“Swear it. Swear that when the sun’s light hits the bell tower following the night of the Blood Moon you will be marching home.”
“I swear I will come back.”
I grasp him tightly. As tightly as I’m holding on to my emotions. He’s sworn it to me. He’ll come back.
Yet, my heart knows the truth. Maybe it’s because we’re twins. Maybe because he’s a hunter like Father was. Maybe I just know from being born on the soil of Hunter’s Hamlet that death is already in the air.
He might swear he’ll return, but…
He’s lying.
CHAPTER3
Today’sthe first day in my life that the forge was not lit.
Usually, every morning, Mother is the first to rise. She heads downstairs and puts the kettle on for tea, then she heads to the smithy and begins to wake the slumbering coals in the hearth, stoking them into high flames to create a bed of heat for us to work from. The forge glows an angry orange as if in contempt that it must wake before even the sky. By the time I make my way downstairs, I can feel the heat all the way at the kitchen window, and Mother is already working the bellows. Before the sun rises, we are ready to melt silver and steel together to make the special alloy that only we can craft.
But today, the house is quiet.
All of Hunter’s Hamlet is filled with the most horrible, deafening silence.
I’m up before Mother. Not utterly unheard of, but on top of everything else it’s a reminder of how strange the day is. I stare out my window at the quiet streets. There’s no smoke from the baker’s chimney. There aren’t laborers trudging out to the fields that fill the gap between town and the Fade Marshes. The only people outside are before their doors, beginning to hang on their eaves the delicate silver bells we have spent months smithing.
Mother and I join them.
We don’t say much. The hunters have told us what to do to prepare and it is not so different than any other full moon. There’s only so much we can do to prepare for vampires, even less for the vampire lord himself. The old stories are vague on what to expect from the ruler and hive mind of the vampires—some say he’s a winged monstrosity, others claim him to be able to draw the blood from all living creatures within his sight with a mere thought. I’m not sure what I believe, other than that he’s certainly the cause of every bit of hardship and loss in Hunter’s Hamlet.
What Drew said weighs on me as the hours tick on. His words—his lies—were sharper than the sickles I forge. Sharper than the weapons I have hidden in the main room downstairs. I look to the fortress, as though I could catch a glimpse of him, but he’s behind those high, thick walls. Not for the first time, I wonder what’s going on within all that stone.
But hunters’ affairs aren’t meant for me. I haven’t taken the vows of a hunter. I will not wear a mask tonight. I am the forge maiden and my place is here as much as his is in the Fade Marshes. We can’t change our roles, no matter how badly we might want to.
The bell tolls.
The bell tower of Hunter’s Hamlet stretches up from the center of the main square. It is as old as the fortress, said to have been built thousands of years ago, at the same time as the walls that surround all the land of Hunter’s Hamlet. One of the hunters serves as the bell ringer. I always thought it was a pointless task. None of us forget when the full moon has come. We certainly don’t need a ringing reminder each dusk before full moons to be in our homes. Every toll is worse than the last.
I lower my hands from the silver bells stretched over our door and look to Mother. She stares at the bell tower. At three stories tall, it’s the second tallest thing in the hamlet. The tallest is the fortress at four, which I’m certain is the highest structure ever built by human hands. Mother’s features are as hard as the iron we hammer and betray no emotion. I mirror her expression. We cannot be delicate.
“Do you want to go see the procession?” I ask.
“Of course.” She shakes her head, as if trying to banish the worried thoughts that I know are there. There will be no banishing them, not tonight.
We join the rest of Hunter’s Hamlet, heading for the main road that cuts through town. I’ve never seen so many people in one place being so silent. There’s only the sound of our boots on the cobblestone streets. I hear weeping coming from one of the windows we pass underneath. It does not quiet.
The main road stretches from the fortress to the center square and bell tower, and then on past the lower wall of Hunter’s Hamlet. It cuts through the farmers’ fields and heads north through the salted earth. Then, it goes past the realm of my knowing and into the Fade Marshes. No one knows what’s at the end of it. No one has made it that far into the lands of the vampire and lived to tell the tale.
Drew has said that the road is ancient and connects all the way to the vampire stronghold at the far end of the Fade Marshes, farther than any human has ever gone and returned. He claimed to have read it in one of Davos’s books—a secret and ancient tome that onlyhewas permitted to read. All the special privileges my brother got suddenly make sense in a way that I wish they didn’t. Davos has molded him into what the master hunter thinks is the most ideal killer of vampires. And because of it, he will send my brother to attack the vampire lord tonight.
My stomach is uneasy as Mother and I come to a stop along the road. I don’t know if I want to see my brother in his hunter’s garb. Not tonight. Not this full moon. It will all be real the moment I lay eyes on him and then the last sight I’ll have of him is Drew the hunter, in his leather armor, and not Drew the brother I knew last night.
But it’s too late to turn back now.
The mighty portcullis of the fortress slowly opens with a deep clanking. Behind it is the might of the Hunters’ Guild. Every hunter wears the same armor—heavy leather and thin plates, designed for fast movement. It’s the only way to keep up with the unnatural speed of the vampire. They all wear blank masks with only a thin slit for their eyes, and collars around their throats.
Drew showed me the inside of his once when I asked why they needed such delicate thorns made. There are hidden points within, laced with a deadly poison. The tips of the needles are tucked into leather flaps. But if a hunter hits their throat in the right way, the needles will pop free and they will die a clean death. More importantly, the poison will render their blood too putrid for the vampire to consume. It’s a risky design, but worth the few accidents that happen. The alternative would be to cover the hunters in silver, and it’s too precious a resource for that.
The tough leather and high collars, the masks, the poison, it is all designed to prevent vampires from performing their darkest and rarest magic. With blood, they can steal the faces of those they drink from and infiltrate the town as our loved ones.
As happened with Father.
