Page 172 of Settle Down, Princess

“Down, lad…” the bearded man hissed, the lot of them flattening themselves against the rise to stare down at the small stream below. “There he is.”

I’d blinked and blinked, unable to believe what I was seeing. There were deer heads mounted on the walls all throughout the palace, each one a symbol of the reigning king’s right to rule, but their pelts were disappointingly dull. Little more than a dark orange, I’d stared and stared at them when walking the corridors of the palace alone, trying to understand how they got the label golden. Now it became clear. A stray ray of sunlight broke through the canopy of the forest, aiming for the beast who drank at the river. That light seemed to set the stag’s pelt alight with an unearthly glow.

“Pretty thing, isn’t it?” Micken whispered with a grin. “Seems a pity to lop its head off, but it seems we must. Jakey.”

The bearded man drew his bow off his shoulder, pulling an arrow from the quiver, and I watched in disbelief.

“You’re going to kill the stag?”

Was every story I’d been raised on a lie? My head felt like it was too loose on my own neck, ready to float off untethered. My father was king because of this. The gods themselves endorsed his reign because he had proven himself worthy by killing the sacred stag.

“Kill it?” Micken shrugged. “Nah, but give it a little nick? Damn right we will. Make sure you slather the poison on it thick, Jakey. The bitch queen was insistent that her little darling not be in any danger from the stag.”

“Gutless little prick,” one of the other hunters muttered, staring at the stag. “No more a right to rule than any of us. What makes him so special?”

“His mother and father have deep pockets, to ensure this all goes off without a hitch for one,” Micken said with a nod. “Go on, Jakey.”

The bearded man seemed somewhat embarrassed as he cracked an ampoule and then carefully dipped his arrow point in the thick liquid within.

“Be careful, lad,” he told me. “This stuff is potent. Clouds the mind, has the muscles twitching and jerking, outside of your control. You don’t want to get any of it on you. Do the queen’s work for her, it would.”

My mouth was dry because it was hanging open, something Jakey noted with a dry look, right before he drew his bow. The green gunk on the arrow’s point seemed to glow just as brightly as the stag, though in a way that had me shrinking back, not drawing closer. I watched him suck in a breath, then let it out, his eye closing down as he sighted the arrow, and then released it.

It wouldn’t hit the stag, I’d been sure of that right up until the moment the arrow buried itself in the beast’ haunches. The gods would intervene. They couldn’t stand by and watch the animal jerk, then roar, before stumbling away from us.

“Hunt’s on, boys,” Micken said with a wild grin. “Harry, blow the bloody horn to let the toffs know we’re driving their stag towards them.”

Harry did just that as Jakey rose to his feet, slinging the bow back over his shoulder. “Come on, lads. Time to earn that gold.”

They all moved as one, obviously having done this job before. It was the moment when my eyes were opened to the other side of the story of the kings and the stag. Much later I learned that no one leaves the transfer of power to accident. Not the Raven to his heir, not the generals to their officers, or the merchants to their sons, so why would a king leave such a thing to chance? I swallowed hard, but that didn’t help keep the bile in my mouth down.

Because part of me, a small, secret part of me deep down in my soul, hoped, prayed that I might be the one to bring down the stag. The gods had to smile down on me, didn’t they? The thought that they would condone Magnus’ casual brutality was something I just couldn’t accept back then.

It was today that I learned that the gods were just like my father.

They kept a distant eye on things, only intervening when the urge came to them, but largely they left the lot of us to scrub around in the dirt and see to ourselves.

Jakey barked at me to keep up and my legs moved without thought.

I was the one that hunted the stag truly. In the company of the hunters and with their expert skill, we trailed the beast. They even showed me how to tell which direction he’d gone in, by the prints in the dirt, the broken branches and tufts of hair left behind. We followed him as he ran through the trees, his powerful haunches carrying him forward, right up until the poison started to work.

I’d heard the roar of stags before. My father kept hunting grounds just outside the capital that none could enter but the gamekeepers he employed or those he invited to hunt with him. I thought the sound powerful and majestic the first time I heard it. A beast fit to be the royal sign of our house, to be emblazoned on every flag, every wax seal my father impressed his signet into. The sound this stag made had none of that majesty now. His cry echoed throughout the forest, but it wasn’t one of challenge, but of pain.

I could barely see or hear the hunters now because I didn’t need them to help me trail it. The stag was lurching haphazardly from bush to bush, dragging his massive body past trees as his head shook. It felt like I walked in his footsteps, my own feet catching on logs and twigs, the ferns themselves gripping at my heels. We were trying to get free. We were trying to escape some terrible thing that was happening to us and nothing we did seemed to correct it.

And somehow we ended up here.

The light of the sun hit my eyes hard as I emerged from the forest and onto the road, the stag doing the same. Both of us belatedly realised we had an audience. Lords and their sons, my father and my brother all ringed the beast in a large, loose circle, bearing witness to its downfall. The stag tried to mount a defence as my brother slipped from his horse, lowering its head, but that threw it off balance. Its hooves clattered on the stone road, struggling to gain purchase. The sound of Magnus’ snicker felt like icy fingertips walking up my spine. I knew it well, that it was a warning that yet another act of cruelty was about to take place.

And that’s when I searched the crowd, finding my father’s eyes.

There was no surprise in his eyes, no outrage. He expected the stag to look just like this. He merely watched impassively from horseback, the Duke of Fallspire by his side.

This was the moment when Magnus drew his sword and put the beast out of its misery. He’d have the crown of antlers, be officially declared heir to throne if he just thrust his sword point into the creature’s side. We’d both been taught to find the spot for the cleanest kill, but that would never satisfy my brother. Why end an animal’s suffering when he could glory in it?

“Ha!” The lords all chuckled as Magnus threw up his arms and lunged at the stag, some dutifully, some with real hunger in their eyes, but they all caught the moment when the stag went stumbling back. “Stupid beast,” Magnus said with a curl of his lip. “You know what I am.”

My hand found a tree trunk, my fingers digging hard into the rough bark. That sting, it brought back too many memories, but I couldn’t stop them then, just like I couldn’t now.

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