the Heart of a Beast

Chapter 5. Anya.

f**k.

Shit.

The rabbit traps were empty. Broken.

Empty.

Empty as their storage. Empty as their coin coffers.

Shit.

Anya sunk to the forest floor, a groan escaping her mouth, cradling her head in her hands. Every thought added to the fire that burned inside her. Every thought like kindling as her hands clenched into fists.

What the f**k was she going to do?

They would have starved last winter if not for Nuvian's and the Temple’s generosity because they'd had little success selling their produce. They'd not had enough coin to buy the food they'd needed. Though at the time she'd begrudged Siri for it, she wasn't sure what they would have done had her eldest sister not spoken to the wolf-hunter about their troubles.

But she had not liked that glint in his stormy eyes. She did not like to be in debt, and to such a man...

She had paid him back with the extra coin she'd gotten from Healer Eamon as soon as the snows had melted enough for her to go into the forest. And though Siri and Lina had questioned why there was nothing for them to buy ribbon with, she had kept her lips sealed tightly.

Anya shook her head with another groan. f**k. She'd spent the first part of the day taking inventory of their winter supplies, adding to their stockpile the few things she’d been able to purchase on Market Day. But it hadn’t been enough. It would not last until the snows of winter melted. In an age past they'd heard tales in the City of how poor country folk had perished – the rune-spells that guarded their stocks had been damaged and their winter food stolen by moon-cursed creatures. Such a thing had been unfathomable – why could they not just purchase more?

Now she understood.

She had thought she’d understood the value of coin when she had accompanied her father to his trade talks.

She’d had no idea.

Not then.

Do not be angry at what you cannot change.

Think.

Act.

Breathe.

She focused on her breathing as she stood, inhaling shakily at first, but stronger with each breath.

She did not bother checking the other traps; she had made them the same way. Exactly the same. She had been so sure she'd followed Elias's instructions perfectly, he had watched her practice making them and had told her she’d done well. Instead of going back to the farmhouse in defeat, she took a steadying breath and went deeper into the trees. She calmed her breathing, her footsteps light, her mind awhirl. Her soft-soled boots made no sound on the bracken underfoot.

The forest was lush and dense, overflowing with life. And death. The canopy – far above her head – completely blocked out the rays of the late afternoon, if any were to reach through the thunderclouds that had loomed overhead. Once the snows of winter began to fall, even she would not dare enter beneath the bowers.

For the cloud covered more than the sky when the snows fell. It covered the sun, whose pure light kept the more fearsome, the more violent moon-cursed creatures at bay.

The hairs on the back of her neck prickled.

Was there something stalking her?

She tightened her grip on her dagger, holding it before her.

One of the werefolk? The same creature that had taken little Arianna?

The creature she’d thought she’d glimpsed a few days passed? The same one that had chased her through the forest?

She froze.

The forest opened up to the trickling stream, from which a lone deer drunk.

That lone deer that would not make it through the night, for the rest of the herd had surely moved to a warmer area; but it would feed her family easily. Lina would be able to dry out the leftover meat and store it for true winter. She'd made enough coin at the market to purchase half a sack of salt.

The back of her neck prickled still.

The forest was silent.

But she had to take the chance.

It could save her family.

She tightened her dagger and paused, mid-step and flattened herself against the tree. The deer was drinking still. She could hit it from that distance; a dagger wasn't as flashy as a sword nor as intimidating, but she would not be able to throw a sword with any such accuracy as she could with her dagger. The notches in their fence could attest to her aim.

Two years passed the trees behind the fence could attest to her terrible aim, when she had missed the mark each and every time she’d thrown it.

Her breath left her in a soft exhalation. One throw was all she had. She scanned the gnarled trees, tracing each twisted branch that reached out to her.

The deer's head shot up, ears flicked forward, water dripping from its open mouth.

With slow movements she edged around the damp tree trunk, the deer all but forgotten as her heart hammered.

Fuck.

The werefolk had never attacked outside of a full moon.

Had one village girl not been enough to feed them?

Knuckles white on the dagger hilt, Anya shifted, preparing to run.

She'd not taken a step when a solid form crashed into her own, sending her sprawling across the forest floor.

A hiss escaped her as her knee collided with a branch and she twisted, moving in the way she had learnt in the City, she shifted her weight, dropping so her attacker overbalanced. Then she pounced, blinded by the dirt, and leaves across her face, she moved on instinct. As she always practised. Her left fist connected with what felt like a back muscle and she struck, twisting their arm, her dagger at the neck where she could feel the pulse beating erratically beneath her knuckles.

No fur. Her heart constricted. A Wolf?

A wolf-shifter?

She used her arm to wipe her face, enough to clear her eyes.

She dug her knees into the waist and blinked. It was red blood that trickled from where her blade pressed, human blood.

"Wolf's teeth, Anya, get off me!"

Anya blinked.

What?

She snarled and yanked back the hood of the cloak to reveal a mop of unruly chocolate hair. Trembling fingers gripped the bearded chin, and she twisted his face to see the mahogany eyes that were dancing with laughter.

And punched him in jaw, her knuckles smarting from the blow.

Which only served to make him laugh harder as she scrambled off him, placing a foot on his chest so he couldn't move, pressing him back into the bracken. "f**k me with a pole axe, Elias, I could have killed you." She cleared the last of the dirt from her eyes and groaned. “And the deer is gone.”

What was she going to do?

First the traps.

Then the deer.

It was almost as if the Land conspired against her.

He grinned, touching the thin trail of blood across the side of his neck. "And you cut me. I'd say we're pretty even."

Anya glared at him, her lip curling back, more curses on her tongue as he pushed her foot off him.

