I stepped into the glade. “You cannot hunt here.”
She did not move at first, holding that impressive stillness as if hoping that I was speaking to someone else. As if she was not fully exposed there on the flat gray rock where she’d perched.
I moved further into the glade, feet close to the edge of the spring. I either had to step into it or onto the rock. I did not want to risk her bolting deeper into the coven lands. The cold water stung, but I’d survive.
She shifted her stance quickly, spinning on her heel but remaining in that crouch with her arrow notched.
“I saw a boar,” she said, though she pointed that arrow at me.
“Then it belongs to the coven lands.” She needed to understand the danger she was in. Her brown eyes were unflinching in their intelligence as she took me in. She still did not lower her weapon.
Death might be a mercy. But an arrow to the chest was a painful way to die.
“My grandmother told stories of your kind.”
“Then you should know that my power could destroy that arrow before it ever reached me.” Not quite the truth. Though without the overwhelming sensory input of my coven and the weight of Maura’s toxic expectations, there was a chance I’d manage it. But I did not want to kill this girl. “You should have heeded your grandmother and stayed away.”
Finally, she lowered the bow. “We need to eat.”
I considered her again, noticing that the high cheekbones were made sharper by the hollowness in her cheeks. She wasmuscled but thin. A huntress who never had quite enough to build anything beyond the essential layers of muscle. Not starving—not yet. But eventually.
“Entering the coven lands is death to mortals,” I said, trying to steel my voice. Sympathy would only get her killed. The longer she lingered here, the more danger of her discovery. If my sisters found her, there would be nothing I could do. Nothing except… a new thought occurred to me.
“Unless you are willing to pay the price.”
The bow notched up a few inches. “What price?”
“The price is determined by the witch, not the mortal. If you are willing to pay my price, then you may walk away unscathed.” Maura had been drilling the covenants into me for decades. I’d never imagined I would exploit this one. I had little interest in torturing humans the way some of my sisters did.
“What price?” the girl repeated, her mouth curling into a sneer that looked just like?—
No. It can’t be.
“Who are you?” My throat tried to freeze around the words, but I managed to force them out.
“I should not tell you,” she said, lifting her chin in a subconscious act of defiance. Because her grandmother had told her stories, and many humans believed that telling a witch your name gave her power over you.
“That is my price,” I said. For once, my power was quiet. A frozen weight sat in my chest, colder than the spring water that had begun to freeze around my toes.
The girl considered, her eyes appraising. She looked past me, to one of the gaps in the alders. Her escape route. But she also must have seen that she’d never make it past me without some kind of intervention. She could shoot me with that arrow. I could use my power against her.
She straightened, letting the bow fall to her side. Preparing to run.
“I am Rowellyn, daughter of Karlyn, granddaughter of Rylynn, of the House of Gallatin.”
The House of Gallatin. She had not needed to list my father, her great-grandfather, as one of her ancestors, because he’d renamed the entire family line after himself.
Rylynn’s granddaughter.
It was a miracle. After what I’d done to my sister, to her fiancée… still, she’d managed to have a daughter and then a granddaughter. A granddaughter that she warned about witches.
Rightfully so.
Rowellyn was already springing past me, her price paid. I should have been thankful—Dark God, Iwasthankful that she was finally heeding my warnings and getting the hell out of the coven lands. But?—
“Wait.” I spun to face her, already slipping between the trees. Her brown eyes collided with mine, and I recognized why she’d felt so familiar. They were my sister’s eyes. I’d damned Rylynn to a life of misery. But I could offer something to her granddaughter. “When bow draws near to water’s edge, let creatures heed this silent pledge.”
Whenever she hunted with the bow near a body of water, animals would be drawn to take a drink. She would find enough prey to feed herself and her family.
