Page 1 of The Arrow and the Alder

In hindsight, today was probably not the best day for Seph to break the law. Not that there was ever agoodday to break the law, but some days were superior because they lowered the risk of being caught. The mists had been the perfect shroud for Seph’s crimes, so when they’d rolled in last week, she hadn’t hesitated. And though it seemed the saints had heard her prayers by aiding her with cover, she soon discovered it also made her objective more difficult.

It was hard to hunt when one couldn’t see.

Maybe the saints were punishing her instead. But why didn’t they punish the dignitaries who’d forced her into this rebellion––people like the baron? If he hadn’t bargained their rights and resources away to the abominable kith, Seph wouldn’t need to break the law to feed her family.

She glanced down at the sack on the ground beside her, its cloth stained crimson from the contraband stuffed within: a dead jackrabbit.

One.

And she’d been lucky for that.

Curse this unyielding mist.

Dawn matured right alongside her mounting frustration, and she hurled an unspent arrow at the trees.

It hadn’t always been this way. Seph remembered a time, only three years past, before the veil between the kith and mortal realms had opened, when Harran’s woods had been bright and colorful and teeming with life, when her family had warred with the deer over the fruits of their munificent garden. Now they had neither deer nor fruit, the kith war raged a fortnight’s ride away, and all profit was beholden to a baron who gave nothing but tookeverything.

Except for this rabbit.

The thought made her feel marginally lighter, and with solemn resignation, Seph slung her bow over her shoulder, picked up her bloodied plunder, and started after the arrow she’d discarded. Dead leaves pillowed her tread, the ground soft and supple with morning dew as a pale sun flickered faintly through the mist. The seasons were shifting; Seph could feel it, could see it in every cloud of breath that rose from her chapped lips. Poplars quivered in the autumnal air, their little leaves tarnished like old medallions, and though the sun touched, it could not penetrate, could not warm. Winter waited just beyond Harran’s gate, and Seph did not know if they’d survive another visit.

Which was why she had to break the law. Hunger was louder than any voice or reason; it would not quiet until it was satisfied or its host dead.

Seph found her arrow atop a tangle of rotting tree roots. It looked so melancholy lying there, alone and forgotten in the mist. She crouched and picked up the little weapon with her dirty, frozen fingers, examining it from chiseled arrowhead to raven-fletched toes. So much discipline had gone into its crafting, so much time and too many resources.

Too muchhope.

Hope, that abominable thing, always clinging to her soul like a disease. Persuading her to fight, as if there could be more, as if anything would change. For three years, she’d hoped while the world devolved into nightmare, leaving her family alone and forgotten.

Left for dead.

No, hope was a liar and a distraction. Just like the kith and the baron, it smiled and taunted with pretty words and brilliant dreams, and mortal kind had been fools to believe it.

Because hope had handed their power away.

“Would that you take my hope as you have taken everything else,” Seph grumbled to the saints, though she didn’t expect them to listen. They hadn’t listened to her prayers in three years. She snapped the arrow in two, dropped the fragments and left them to the elements, then stood and turned around.

Only to find herself face-to-face with an enormous stag, not ten paces away.

Seph stopped short, bewildered and staring while the stag glared back. How had she not heard its approach? The creature was a behemoth, larger than any horse she’d ever seen, with a coat as dark as a raven’s and a crown of magnificent antlers. The mist curled around its massive, muscular frame––the beast could feed a village––though its unusual slate-gray eyes stayed her archer’s hand.

She’d seen those eyes before, in her dreams.

Only glimpses, but never belonging to a body. It was always just a flash of color, followed by a swell of warmth and comfort amidst so much turmoil and death.

Those eyes did not bring comfort now. Only…confusion.

“Where on the saints’ cursed earth did you come from?” Seph whispered and tipped her head, curious. “And why are you not afraid of me?”

The stag’s ears twitched, but it stood firm, watching her with an almost…humanawareness. Strange.

She should shoot it. A beast this size would feed her family for seasons. Had the saints provided after all? The thought alone made her stomach grumble afresh, not to mention the stag’s exquisite coat would provide ample material to fit her family with new gloves, maybe even boots, and yet…

Seph’s fingertips hesitated at her quiver. He was beautiful. Never in all her life had she seen the like, but sentimentality wasn’t a luxury for the starved.

Sorry.

A breath later she had an arrow set and bow drawn.

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