“She’s not ready!” the boy shouted.
“Then she’ll be broken in quickly.” The Huntsman’s cold, cruel gaze flicked to the girl. He gripped her jaw between his gloved finger and thumb, appraising her like livestock. “Even if she looks like a pale stick in the mud.”
The boy stiffened, his fists curling. “She doesn’t belong in the Pen. She’s not of age!”
“She is now.” A quiet, cruel laugh rippled that mocking mask.
The Huntsman’s fingers closed around wool and flesh. One twist—that’s all it took to send the boy airborne, his defiance scattering like the snow beneath his landing. Each impact that followed carried the methodical precision of a butcher at his block.
The girl’s scream awoke something feral, wild, and unchained within the boy. He struggled to his feet and launched at the Huntsman, only to be sent back to earth with a fist.
Another blow came, and then another. Blood sprayed across the snow, staining it crimson. He coughed and wheezed, but still, the boy tried to rise. Still, he tried to fight.
“Leave him and take me,” the girl begged. “He’s nothing. No one. Even his parents left him.” The words tasted like ash on her tongue. She planted her feet between them, making herself the wall the Huntsman would have to break.
The Huntsman’s dead eyes fixed on her. “Step aside.”
She shook her head. This behemoth surely wanted something more than killing her friend. Her mind raced to find a solution, and when she thought of the rose, she knew the answer.
“Take me for yourself,” she said, lifting her chin. “Then you don’t have to fight over me during the Hunt. You can be my king. I’ll be good, I promise. I’ll be the dutiful wife you want. I’ll give you hundreds of children. Every man in the Iron Kingdoms will bow to you.” She sucked in a breath, willed her tears to hide. “Just let him live.”
Confusion flickered in the Huntsman’s eyes. It was almost as if he’d never considered taking a fertile bride for himself, let alone the one fated to be the first queen this realm had seen in generations.
“Take me,” she whispered. “Just... stop hurting him. Please.”
“No!” The boy wheezed, blood trickling from the corner of his mouth. “This isn’t... how this is supposed to go.”
The Huntsman bent low, his mask brushing the boy’s ear as he whispered something low and cold, each word a hidden weight driving deeper into the boy’s broken body. When he straightened, the boy came with him, stubbornly clutching his coat.
“Fight,” the boy tells her. “Fight like hell.”
“No! Stop it!” The girl’s foot connected with the Huntsman’s shin. His eyes swung her way and narrowed. And then he dealt the final blow.
It happened so fast.
The boy fell to his knees, stunned. He looked down at his stomach, at the blood oozing from the knife wound—drip, drip, drip. With a final indecipherable look aimed at the girl, the boy landed face-first, body twitching.
His blood carved a steaming path through the snow.
Toward the rose.
Screeching her pain, the girl attacked the Huntsman with tiny, useless fists.
“I said I would go with you!” she cried. “Why did you kill him?”
The Huntsman regarded her. “Foolish child. Girls are for breeding, not speaking.”
Then he reached for her, his massive hand closing around her arm. She didn’t fight as he slung her over his shoulder. She hung limp, the icy wind biting her skin and tangling her hair.
She thought of the game she’d always played with the boy. She had always been the shadow, darting between stalls, leaving only laughter in her wake. He had always been the stalker, hunting and catching only to let her slip away. They made the rules. They broke them. The game was theirs.
Movement in the snow nabbed the Huntsman’s attention. His pivot whipped the girl’s blue hair into her eyes, but hope bloomed in her heart when gravity took hold again. The boy, bloody and blue, crawled on trembling arms and legs and reached for the rose.
A sharp, amused sound barked out of the Huntsman. He crushed the flower—and fingers—under his boot until bones, petals, and stem crunched. When no sound came afterward, no cry of pain, no movement, his cruel laughter rose in a crescendo, bursting through the mask like a tribute to his God.
As they walked away, the girl could do nothing but watch through blurred eyes as snowflakes gathered on the boy’s body, building into a blanket and burying him as though he never existed.
Chapter 1
