I swallowed thickly and tried to draw a breath. What had just happened?
"Baba," I tried to say, but nothing came out.
Baba. My dad.
Silence, as absolute as the panic taking root inside me. I clamped my teeth down on it, anchoring myself to the side of the cottage, and listened. The carriage had stopped. The wilds in the Crimson Forest were quiet, too, as if they were watching what would happen next.
Wiping at my face, I took a step backward along the side of the house, my heart pinched and barely beating. A part of me wanted to rush forward, though, to see that Baba was all right, but the air felt too tense. I didn’t trust it.
"Seems you have a delivery, Kane Song!" a male voice shouted, the accent strange and foreign to my ears.
I jumped at the sound of it. I squeezed my bow and the package tight, backing away along the side of the cabin, away from the voice that hijacked my spine and rattled it to its base.
"How about you give it to me, and I'll deliver it for you,” the man said. “It's the least I can do."
A bubbly groan carried on the wind, gruesome and wrong, like the sound of dying. Baba. He was still alive.
"Where is it?" the man demanded.
My boots snapping over the fresh-fallen snow were much too loud, even with slow, careful steps. The man would hear me if I ran, and I wasn't certain if there were more men than just him. If there were, they could be circling the cabin right now. I had one arrow in the quiver on my back, the other in the forest somewhere.
I turned toward the back of the cabin, and guiding my elbow along the side wall, I unbuttoned my wool coat at the bottom, enough to stuff the package down the front of my pants. After I re-buttoned it against the bludgeoning wind, I took my last arrow from the quiver and nocked it in my bow.
How exactly was I going to do this? Not run up the Crawfords' porch steps to their front door. I'd be spotted. I'd likely be noticed anyway since I was leaving a trail of footprints behind me in the snow.
A crash came from inside the cabin. Someone was in there, searching.
I turned the rear corner, and the ferocious wind snapped at my face and hands, stinging tears from my eyes and forcing me back the way I'd come. While feeling for the first window, my bedroom’s, I pressed on. When I felt a pane of glass like ice on my palm, I ducked low.
He—they?—wanted the package. That had to be right because it was the only thing of value we had. Without Baba's monthly deliveries, we had nothing except for what the Crimson Forest gave us. Lately, the forest’s offerings had thinned, and with winter coming in about two weeks’ time, it wouldn't be enough to survive. Here, winters were long and brutal, and without the meager payment for Baba's delivery, we wouldn't be able to go into town to buy food. We'd starve. So would the Crawfords. It was just Jade and Lee who lived there now because their parents hadn't survived two winters ago. Jade was only fifteen, and Lee, though older, could barely take care of himself. Baba had sworn to their parents that he would help their children while they lay on their deathbeds, the one good thing I’d ever heard him do. But without our help, Jade and Lee wouldn't make it.
Our help—or mine if Baba…
I crushed my teeth together. I would have to make the delivery myself. I knew where to go, who to speak to. I'd gone with Baba a couple times.
Useless. So useless and broken…
No. I could do it. I had to do it. I nodded as I crept along the back of the cottage. I just needed to get to Hellbreath without anyone seeing me.
Another crash, which sounded like the pans of deer jerky I'd made, and then a string of curses.
I kept low underneath another window, keeping my footsteps as light as possible. I often heard wilds prowling around at night, but that might have been because I knew they were there in the first place. I didn't think the man who'd shot Baba knew I was here. Yet.
But I would have to sprint out into the open, between our cabin and the Crawfords', because if Baba were alive, I couldn't just leave him there. I had to tell Jade that Baba was hurt before I took Hellbreath.
My fingers sought the corner of the cabin, and I stood there for a second to gather up all my courage and hold it to my thrumming heart. It was about twenty steps from the back corner of our cabin to the back corner of theirs, at least it had been when I'd counted as a girl. Jade's bedroom window would be along the back wall. If I knocked, she would answer.
"Goddamn it," the man shouted from the front of the house. "You."
Not me. He couldn't see me. I was sure of it.
Now. I had to go now.
I ran out into the open, counting each step, with no cover to block the wind and blowing snow. It battered against me, throwing me off course and blinding me even more than I already literally was. It smothered my sharp hearing so it felt like I existed in a void. If I lost my way, I wouldn't dare shout because then I'd be giving away my location. If I lost my way, I might not make the delivery in time. The package had to be delivered the first of the month. Always. If I lost my way, I might just freeze to death since there was nothing around for miles. Even Margin, the nearest town, was twenty miles out.
Six, seven, eight… I sure hoped I was stepping in the right direction.
A cry pierced the wind. A horse's cry. What was that man doing to my girl, Hellbreath? Searching her for the package? Fury stormed through my veins, forceful enough to stall my steps and almost spin me around to go rescue her. But if he made her cry out like that, what would he do to me?
