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“Yes, there is, my Queen.”
“Then asnagis not worth mentioning.”
I had known that was going to be her answer. I knew she didn't care as long as she got what she wanted in the end. It reminded me of her cruelty. “The girl… She saved my life, Your Highness.”
“And then you ended hers?”
The truth was there, on the tip of my tongue, but my life and Autumn’s hung in the precarious balance that shimmered vile contempt in this mad queen’s eyes.
It might damn me at a later time, but I nodded.
“Oh, what sweet irony that is! A little bleeding heart, was she? That just sounds perfect.” Amira stroked the wooden chest like a lover’s naked body.
My stomach knotted. I had known Amira would enjoy that information in the recesses of my mind, but I still felt like I needed to get it off my chest. I needed the world to know Autumn was a good person, that she had saved me. Perhaps it was getting rid of my guilt, my conscience of letting her go and defying the queen.
“Is there anything else, Huntsman? I have things to do.” She caressed the box again, and I wondered, not for the first time, what she did with those hearts. Then, as I watched her leave, a shiver of trepidation worked its way up my spine.
I stood at the window in my room, staring out at the garden below. My heart clenched in my chest. I closed my eyes, but when I did, Autumn’s face swam in it, and tears inched up my throat and prickled behind my eyes. I didn’t know what to do with my life now. Going back to the way things had been wasn’t an option, but I wasn’t sure if I had a choice. Anything else I did would raise too much suspicion. Now, it wasn’t just my life on the line. Autumn Snow had changed everything for me.
The queen called me to her bed that night.
I felt sick to my stomach as I stepped into the room. The gilded mirror sat as always in the corner, facing the bed. A vision of it calling out that I was a liar, that Autumn was not dead, that I had carved out a freshly dead woman’s heart instead of Autumn’s, swam in my head. It would tell Amira eventually. Hopefully, it would be long enough for Autumn to have settled into marriage and a name change and I could pretend to search for her to no avail. Even if my failure to procure her heart resulted in my death, I would go to the underworld with Autumn’s brightness in my heart, and I would know that I had given her a chance; that I had spared her when I hadn’t had the guts to do it for the other four. That act wouldn’t absolve me—I wouldn’t pretend it would—but my soul shivered with the possibility that I sparedher. My soul felt lighter, like a tiny shred of who I had been before the queen damned me surfaced from the darkness.
We were alone in her room—the queen and I. For the first time, I saw no others sprawled across her bed, no one else waiting in the shadows for their chance at her. The one time I wished to do nothing but run, I was to be the main focus. The banquet. My heart hammered in my chest, and I swallowed hard as she stared at me. I tried to outwardly show a bode of confidence, swagger, and lust, but inside I was trembling with a fear I had never known I possessed.
“I knew that girl would be difficult. Harder than the others. That she was special. But you brought me her heart.”
I swallowed the bile that had risen and nodded slowly.
“You shall be rewarded, my Huntsman.” Amira had already said this when I returned, but I realized the meaning now. She was rewarding me withher.For the first time, I noticed she wore strappy lingerie: black leather, lace, and ties. Once upon a time, I would have thought it glorious, but now I just wanted to throw up.
She snapped her fingers and looked pointedly at my vest of daggers and my dark tunic. I closed my eyes for a heartbeat to prepare myself for what I was supposed to do. I unlatched the buckles of the vest and slowly pulled it off. Amira tapped her foot in impatience. I was just delaying the inevitable, and I knew it was pissing her off.
“Tired, Huntsman?” She growled as I sluggishly dragged the shirt over my head.
“Yes, my queen.”
“You are a primal, virile man. You will find the strength to take me. To give me that with which I had once lost.”
Once those words would have shot desire through me, but now I feared I might shit myself with panic.
She dragged a nail down the ridges of my abdomen. My heart sped, and my stomach tangled in disgust. I would surely give myself away by vomiting all over her. I had no idea how I would perform to the level she expected, the level I had in the past. I was afraid my body wouldn’t respond and we would have bigger issues.
But my body craved touch, and I was a sick, twisted prick as I solidified Autumn’s image into my mind as, for the first time, the queen allowed me to take her. She allowed me to take control of her body, to ride her, and I plunged inside her as a man possessed.
New, Old Routine
The length of winter grew each year in Catalan. Its fingers trickled in earlier and held on longer. For those of us that relied on fall and spring crops, the prolonged length of winter was disastrous. It was harder to take care of livestock during the frozen months, which also took a toll on farmers all over the country. No one was sure why this was happening, but I felt it had something to do with the queen.
Frost had chased Ativan and me home, but we made it with no difficulty. No brigands, demon wolves, lame horses, or other catastrophes.
Months had passed since we had returned. Lamen had been laid to rest a few days before we returned, and I went to the burial plot every day to tell him how sorry I was that my journey was what ended his life. I told him that I would never forget his soft smile.
Every day got a little easier to fall into a new, old routine. Then, to the shock of Ativan, the healer from Cashore, Leisa, came to visit. I never mentioned to him that I had given her that invitation. It’s been two months since she assumed healing quarters in Geva for good, and the village is better for it. Ativan is undoubtedly better for it. Seeing him happy made my heart lighter. I hadn't realized how much he truly meant to me until he had gotten wounded. Sometimes we take for granted the things we have until they are gone. We become complacent with those around us because they are always there; until they’re not.
Geva wasn't as prominent or wealthy as Cashore, but it was an up-and-coming village beginning to see a bustle from merchants taking up shop and more residents coming in from all levels of society. More people meant more business for us, along with the increased surge in orders from the north.
I never told anyone the entire story of what transpired between the huntsman and me. I had told them I had saved him from a demon wolf attack, and he owed me a life debt. I still didn’t know what Sahlyn and Ativan had spoken of in Cashore, but I never asked, and Ativan never said. If he knew the whole story, he didn’t let on.
