Page 124 of Steel Heart Iron Claws

As the doe lopes beside me, her soft brown nose twitches.Den near the still-water pond. We deer hide there from hunters.

She stops and points her nose to the right, back toward the way I’ve come. My chest heaves as I pause, turning to look back through the trees. There’s a gap where awidowmaker must have fallen, and it gives an unobstructed view of the top spires of Drahallen Hall.

The hair lifts on the back of my spine. The last direction I want to go is backward, but what choice do I have?

I nod, breathless.Take me there.

Hiding is a risky strategy. It means voluntarily trapping myself. Easy prey. But the other choice is continuing to run and that’s…not ideal either. I’m already out of breath. My muscles ache. Not to mention that running means spreading more tracks across the forest.

The doe darts down a game trail I hadn’t noticed.

I follow her at a run, thankful for a clear path after miles of brambles. My ears pick up on the roar of flowing water again, but when I glimpse a waterway ahead, it isn’t the raging Ramvik. It’s a medium-sized tributary stream about ten feet wide.

The doe follows the game trail along the riverbank for about a quarter mile before my feet sink into soft mud. When I lift my foot, water immediately fills the depression.

Just ahead!the doe says encouragingly.

We follow the tributary to its source: a large, marshy pond surrounded by river birches, with a beaver’s den damming one end. I can hear their squeaky voices coming from inside, sounding like burbling water. A grey heron languidly strides through the water, and a fish jumps on the other side. Dragonflies buzz around the reeds.

I pause, struck.

It’s a beautiful scene. Peaceful. For a second, my heart latches onto this brief window of calm.

Then, the robin lands on a branch beside me, hopping in agitation, and my bubble of calm pops.

Did you find them?I ask,stomach knotting.

He fans his wings, a signal of warning.The human huntsman is at the high river cliff.

I swallow a dry lump in my throat. Basten has already tracked me to the cliff? How is he moving so fast? I can only hope I didn’t leave enough tracks for him to follow, but I know his skill.

And the fae huntsman?I tighten my hands into fists.

Harder to track.The robin hops to another branch.He moves fox-fast. He?—

A second robin lands on the neighboring tree, frantically fanning his wings.The fae is headed this way!

I suck in a gasp. “That’s impossible. Not even the fae can move that fast.”

But a second deer bounds out from the copse of river birches, her white tail flashing in warning as she runs.A huntsman! A fae huntsman comes!

The first doe nudges me sharply in my side. Urging me to follow the other deer. For a second, I’m frozen, eyes scouring every shadow to see if they’ll take on Artain’s form. But then my senses snap back into place, and I run.

Pumping my arms, I catch up to the deer. A third has joined, running alongside me. They scamper over a small hillock and then vanish, seemingly straight into the ground.

I come to a skidding stop, pinwheeling my arms, afraid I’m about to tumble through a fae door.

But it’s only an eroded space beneath massive tree roots. A herd of six deer huddle within, so tightly packed that I can’t tell which limbs belong to which bodies.

The deer are quiet as clouds, perfectly camouflaged by the dirt walls. I could walk two feet away and not see them.

Quick. The young doe wiggles her ears at me.Hunker down with us!

I have to wriggle head-first through the narrow space between the exposed roots. It’s a tangle of knobby knees and clattering antlers as I scramble to the back of the den. The deer move in front of me, their warm bodies hiding me from sight. I can feel their quick heartbeats flutter beneath soft fur.

A robin lands at the edge of the den.Not a sound, now! He approaches!

I clamp a hand over my mouth to muffle my breathing. Artain doesn’t have Basten’s godkissed hearing, but he’s still God of the Hunt. He’s spent thousands of years honing his senses to track his quarry.

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