Ash was awake well before dawn on the morning of the hunt. She slept fitfully all night, waking nearly every hour to see that it was still dark, and when she finally gave up on sleep she felt groggy and slow. She went into the kitchen to make tea, and as she waited for the water to boil she watched daylight creeping into the cracks around the shuttered windows. Just as she was taking down the teapot, there was a knock on the kitchen door. She went to open it, apprehensive about what she might find. The early morning sky was flushed pink over the Wood, and the air smelled of the last of summer, that scent of slowly fading grasses combined with the first hint of cool winter. On the doorstep at her feet there was a satchel made of finely tooled leather, drawn shut with a gold silk rope. The tassels glowed in the morning light as if they were on fire.
Just then she heard the kettle begin to whistle, and she hurriedly picked up the satchel and brought it inside, leaving it on the kitchen table while she made her tea. Then she took the satchel into her bedchamber and emptied the bag onto her bed. There were riding breeches made of creamy leather and a tunic of dark green, embroidered at the cuffs and collar in rich gold thread that matched the pattern of leaves and vines tooled into the leather satchel. There was a brown hooded cloak made of light wool, and brown leather riding gloves, and at the bottom of the satchel there was a pair of riding boots finer than any shoes Ash had ever worn. She sat down on her bed and pulled the medallion out of her pocket, and looking at the luminous, smoky stone she whispered, “Thank you, Sidhean.”
After she dressed, she wound her hair up and pinned it tightly at the nape of her neck, and when she looked at herself in the square mirror hung on the back of her door, her eyes were unusually bright. She wondered how her absence from the house would be explained that day. She felt as though she had stepped into an enchantment, and her heart raced. She went outside, her new boots molding to her feet as they touched the earth for the first time—as if they were feeling their way into existence—and waiting at the garden gate was a gray mare, her coat speckled with white on the right shoulder in a pattern of stars. The mare arched her neck as Ash approached, her brown eyes flecked with gold. Her saddle and bridle were made of fine dark brown leather, and the saddle blanket was woven of gray and white wool that nearly matched the horse’s coat. In the corner of the blanket a name had been embroidered in black: Saerla. “That must be you,” Ash said to the mare, and when she put her hand on Saerla’s neck, she felt a deep sense of calm.
Before she departed, she looked back at the house, and there was a woman in white standing in the kitchen doorway. Startled, Ash went back up the path, and as she drew closer to the house she saw that the woman’s face and hair and hands were ghostly pale, and she had eyes the color of gold. Remembering the fairy woman pulling her into the enchanted circle, Ash felt a tingle of fear run down her spine. “Do you have everything that you need, Aisling?” asked the woman, her voice rippling like the notes of a half-forgotten melody.
“Yes,” she answered.
The strange woman said, “There is one thing you must remember: Those who know you will still recognize you. Do you understand?”
“Yes,” Ash said, and the woman turned to go back into the kitchen. “But wait—what will—will my stepmother and stepsisters see you?”
“They will see what they wish to see,” the woman answered. “Now, go.” And she closed the kitchen door behind her. Through the window, Ash could see her taking down plates and bowls and teacups, apparently preparing to serve her stepsisters and stepmother their breakfast. Ash went silently back to Saerla, who was watching her curiously. She put her foot in the stirrup and swung into the saddle, and when she was astride the horse she looked back at the house, but the woman could no longer be seen through the window.
She rode across the meadow, heading toward the main road into the King’s Forest. She had ridden this way with Kaisa several times before, and she knew where the hunt was to be staged, but this morning she saw everything with new eyes. Fresh tracks showed that many wagons had passed this way recently, but in the early morning the path was empty but for her and Saerla. The horse moved with a smooth grace that told Ash she had been given a hunter of extraordinary skill to ride, and as they entered the King’s Forest the mare raised her head and whinnied as if she were coming home. Ash rested one hand on the horse’s muscular neck and felt the animal’s moving body beneath her palm, and she saw herself riding with Sidhean one night, her hand on his waist and the moon shining coolly over a grand, glittering palace. She blinked, and the vision was gone. It was morning: The sun shone down in long beams of light, raising the dew from the ground in misty breaths that lingered in the hollows between tree roots.
Ash’s first glimpse of the hunting camp was not of a grand open field, but of small tents pitched beneath the trees, and men and women in green and brown turning their heads to look at her as she rode past. She could sense when she was drawing near to the central hunting camp, for the tents became larger, and the people moving around them walked more briskly, as if they were on a schedule. At last the path turned and broadened into a large clearing in the forest, and on the far side of the clearing there rose a great pavilion, the walls striped in tan and blue, and from the pinnacle flew the King’s standard. The canvas walls of the front of the pavilion were rolled up, and inside dozens of workers were laying down carpets over the grassy field. On one side of the clearing, hunting horses were tethered to a rope stretched from one tree to another, and their flanks gleamed bay and brown and black and gray in the sun, which was beginning to peek over the tops of the trees. One by one the horses turned their heads to look at Ash and Saerla, and Ash could feel the mare tense beneath her, but she merely arched her neck and let out her breath in a low whinny.
