“What about watercolors?” Eli asked. “You need to be well-rounded, if you’re a noble. It’s watercolors or hunting, your choice.”
“Watercoloring is just thinning down paint and sloshing it on the canvas, isn’t it?”
Eli laughed. His mother would have been horrified to hear it put that way. “Yeah, there you go. I can see why you like pretending to be a noble so much. It suits you.”
“Somehow that doesn’t seem like a compliment,” Rey said, but he was smiling, and he even accepted some of the fish when Eli was done searing it over the fire.
Eli had never spoken so much at once as he did with Rey. Eli’s throat was sore and his head felt odd as he went to bed that night. The world seemed loose and floaty, as though he’d talked so much that his mind was starting to come unmoored. Had he really spent entire mornings entertaining people with hismother, once upon a time? Had he ever had a minute to hear himself think?
He wondered where Sabre was sleeping now. Probably in the palace—what little he’d heard on the road was that Sabre had risen to power as Adrien’s confidant, standing at his left side during Adrien’s coronation. The coronation had happened so recently that some villages hadn’t taken down their garlands and flags. King Adrien was loved by the country folk more than King Emile, so they were more inclined to think kindly of Duke de Valois by association.
If sixteen-year-old Eli would have had his way, none of it would have happened.
He thought he was being so clever, coming up with a plan to rein in Sabre if he objected to the coup. But it was really just jealousy—the burning, indignant rage Eli had always had to tamp down every moment of the day, channeled toward the one person who didn’t deserve it, because how dare Sabre be happy when Eli was so miserable? It was a childish thing to do, and it made it all the more clear that a child shouldn’t have been involved in something as dangerous as Aline de Valois’ plans.
Eli gave up on sleep and sat up in the tent, fumbling for the clasp in the front. Something was clearly broken inside him. He couldn’t have a normal relationship with anyone in his family—not his father, who he resented for dying so soon, or his mother, who he loved and feared and hated, or Sabre, who had always had everything he ever wanted while Eli was drowning under his mother’s expectations.
When he climbed out of the tent, he saw Rey asleep in the cart, his long legs sticking out of the end. Unicorn slept in a patch of clover. The river rolled nearby, gurgling as it sucked at the tree roots on the banks, and Whet’s Forest loomed before them, dark as a pit opening up in the sky.
“You’re wasting time, boy.”
Eli turned, a hand on the empty spot where his sword should have been. A familiar wolf stood over him, golden-eyed and snarling, foam dripping from his jaws. He padded closer, hot breath steaming in Eli’s face.
Eli nodded tightly. “Your majesty.”
“Five years you’ve wandered,” King Tristan said, craning his neck forward. His teeth were as long as Eli’s fingers. “And how do I find you? Lounging with tricksters?”
“He agreed to assist me,” Eli said, “your majesty.” He’d learned it helped to speak respectfully, even if his fingers ached for the sword or the bow. He had a scar on his shoulder from the last time he’d earned King Tristan’s displeasure, and he wasn’t about to make the same mistake twice. He needed to stay alive until he was strong enough to fight back, sword or no.
“Be wary of that one. He’ll try to take it for his own purposes, if you aren’t watchful.” Tristan padded around Eli, panting heavily.
“He’s been kind enough.”
“Kind?” Tristan huffed. “Tricksters are self-serving by nature. He is no kinder than I am.” Tristan turned his cold gaze to the treeline. “Perhaps I can prove it to you. Send hunters his way, and the fox runs.”
Eli twisted round as high, lonesome howling rang from the woods. Another howl joined the first, then another, and Reynard moved in the cart as shadows started to slink out of the forest. Wolves passed into the moonlight, powerful and deadly, six of them fixed on Eli.
Six. Eli moved around Tristan to grab his sword and bow from the tent. It always hurt to kill an animal. They weren’t like mortal killers. They would have avoided him if it weren’t for Tristan, and it never felt right to cut them down.
Unicorn startled awake, and Reynard cursed as she whinnied and ran around to the other side of the cart in alarm, too terrifiedto move much further. Reynard saw Tristan’s hulking wolf form and froze, gaze flicking between him and the oncoming wolves.
“The fox runs,” Tristan said over Eli’s shoulder.
“Rey, you need to get as far from here as possible until I’m done,” Eli said. It hurt to raise his voice, but he risked it for this. “I can handle it.”
“There are six of them!” Rey was already climbing onto Unicorn. A part of Eli wilted at the sight. He’d asked Rey to run, but a small piece of him had thought maybe Rey was invested enough to help anyway.
“I said I can handle it,” Eli said, drawing an arrow on the bow. He’d always handled it alone before. Rey didn’t have an obligation to stick around. Eli was just another human—another story, small and fleeting.
He wasn’t even a particularlygoodone.
The closest wolf hesitated, instinct fighting with the magic that compelled it forward. “They’re just animals, your majesty. They shouldn’t be a part of this.”
“And I shouldn’t be hobbled by your ancestor’s treachery,” Tristan said. “Ever the world remains unfair.”
Eli loosed the arrow. It struck a wolf in the neck, and when it stumbled, Eli shot it again, but the others were almost on him. He took another step back and bumped into Tristan. Tristan bent his head over Eli’s shoulder, his jaws so massive he could bite Eli clean through the middle, and the remaining wolves slowed to a halt a few paces away.
“Sometimes I wonder if I shouldn’t let the hunters devour you and start again with another soul,” Tristan said. The wolves watched Eli, their eyes too bright, enthralled by the powers of the Hunt. “Five years, and what do you have to show for it? A trickster who runs at the first sign of danger?”
