Page 29 of The Huntsman's Heart
If she ever makes it through the woods.
I’ve never been beyond the castle, but I have watched the woods grow up to swallow the fair lands that used to surround Havenrock. I do not know how far they stretch, but it’s further than I can see from the tops of the walls.
Once upon a time there were well worn roads leading out in every direction to lands far away and towns nearby. The people who lived here would trade and communicate with peoples from all the lands surrounding us. Now we stand alone amid the monsters, the last bastions of that forgotten time.
“She is gone,” I call to the others.
Raban passes his hand across his face in disbelief. “Why would she leave?”
Corvin snorts. “She probably stole the treasure and left while we were sleeping.”
A jolt of alarm spears through me, and I spread my wings and float down to the courtyard, hurrying to the hidden trapdoor where we store the gold and jewels rescued from looters. I was right about her, though. The treasure is untouched. I breathe asigh of relief, though I hardly know what we are keeping it for. Tradition I suppose. For a sense of purpose. What else are we good for any longer?
“I told you she was not a thief,” Raban says to Corvin hotly. I can see he had already grown attached soon after we found her. It wasn’t lost on me the way he tripped over himself in answering her questions or the way he looked longingly at her form in the water.
At first I thought it was excitement in finding a new princess to care for, a renewed sense of purpose. But the way he gazed at her lithe body and womanly curves had nothing to do with caregiving and everything to do with a different sort of desire.
“Well she’s a fool. What business has a princess traveling alone through the woods?” retorts Corvin.
“We shouldn’t have let her go.”
“It was her choice to make,” I tell Raban gently. “We could not have stopped her.”
He sighs. “You’re right. But I hate to think of her out there alone.”
“She can’t die,” says Corvin.
“There are worse things than dying.”
Time to distract them or they’ll end in an argument. The two see the world very differently, and now that there are only the three of us and the hounds left, it’s often up to me to come between them when they disagree. “Come, we have been lax lately. A visitor has reminded me that it has been an age since we did any work on the place, and there is stone to be cut and drains to be maintained and wood to collect.”
“What’s the point?” Corvin sighs. “It may be another hundred years before anyone else comes along and by then we’ll all be rubble.
“We can’t think like that, or we may as well turn to rubble now.”
“I will fetch the wood,” Raban says helpfully.
“Good. Then I will cut the stone, unless you had rather do it?” I say to Corvin.
He rolls his eyes. “I will unclog the drains. I know you don’t like to get your hands dirty. But I want you to know I see the way you manipulated me into volunteering for the nastiest task.”
“I will gladly do it.”
“You say that, but last time I let you do it, you whined for a week about the dirt under your nails.”
I hold my hands out to inspect them, but they are fastidiously clean. “It’s only that claws do not get dirty so easily.”
Corvin only rolls his eyes, but he gets the brush we use to clean the drains and soon is occupied with his task. Raban whistles for the hounds and they follow him to the gates, noses down, sniffing the ground. They are missing our visitor too, I think.
I try to put her out of my mind, but it is impossible. I wish we had more time to ask about her story. Where did she come from? How did she end up in the forest alone?
When I have cut six of the eroded stone slabs down into smaller bricks, ready for use, I stack them aside out of the weather and leap to the top of the wall to check on Raban. When I cannot see him straight away I frown, squinting into the darkness beneath the trees. He must have gone right to the edge of our boundary, stretching against the ties that bind us to our place. Perhaps there was not much kindling to be found.
Hours later, when he still has not returned, I give up on the stone and go to help Corvin with the last of the drains. The green sludge already collected in the bucket is an indication of how long it has been since we did proper maintenance around here.
I grimace. “Can I help?”
He straightens to his knees and slops the mucky brush into the bucket, dislodging another lump of algae. “You have impeccable timing. That is the last of it.”