Opposite the line of horses, some of whom were being tended by men and women dressed in brown, several marquees had been erected, each of them with a flag flying at its peak, and many with their front canvases drawn aside like curtains. Inside some of the marquees she could see the men and women of the hunt in their green and brown liveries, and amid all the activity the sight hounds, with their whiplike bodies and velvety eyes, roamed free. Ash dismounted and led Saerla toward the line of hunting horses, where she found a young man dressed in brown with a dark green armband. She said, “I am looking for the huntress; do you know where I might find her?”
He turned from currying one of the horses and looked at her inquisitively. “Who are you?” he asked.
His question took her by surprise, and she realized that, of course, she was a stranger asking for admission to see the King’s Huntress on the first day of the season’s first grand hunt. She said, hoping that he would believe her, “I am—my name is Ash. She invited me to join the hunt today.”
Perhaps it was her horse that convinced him, or her fine clothes, for it could not have been her words, but he merely shrugged toward the line of marquees. “She’s over there somewhere,” he said. “I’m not sure where.”
“May I leave my horse here?” Ash asked.
He glanced at Saerla and said, “She’s a beauty.” He pointed toward the end of the line and said, “Tether her down there. Does she need to be fed?”
“No,” Ash answered, for she did not know what a fairy horse disguised as an ordinary one would eat. “But perhaps some water,” she said in an afterthought; water would do no harm, would it?
“I’ll bring her some water,” the man said, and then turned back to his job.
“Thank you,” Ash said, and led Saerla down the line and tethered her next to a black gelding who laid his ears back when they approached, putting as much space between himself and the fairy steed as possible. Ash looped the reins over the rope, and then walked toward the line of marquees. The first was empty, and the second was closed off, the front flap tied shut. At the third, several men were sitting around a table, eating, and Ash hesitated outside until one of them looked up and caught her eye.
“I am looking for the King’s Huntress,” she said to them. “Can someone tell me where she is?”
One of the men stood up and said, “I’ll take you to her.” He was tall, dressed in hunting green, and his dark hair was streaked with gray. He led her down the row of marquees until they came to the second-to-last one, which was grander than the others. Inside there was a long table, part of it covered with maps of the Wood, and around the table several chairs were scattered. The huntress was standing at the end of the table talking with another young woman, who was dressed similarly in hunting green. At the other end of the table a man in black was seated, leaning back with his feet propped up on another chair. He looked over at Ash as she entered, and she saw that a thin but prominent scar ran down his left eyebrow and partway down his cheek.
“What have we here?” he asked, and when he spoke, Kaisa looked up.
“This woman is looking for you,” said Ash’s escort to Kaisa.
Kaisa seemed surprised but pleased to see her. “I was not sure if you would come,” she said.
Ash was conscious of the other people in the marquee looking at her, and she felt constrained and shy. “Thank you for inviting me,” she finally said, and Kaisa, who smiled at her, seemed to understand the reason for her awkwardness.
She turned to the man who had brought Ash to the tent and said, “Thank you, Gregory. Has the lymer returned?”
“No,” he answered. “I’ll send him to you as soon as he does.”
“Thank you,” Kaisa said, and then the man nodded to her and left. She gestured toward the other woman and said, “Ash, this is Lore, my apprentice.” Lore’s dark blond hair was braided in a thick plait down her back, and she stepped toward Ash and extended her hand over the table, giving her a measuring look.
For a moment Ash hesitated, and in that moment she saw Lore’s look change slightly, as if she found Ash amusing. Feeling as though she had something to prove, Ash reached out and grasped the apprentice’s hand firmly and said, “Good morning.”
“Good morning,” said Lore. “You are the girl we saw in the forest that night, aren’t you?”
Ash felt herself coloring a bit as she answered, “Yes.”
Kaisa glanced at Lore out of the corner of her eye, but merely asked in a low voice, “Will you need a horse today?”
“No,” Ash said. “I have a horse with me—she is with the others.”
Kaisa raised an eyebrow, and Ash was nervous that she would ask her where she had acquired the horse—and her clothes—but she did not. Instead, she shifted the map that she had been examining on the table, and tapped her finger on the parchment. “This is where we are,” she said. Ash came to stand next to the huntress and looked down at the map; Kaisa was pointing at a clearing in the southern part of the King’s Forest. In the north, the trees trailed off the top of the map as if the Wood went on forever. Quinn House was an irregular mark near the bottom, and there was the meadow, and the path from the meadow that led to the twisting line of the river.
