I choose the angle. The entry. The exit. I plant my feet and take a deep inhale as I draw the bowstring back. The tension in the string mirrors the tension in my chest.
I hold. Hold. Hold. Hoolldd.
With my exhale, I release, and the arrow flies true.
I know the instant it strikes that the hit is fatal. Still, the ritual must play out. The stagger. The frantic burst of motion. The final run before the body accepts what the mind cannot.
I wait a few moments, then follow.
This is when the blood tracking takes place, and usually, it’s my favorite part of the hunt, but today, for whatever reason, the excitement of the kill does little to quell the tension I’m holding.
The kill brings no release. No clarity. No calm.
It’s that bloody woman. I know this to be true. It’s hard to grasp what this lingering, unsettling emotion is. To name it.
It’s not anger. Not fully.
Not even irritation. Not completely.
Something else.
That nervous current beneath my skin… she is the source of it.
Had she eaten or used the bed instead of choosing cold stone, perhaps I would feel differently. Perhaps I would not be here, stalking a dwindling game through a dying forest in a futile attempt to restore my equilibrium.
I offer what I can of the deer back to Mother Earth, then carry the carcass to the city and leave it with the butcher.
The rest of the afternoon is spent with Cali, though a dozen other matters demand my attention. I brush her down myself. Check her hooves. Offer her treats. Run my hand along her flank more times than necessary.
Anything to quiet the restless edge inside me.
It does not work. By evening, I return to the dungeon.
Only…there’s no change.
None.
When I speak to her, she does not answer. Not aloud. Not even in my mind when I press against hers and taunt her inside her own silence.
Nothing. It aggravates the hell out of me.
“No one’s gone in there?” I ask the guard, though I already know the answer.
“Just me, sir. To check on her. Food and water.”
“I see.”
“If there’s any change, note it. I want a report on my desk first thing in the morning. Give her bottled water so she knows it hasn’t been tampered with. Packaged crackers. See if that changes things.”
“Yes, sir.”
It does not.
The following morning’s report is identical. No food or water. She has changed positions and nothing more.
My temper frays as the day wears on. I mask it poorly. Men notice. When I return to her cell, all restraint abandons me. I press my power into the air between us.
Eat.