"Anya, I was never in any danger. You've never really hurt anyone before, I won't be the first person you kill by accident." He sat up, brushing himself off. "How about we find another? We'll have more luck with my bow anyway. Surely you weren’t planning on hunting with your dagger?”

She sheathed the offending dagger with a huff. She held her hand out to him, her eyes darting to the canopy. It was a new moon that night, the ‘safest’ time to be out, for everyone knew they needed the moon for strength. But even she would prefer not to be beneath the bowers of the forest when night fell, even if she were safe from moon-cursed creatures, animals still prowled. She touched the ruby in its silver cage, the barest brush, and inhaled. “I'll collect the flowers and head back.”

“Anya, what about for the winter?”

She flashed a smile; one she had perfected long ago, before she’d even set foot in Rhaerynn. Even as disappointed burned through her, she did not let it falter. “I'll figure something out. I always do.”

“I’m sorry about the deer. I didn’t think you were really going to try catch it.”

She knew he would offer offcuts that would see them through the colder months. She would refuse, as she had every other time he had offered. Neither she nor her father would accept such charity. Not again. They would make it through, she would find a way.

She had to.

She did not want to see the pity in her friend's dark eyes. That hurt her more than anything. He already did too much for her.

In silence she led him through the trees, following the soft gurgling of the river. The flowers would fetch a decent price, though not as much as she could have traded for moons ago. She would collect extra for Lina to take to Healer Eamon.

Master Ceithan, the merchant from the Floating City, had bought almost everything she had taken to the markets. What the villagers and the Order did not know would not hurt them. She technically wasn't breaking any rules. They weren't growing it themselves on their farm outside of the town's protective walls.

There.

The sweet, almost sickly smell cut through the soft scent of the forest.

It had been a field of green but a week before, but the space between the trees had become a patchwork of colour. The colours that dreams were woven from, the small flowers as soft and colourful as silk, too blue to be called lavender and too purple to be called heather. Nightrose. It grew only in the soil to the north, with small flowers only as big as a thumbnail.

The village of Rhaerynn had been built to grow the tiny blossoms. It was the main charge of the Master Healer, supervised by the Temple.

But the blossoms that grew wild in the forests were much more potent than any cultivated in the village. There was magik in the soil of the Wolf Forests, the healer had said once, though the use of the tiny blossoms was somewhat ambiguous to her. That particular secret was well-guarded. Some sort of magik, she had always assumed, for what else would drive men to such lengths? Why else would the Order be involved?

Elias leant against one of the trees as she knelt on the soft ground, unstringing her pouch from her belt. She could feel him watching her. “So, how are your sisters?” And there it was. His voice kept ever so casual, his eyes on the trees somewhere passed her left shoulder. She snorted.

Subtlety had never been his strong point.

“Lina is doing well,” she snorted as she sliced through the tiny stems with her dagger, careful not to touch the velvety petals. Her gloves, she had tucked into her belt. “As well as she always is.” A quick glance through her lashes showed her friend looking off into the distance, a slight crease between his brow, his lips slightly pursed. “Don't think too hard, Elias. You might hurt yourself.”

“Has she been sleeping well?”

“She has been sleeping through the night.” She slipped the flowers into her pouch; every so carefully. She had seen the gloves Eamon used for harvesting nightrose, covered in a waxy coating so nothing stuck, so they could be cleaned. And she well understood why, for the first time she had stumbled upon them she had thought them lovely and had wanted to pick them for her sisters. But in the process she had cut her finger, and the powdery coating of those petals entering her blood. The effect had been almost instantaneous; her heart had raced, like a horse galloping, and the world had shifted before her, colours swirling. It had been as if she had left her body lying there amongst the flowers and ferns. And coming-to she almost imagined it was what it was like for Lina when she awoke from her intense dreams; her curls had been stuck to her brow with sweat, her skin clammy and she had expelled the contents of her stomach. And she’d not made the mistake of touching those flowers directly since.

Unaware of the direction her thoughts had taken, a grin formed on Elias’s lips. "And you, Lady Lavanya? How goes your love? Still sailing the world looking for you?"

She rolled her eyes, the only acknowledgement she would ever give his daft questions, though unbidden her hand brushed against the dagger at her waist. i***t. She would forever regret telling him of her past 'dalliance's' as he had called them; she knew he said it in just only, but if any were to overhear they would be under the very false impression that she’d left a string of broken hearts behind her.

But she had more pressing things upon her mind than the past. “How is Petyr doing?”

First his parents and then his little sister.

"Better than he was." But not okay. The words hung between them unspoken as Elias’s eyes slid to hers, dark and troubled. “He still has more bad days than good days.”

Anya could not imagine how she would feel if she'd lost her sisters or her father. She'd been too young to truly remember when her mother had died; but she knew it haunted Lina and Siri still. And to lose them to a moon-cursed creature of the night? To know that their death was not peaceful, that their last moments had been spent in pain? She would not try to think of the night terrors that haunted Petyr's every waking moment.

It was no wonder his mother had been driven to the brink of insanity. She'd lost her mind to grief when she had lost her husband. And then had taken her own life when the werewolf had taken her daughter two months passed.

And Petyr had been left alone; with a cousin she thought, who helped him run the bakery still.

At least her sisters visited him, even if it was for cinnamon rolls. She was sure he benefited from their company, their chatter, she was sure, was a distraction.

"Do you have enough yet?"

The nightrose.

He did not like the forests, despite the time he spent beneath its bowers.

She patted her new pouch. "It should be quite enough. The flowers will stop blooming again shortly."

"Let's head back before the sun falls."

She nodded, the back of her neck still prickling.

And she knew what he meant.

Let's head back before we do not make it back at all.