Page 86 of The Duke and the Disciple

“Ah.” Pieter grinned. “My boyhood tutor, Gillibrand, first introduced me to the old stories about the women and their magic there. I was fascinated from the start. I may have a book you can take with you, though it’s fraught with more fiction than fact, I’m afraid. Most of what’s been written about these villages has been lost or destroyed, which, of course, only fascinated me more.”

Aesylt flicked a glance his way to show she was listening, hoping he couldn’t read how interested she was.

“There are dozens of these villages. Not all are matriarchal, but many are. The ones with rare magic anyway. Magic that most in the kingdom assume is fantasy, or prefer it be. Gillibrand, though, he believed in all of it. Wholly. He’d been to several of the villages himself and had seen, with his own eyes, women who could transmute water into liquid gold or create an entire garden of blooms with a pass of their hands. More, he’d claimed to be present for more than one instance of anastasis.”

Aesylt’s blood froze. “Resurrection?”

Pieter nodded. “I didn’t believe it either. Not then anyway. Magic has been a part of our kingdom for thousands of years, as long as we have memories to pass down the generations. Now, the Medvedev... No one knows what they can do. They don’t live under our kingdom’s purview, so I’m not including them in this. But among our own, there are some deeds that have always been beyond what we know of magic. Anastasis is only one example, Aesylt, of what the cunning women of the Seven Sisters are capable of.”

The Vjestik were a nomadic people who had called many places home, but according to the kyschun, they’d originated from one of those small villages in the foothills of the Seven Sisters. Something within Aesylt warned her against mentioning it, in the same way she never volunteered the fact that she had Medvedev blood from her mother’s side. “I assume you’re going to tell me you went there.”

“Gillibrand and I went together.” Pieter reached up to scratch his neck. The din of conversation had softened. Pieter’s voice lowered as well. “I never intended to stay so long, but what I saw there turned me from a scholar by hobby to one by profession. I knew I’d never be happy playing politician, and I had a decision to make. Then Gillibrand died suddenly.”

“How?”

“Slipped and fell from a mountain path one day when he was collecting different species of plants.”

“But you were surrounded by women who could raise the dead.”

“There can be no resurrection without a body.” Pieter’s mouth quirked.

Aesylt frowned and looked again at Rahn ahead. For some reason, she thought of her notes—not the official ones sent to the Reliquary but the ones just for her. The ones she still wasn’t sure why she’d written at all, except she’d felt oddly compelled, almost against her will.Even when the light is brightest, the darkness calls. There can be no light if one cannot recognize the absence of it. I’ve been living in the gray for so long without ever knowing it.She cleared her throat. “And you stayed to continue his work?”

“Silence, friends!” Lord Dereham called from ahead, turning to repeat himself several more times. “In half a tick of the sun, we’ll reach the staging area. Turn your thoughts inward and your prayers to the Guardians, who alone decide how much bounty we return to our village with this afternoon.”

Aesylt glanced at Pieter, who seemed relieved to be done with the conversation.

He’d said more in those few minutes than in the entire month they’d been in Wulfsgate. But it still didn’t explain the enmity with his family or what led to him to forsake his birthright... what had made Lady Dereham so convinced he was never coming back that she had another child in her middle age to protect the ascendancy.

Somehow, she’d get him to tell her the rest of his story.

But it moved to the back of her mind as she mentally steeled for the moment she’d been quietly dreading for days.

Rahn helpedthe men set up the camp. It consisted of two long assembled tables, one housing a row of weapons, and the other, longer and broader, for dressing the meat of the beasts they felled that day.

He counted fourteen hunters, besides Rustan, Pieter, Aesylt, and himself. He didn’t know if that was a lot, but it felt excessive, especially with the obscene number of guards stationed around the forest perimeter. There were also a dozen young men who were there solely to retrieve the felled animals and dress them while the hunters worked. Lord Dereham had explained that while there were always regular hunters bringing in game for fresh meals, the eighteen hunters gathered would restock the meat stores at Wulfsgate Keep, as well as the emergency reserves for the city.

Rustan rubbed his gloved hands together with a tight look at his son. He then turned toward Rahn with a smile. “Your first hunt?” He nodded. “Of course it is. Nothing to hunt in Duncarrow, and the Cross only hunts when the boys win. Or if they can weather the capricious forests between their town and ours.”

Rahn glanced Aesylt’s way to gauge her response to the almost callously casual way they spoke of the Cross’s deepest wound, but she was busy perusing the weapons table. She’d only been eight the year Drazhan had won the Vuk od Varem—and Rahn hadn’t asked, but he couldn’t imagine much celebratory hunting had occurred after Drazhan had returned to a village in rubble—and before that there hadn’t been a victor in years. Hunters violating the agreement between the wulves and Vjestik, thinking themselves clever or above the law, didn’t return home with breath in their lungs. The only animals the Vjestik were sanctioned to kill were those unfortunate enough to wander out of the forests and too near to town, or, as Lord Dereham had said, in the forests beyond their borders, and those were more perilous than their own.

The only explanation Rahn could muster was that she’d learned to hunt in the celestial realm with her brothers, same as she’d learned to fight and die.

“And that is their way,” Rustan said. “However...” He tapped another man on the shoulder, who then raised a stick, painted in dark green, into the air. Everyone went silent and gathered close, drawing a tight circle around the lord. “This year, half of what we kill belongs to our friends in Witchwood Cross.” He glanced at a stunned Aesylt. “Gold-free, and no taxes due. They’ve had a troubling year, and we’re going to make it a little less so. So, lads, ladies, bring your best today, for we’ll need to take enough game to make up the difference.”

The hunters nodded and dispersed, each heading to the table to choose their weapon. Aesylt approached with a dazed, faraway look. “Lord Dereham, your kindness is... greatly appreciated. But the Cross will pay for what is ours.”

“You will pay when I accept your gold. And today, I do not.” He smiled and clapped a hand onto her shoulder. “Don’t feel you have to take part, cub. Sit and watch, breathe in the warmest air we’ve had in months, and enjoy some time away from your tiny tower. You’re perfectly safe here.”

“Respectfully, my lord, I will do my part like all the others. I came to help, not to watch.”

Rustan’s brows knit. Soft concern speckled his eyes. “Then might I suggest the crossbow? It’s the quickest to learn, the simplest to maneuver?—”

“I’m comfortable with traditional bows and spears.”

“The spears are only for the boar, which we rarely see, and only a few of my men have the skill to use them humanely. Most will carry bows or crossbows because we’re mainly after deer, elk-kind, and grouse. And land fowl if they’re foolish enough to wander through while we’re here.”

“I know, my lord.”

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