“Only if you lived to tell about it.”
“And only if you survived a spear wound to your most vital organ.”
She narrowed her eyes. “Lower your weapon and I’ll lower mine.”
“Not a chance,” Teryn said. “I’ll stop waltzing when you stop leading. Lower your bow.”
“Count of three, and we both lower our weapons. One. Two. Three.”
Neither of them moved.
She released a frustrated groan. “I’ll lower my bow if you promise me this. Never come near a unicorn again. If you do, I will kill you. I will not spare your life twice, prince or no.”
Teryn almost opened his mouth to make that promise and mean it with his whole heart. He remembered how he’d stood frozen when finally faced with killing his prey. Every inch of his body had rebelled at doing what needed to be done. It was a worrying prospect, but one he didn’t have time to address right now. All that mattered was getting on his attacker’s better side. “I promise,” he said. The words sent something like relief through his body, even as his mind screamed that the vow was a lie. He still had to win the Heart’s Hunt.
She kept her arrow trained on him for several more breaths, then finally let it down. Teryn did the same. Neither severed their gaze.
“I’m going to fetch my things now,” she said, tilting her head toward the weapons that littered the ground between them.
“Go ahead,” Teryn said. They watched each other warily as she stomped over to her dagger, then her knife, sheathing them before striding to the cherry tree. She tugged her arrow from its trunk. Teryn’s hand went reflexively to his neck where the blood was already beginning to dry. Had she shot an inch to the left, he might have been dead. “Nice aim,” he said.
She tucked the arrow into her quiver and burned him with a glare. “I missed.”
His lips curled into a smirk as he watched her walk away. Only when she was out of sight did he let himself skulk over to the tree and lean against its trunk, catching his breath while he pondered the notion that he just escaped death at the hands of a rather frightening girl. He brought a palm to his chest, finding the front of his shirt wet. It must have gotten damp from her sodden hair when he’d pulled her against him. Proof that he hadn’t just hallucinated the strange confrontation.
He flinched as one of the boughs trembled overhead. “Berol,” he said with a relieved sigh. “You chose the absolute least helpful time to show up. I could have used you a minute ago.”
The falcon quirked her head from the branch above.
“You’re right. I look a mess.” He wiped the skin beneath his nose, finding sticky blood on the back of his palm. With a groan, he pushed off from the tree and headed back the way he’d come from. Berol launched off the tree and landed on his shoulder. He sighed. “Let’s hope we don’t run into her ever again.”
21
Cora stood in shadow, eyes trained on the man. Fury roared through her blood as she watched him recover from their fight. Part of her wanted to take aim from between the trees and shoot him down before he even knew her arrow was coming. Instead, she remained motionless, silent, waiting until he left the cherry tree—strangely, with a falcon on his shoulder—before she dared leave her hiding place. Once the man was out of sight, she retrieved her cloak from where she’d left it before she’d sprung her attack, and stormed off into the woods. She made it only a few steps before Valorre appeared before her.
“What were you thinking, Valorre?” She halted before him with her hands on her hips. “You should have run before he spotted you. That’s what I did. The first time, at least.” She’d been in the middle of bathing in the stream when she’d seen the man stalk down the opposite bank. As soon as he’d passed her, she’d scrambled out of the stream and donned her clothing as fast as she could. By the time she was dressed and had located Valorre, the man was about to make his kill.
I would have ended his life. You should have seen how he trembled before my might. His spear was not iron. It would have merely tickled.
She rolled her eyes and started off again. Valorre kept pace at her side. She glanced at him a few times, eyes falling on his flank where he’d been struck by Erwin’s whip. The wounds had healed but it didn’t stop her from remembering how his skin had split beneath the iron barbs. Her heart sank as she reached out to touch his soft hide. “You’re made of flesh like anything else. You may be particularly sensitive to pure iron, but steel can wound just as deep.”
I will not cower before a boy.
Cora wanted to argue that he was far from a boy. He may not have been like the men from the duke’s hunting parties, but he was tall. Broad. Strong.Verystrong. The way he’d whirled her around, pulling her against his chest when he’d tried to disarm her. The way he’d pinned her on her back and wrenched the knife from her fingers. Angry heat crawled up her cheeks at the memory. She shook her head and shifted her attention to the name he’d given.
Teryn Alante.
She hadn’t realized it then, but she knew that name. Remembered hearing it when she was a child. Teryn Alante was the Crown Prince of Menah. What was he doing out here? He’d admitted to hunting unicorns but also insisted he hadn’t killed one. She’d opened her senses to him then, felt the truth of his statement, mingling with conflict over what he’d almost done to Valorre. Then there was that odd bit he’d said about having been sent by Princess Mareleau. He had to have meant Mareleau Harvallis, Princess of Selay. Another name she recalled.
If you’re so worried, then you should have killed him instead of letting him go.
Cora cut him a glare, but she had no argument to give. She wasn’t entirely sure why she’d let him go. They’d been evenly matched once they’d faced off with spear and bow, but she could have shot him after. He was a unicorn hunter, and that made him her enemy. Sure, he was a prince, and killing him would make her an enemy to his kingdom. But she could have fled the scene and left no one the wiser to what she’d done.
Still, she couldn’t fight the feeling that settled in her chest, one that told her that—despite all evidence to the contrary—he didn’t deserve to die.
“I miss when I only understood you in one-to-two-word spurts,” she muttered.
Valorre rippled with something like laughter.The boy agitates you. Or interests you.
