I’m standing outside. Behind me, the coarse stones and thatched roof of my cottage are stained bluish black from the night.
Stars sprinkle the sky like salt spilled across a well-oiled table. My hair, which is usually bound in a braid, falls past my shoulders, a veil of pale blond that shines silver in the moonlight.
Where our pasture meets the Evers, something moves. It’s the shape of a young man.
My eyes narrow, and then I smile. Since the incident, he’s only come once—earlier that day he traveled the half league from Brentyn to visit our cottage. My heart gallops as I force myself to walk to where he stands in the shadows until the darkness swallows me whole. There, his whispery breath breaks the stillness.
Hair the rich color of soil after a rainstorm. Sharp hazel eyes. A face too handsome for the angry scar that mars his cheek. The guilt is overwhelming as my fingers itch to trace the shiny red mark. I want to touch him and tell him how I feel about him. How he owns my heart.
All that comes out is “Cohen, I’m sorry.”
The howling wind wakes me. Cohen vanishes, replaced by the gray shaded trunks and the pine limbs stretching above like specters. I curl my legs in tight and cinch the shoddy woolen blanket snug around my shoulders. The dreamt memory has left me disoriented, and it takes two inhales and two exhales to ground myself. To calm my pulse.
When I was twelve, Papa no longer took me on regular bounty hunts for King Aodren. Alone in the cottage, I felt the quietness eat at me. I pretended the creaking woods or my own breaths were other voices. Company to pass the night. Ridiculous, but it helped me fall asleep.
Those old tricks won’t work tonight. Not when Cohen’s face lingers in the darkness. Always, I see his scar first—an injury suffered weeks before he left. Starting just under his eye, it leads to the strong line of his jaw that’s covered in sparse sable scruff, because at eighteen, when we were last together, he was too boyish to grow a full beard. Perhaps that’s changed now that he’s twenty, two years and a pinch older than me.
I like the idea of an older, rugged Cohen. More than I should admit.
A year and three months have passed since Cohen completed his apprenticeship and became one of the king’s court, taking up the title only my father, my grandfather, and all Flannery men before them held. As one of the king’s two bounty hunters, Cohen is allowed to travel through Malam’s fiefdoms and cross the borders. It’s unimaginable to me. I’ll never have the chance to leave Malam.
When Cohen left without a goodbye, I hoped he would visit. Except he didn’t return; not even for Papa’s wake.
Using the heels of my hands, I try to rub him out of my mind. A useless endeavor. Cohen has taken up too much space in my heart and head for the last five years to dismiss so easily. As always, my thoughts turn to his long absence. And I wonder if he never returned because he realized there’s no future for us.
As the king’s bounty hunter, Cohen is in a league above commoners. Ten leagues above me. Like Papa, he’ll be revered for his position in the king’s court. He’ll be considered nobility and be given lands. And if he chooses, he’ll marry the daughter of a lord.
A noble marriage, let alone any union for that matter, is about as likely for me as the king himself proposing. I snort at the idea.
All that came with Papa’s honored title, home, and land returns to the king, since Papa has no living relations except me. And I’m ineligible to inherit. Though my parents married in Shaerdan, the law only recognizes unions made before a priest of Malam. Before they could do so, my mother was accused of selling secrets to Shaerdan and killed.
In the law’s eyes, I’m illegitimate. To most of Malam, I’m Shaerdanian. But to some, the gossipmongers in Brentyn, I’m a traitor’s daughter.
None of that matters to me, though, because like my father, I’ll always be a Flannery, and I can take care of myself.
At sunrise, I walk to the crystal-clear lake and splash water on my face. Brisk morning air fills my lungs and prickles my skin. It isn’t until I’ve patted dry with my tunic that a disturbance along the muddy shore seizes my attention. Fresh boot prints. A man’s—by the size of them.
I leap to my feet, spinning wildly to search the clearing. Like yesterday, nothing stands out. Nothing more than evergreens and the glassy blue water spread beneath the cloudless sky. Even so, there’s no question now.
I’m not alone.