grayish color of the wool her mother had traded for two years ago and were becoming so threadbare that Arie knew she wouldn’t get much more wear out of them. Pulling on her only shift, she crawled into bed and burrowed beneath the blankets. It thankfully took only minutes for sleep to claim her and put an end to the awful day.
Chapter
Two
Arie managed to avoid Jak for almost a week after the releasing. She knew it was not just due to good fortune. Propriety demanded that the loved ones be given at least five days to mourn before they were expected to engage in social visits. By custom her mother’s spirit was now released from the grave to join her ancestors, and the miasma of death no longer lingered upon her house or person. She knew her moment of respite was over when he sauntered up to her as she waited by the communal fire where the merchants were setting up their wares.
The merchants were rovers, trading goods and carrying various supplies from city to village over long distances. Most people were distrustful of merchants, but not one person turned them away. Margot and Sheli, with their backs turned to her, giggled with their heads together. Sheli cocked an eye toward her and whispered something to the other woman, which made them burst out into laughter again.
Arie sighed and hugged her shawl tightly around her as she gave them her back. The two of them had been her bane ever since she’d thwarted their attempt to play a practical joke on her as girls. Arie had been a plump child—somehow, she was still curvaceous despite her lean diet though it seemed to attract a different sort of attention since she reached adulthood—and the girls had decided to “put the pig back in the mud.” Arie had, by chance, moved out of the way just in time to avoid being knocked into the mud pit. The girls who were attempting to “accidentally” collide with her ended up tripping over each other and landing in the filth. They’d hated her ever since and took every opportunity to make her life unpleasant. That Margot had married a wealthy man on the council made it even worse.
“I hope this time they brought lace from the Citadel. Unlike some filth around here who are content to dig in the dirt like beasts,” she said pointedly and Arie could practically feel the weight of her gaze boring through her, “I insist on the finest things. Viktor says he will cover anything I pick out.”
Arie resisted rolling her eyes as she pretended to examine the wares in front of her. Of course he would. He lived well off the percentage tithed to him as a council member. Tax collectors arrived early every month to collect a share of the wild honey she gathered and the herbs and vegetables she and her mother grew. No doubt, even with her mother’s soul just recently released, the collectors would be at her door again in just a few days’ time.
Margot and Sheli stepped back as the merchants came out, fearful that one might accidentally touch their embroidered forest-green skirts and tunics. The merchants were ruddy-cheeked from days spent out in the sun, and their long hair was braided down their backs, unlike the shorter hair of the village men. That aside, there was little to distinguish the merchants from any other resident. Arie bit back an irritated sigh as those ahead of her looked over the wares being set out.
“Well, they have the lace and beautiful cotton fabrics, thank the Mother, but I was hoping to find some sort of jewelry. These merchants go to the Citadels and the villages near the gem mines. You would think that they could bring better,” Margot observed and stepped back so suddenly in her tirade that Arie stumbled to the side to avoid her, bumping instead into a tall, strong body.
Large hands steadied her, and she looked up at an impossibly tall man with a scar running from brow to jaw and a nose that looked like it had been broken in several places at some point. His salt-and-pepper hair was pulled back, and his stubble made him look rough and vaguely threatening.
Arie cleared her throat nervously. “My apologies. Please excuse me, mister… uh?—”
“Huntsman Merik,” he rumbled, his icy eyes narrowing as if he were offended at the idea of having to identify himself.
Arie felt her pulse race. A huntsman. Here?
Although she’d never met a huntsman, she knew of them by reputation. Savage and merciless, when not stationed at the citadel or at the center of their order at the High Citadel, they traveled the breadth of the continent. At times they traveled with the merchants, as they were often hired for protection against the beasts of the forests. More often than not, however, they traveled through the forests looking for signs of the Ragoru and all manner of threats hidden within the wilderness. Huntsmen were collectively obsessed with finding and eliminating them. How successful they were was widely speculated on, but never in their presence.
Most villages happily welcomed any huntsman who visited for no other reason, outside their obvious deadly hostility, than to hope the huntsman might dispatch the dangerous wildlife congregating near their own sanctuary walls. She wondered how long it would take for someone to realize he was there.
“My apologies, Huntsman Merik,” Arie mumbled, only to be swept back by a more familiar, but no more welcome, hand.
“Arie, step aside,” Jak rumbled, and then addressed the huntsman. “Welcome to Whispering Way sanctuary, sir. On behalf of the council, I would like to extend an invitation for you to come to the meeting building while the merchants haggle with the womenfolk. There is plenty of food and drink there that you may avail yourself of on our most humble hospitality.”
Arie only just managed to refrain from staring in shock. She hadn’t heard that Jak had been given that sort of authority from the council. If so, then he had even more power in the village than she’d previously believed. That wasn’t good.
The huntsman nodded slowly, muttered a few words to a nearby merchant in a dialect Arie didn’t recognize, and followed one of Jak’s companions away from the village center to the meeting building. Arie felt a pinch of hunger as she imagined the sort of generous table that the councilors were enjoying in there for the midday repast. She’d found a bruised apple in the cellar and greedily consumed it with the last few bites of cheese she had left. It did little to sate her hunger, but she couldn’t be ungrateful for what little she managed to find. Their goat Milly had been killed by a neighbor’s dogs, and while she was compensated, she’d not yet been able to find another milking goat.
Spying Joshu attending his mother just tables away, Arie smiled and raised her hand in greeting. He opened his mouth as if to speak, but then his eyes flicked over her shoulder and he closed it again. Annoyance stirred in her gut. She wasn’t sure if she was more irritated at Jak for hovering or Joshu for lacking any nerve to approach her at all with him there.
She immediately felt guilty for thinking such a thing. It wasn’t his fault that Jak was so intimidating. Few stood a chance against him. Jak always made sure he got whatever he wanted.
Hot breath brushed against her ear. Arie jumped. She hadn’t realized he was quite that close all of a sudden.
“Are you that lonely, Arie? I do believe that more than enough time has passed. You owe me an answer.” His tongue snaked out and licked the rim of her ear. She shuddered from both disgust and the taunting words he whispered. “We both know it is inevitable. You will be mine. You don’t have a choice.” He tapped her hood with meaning and, upon straightening, raised his voice to be certain that all heard. “Arie Fairwind, I pledge myself. Do you accept the bond?”
Arie cast Joshu a pleading look, begging him to do anything to intervene. He turned away and busied himself talking to a woman beside him. Disappointment was a bitter taste in her mouth. She glanced at the trees looming in the distance and thought again of her grandmother far away in the Citadel, beyond the unending stretch of trees. Jak’s hand tightened.
She knew it was foolish not to at very least give the words in pretense of acceptance, but her tongue felt glued to the roof of her mouth. She couldn’t force the words out and give herself a few days of safety. But suddenly she just didn’t have it in her to pretend for even a minute longer. She looked him in the eye and jutted out her jaw in silent answer. He shook her and barked out a laugh.
“I would have protected you. Remember that,” he whispered and then, with a sharp movement of his hand, he ripped back her hood and moved away from her in pretense of recoiling with shock.
Of all the ways he could have reacted, she hadn’t expected that! Arie felt her hair ripple as it fell in cascades of thick crimson curls around her face. A hush fell. For a space of several breaths, it was so quiet that Arie could hear the heavy pulse of her heart. Then a woman shrieked.
“Get her away from us before she gets everyone killed.”
