Little whispers stirred him awake. Voices muttered conspiratorially followed by soft giggles.
Skyre felt a tug.
His eyelids pressed tight, then opened, squinting up at the smoky daylight trickling through the opening in the hide. Two ruddy faces popped into view. Sharply, he sat up, reaching for his blade, only to realize with great confusion that it was gone.
More giggles.
Beside him were two young girls, no more than seven summers. They seemed intrigued by his awakening, but hardly disturbed as they continued to twist his hair into braids. The raven strands were wound with twine and wildflowers. He opened his mouth to curse or yell, but before he could muster himself, the door to the dwell pulled aside and the druid came through. His flaxen strands were messy and free, his feet bare, and his muslin robes were worn. He had a clay pot beneath his arm, but upon his hand remained the silver band with the white moonstone.
“I told you not to wake him,” the druid chided the girls.
“We were gentle, promise!”
“You’ve had your fun, now run along.”
They scrambled to their feet, out the door and down into the grove.
“Youlet them in?” Skyre asked, dumbfounded.
“Of course,” said the druid, kneeling aside the fire pit. “What is the harm in it?”
The king lifted his brows, flicking a floral braid. “Iamstill Vaich.”
“Mm.” The druid set the pot in front of him. “Fresh water from the spring.”
He sighed, reaching for the pot. “Is there no decorum amongst you people?” It was mostly a jest, even if the words were honest. He raised the pot to his lips and took a long drink. “Suppose there’ll be breakfast?”
“You know little of our lives.”
“Then it’s a no, eh?” Skyre took some of the water in his hands and washed clean the sweat that clung on his chest and shoulders. Even without a fire, it was warm inside the dwell. He thought to disentangle the mess of his hair, but considered the girls had worked too hard to soil their good effort.
“If it’s breakfast you’d like, you may catch it.” The druid’s voice hinted, and Skyre met his gaze.
“Aye?”
“Aye.”
“Well, alright then.No harm in it.” He rose to his feet, grabbed his things, and leveled a knowing look at the druid. “I’ll be needing my blade.”
“It shall be returned to you… in time. Until then…” He nodded towards a bow and quiver leaning against the hide.
Skyre laughed a sigh.
As he shifted his mantle into place, the druid asked, “Shall you sport full armor for the hares?”
Skyre paused on the clasp, then, with a shake of his head, pulled it loose again. “So you wish to play,” he muttered. “Alright. Have it your way.”
The wood was thick with morning mist. A thin sheen of dew coated the grass, gathering sunlight within. Skyre barely recognized it as the place he’d arrived the night before. Gone were the long shadows, the shifting ground. But the trees still watched him.
He tried to be noiseless, feeling the increasing need to go unnoticed. The crows cawed in the canopy, and beneath the brush, the unseen scurried from his footsteps.
The first time Rask had taken him into the forest to hunt, he’d said,“Go quietly, for all things listen for the reaper’s coming. Soft things need die quickly, and the strong ones—they fight.”
Skyre knew it hadn’t been a simple warning of the perilous differences between a buck and a boar. He was only a child then—it’d be years, still, before his first true hunt, but in that moment, he had determined which he would be.
They said a man chose his death by the way he lived his life. And yet, they had promised him immortality. And he’d believed it. But something had happened upon crossing into that place, as if his hand had pushed through a tangled veil, and on the other side, he could feel only cold. The world grew thin there… and he with it.
The quiver jostled against his bare back. The bow was not unfamiliar to him, but had never been his weapon of choice. His fingers curled around its wooden body, studying the curve.