“I sent the lymer out this morning with bloodhounds to find the stag I’ve been tracking,” Kaisa continued. “He went north of us, and he should be back soon.”
Lore looked at Ash and asked, “Have you hunted before?”
Ash glanced at Kaisa for guidance, but the huntress gave her no indication of what to say. “This is my first hunt,” Ash finally answered.
Before Lore could respond, a thin, wiry man with a shock of red hair came into the marquee, and the man at the other end of the table stood up and said, “At last! We’ve been waiting for you all morning. I’m eager to begin.”
“The stag moved farther than we expected, Your Highness,” said the new arrival, and Ash realized that the man with the scar was Prince Aidan. She had expected someone much more elegant; this man wore black riding leathers and a black shirt that looked as if it had seen better days. The scar gave a warlike cast to his features, and Ash was surprised that her stepsisters had found him handsome.
The lymer came toward Kaisa and pointed to a spot on the map just off one of the thinly marked trails that disappeared in the north. “It’s a grand one,” he said. “He’ll give us a good chase.” He had found the stag about an hour’s walk north of where they were camped, and he had marked the path to show them the way back.
“Good,” said Kaisa. “Lore, please call everyone together so that we can begin.”
Outside, the dogs were being gathered together by the master of hounds, and as Ash walked with Kaisa and the prince toward the hunting horses, Ash asked, “Will all the dogs be used today? There are so many.”
“The first relay of dogs will rouse the stag,” Kaisa explained. “But the dogs will tire before the stag does, so we place additional relays of dogs along the trail to take over when the others are winded.”
“But how do you know where to send the dogs before the stag runs?” Ash asked.
“We don’t, exactly. But we’ll try to chase him in a particular direction, and at any rate, the stag will likely run straight, down the most direct path.”
Kaisa paused before going toward her horse and said to Ash, “You are welcome to ride with me, but I cannot wait for you.”
“I’ll keep up,” Ash said. Kaisa was different this morning than she had been on their rides together. She was more forceful, yet more withdrawn. Over the summer she had been relaxed, easy; now she was more upright, somehow, as if the office of the King’s Huntress made her stand taller.
And it was the King’s Huntress who nodded to Ash and said before walking away, “I am sure you will ride well.” Her words contained a confidence that made Ash feel an unexpected thrill of pride, for of course, Kaisa herself had taught her.
Saerla was eager to begin, and when Ash mounted, she could feel the mare’s taut energy beneath her. She saw Kaisa raise her gloved hand and signal to the pennant bearer, and the hunters fell in line behind her as they rode out of the camp. Ahead of them Ash could see the lymer and his dogs running forward at an easy pace, their spotted coats of black and brown on white like sunlight dappling the ground through the foliage. They rode for the better part of an hour, until Kaisa halted them all to allow the lymer to go ahead on his own. Everyone was sitting forward now, tense and silent, and Ash felt the breeze on her skin bring a rush of blood to the surface. She was nervous.
When they heard the notes of the hunting horn, Kaisa shouted at them to follow, and the hunters plunged forward through the trees with Kaisa in the lead. Ash felt Saerla’s muscles bunch and stretch as they rode hard toward the sound of the horn, and though she had wondered if she would be afraid, she was not. She felt the thrill of the hunt coursing through her that morning with a sharp, bright focus, and all there was, was the ride itself—muscle and bone moving together, the wind snapping her cloak back, and the ground rolling past her as they went deeper into the Wood. When Ash looked ahead she saw a blur of green tunics and horseflesh moving through the trees, and there was Lore, her horse’s black tail flying. Then she saw the dogs again and they were racing after the stag, his brown flanks flashing between the trunks. She recognized the way the stag sprinted through the trees as if it had been painted in a storybook. He would double back on his path and attempt to lose them in the river, and then the second relay of hounds would scent him out and once again plunge into the chase.
At the riverbank the stag splashed in the shallows but the river was too wide at this point for him to wade across, and with a wild look in his eyes he clambered up the bank away from the pursuing dogs, and Ash could see the white froth of sweat rising on his flanks. He was becoming tired, and Ash thought that he would not run for much longer. But once back under the shade of the trees the stag regained his momentum—or found a new desire to live—and the chase was renewed with vigor. Ash recognized the trails they were following; despite the time they had been riding they had not gone far, and it seemed that the stag had fled in circles. But she was surprised when she saw they were nearing the edge of the Wood, and the stag leapt ahead of them into the open meadow where, in the far distance, she saw Quinn House. The perspective was different, though; they had emerged from the trees south of where she normally entered the Wood. And then ahead of her, Kaisa had ridden up to the stag with her arm extended and there was a flash of steel and then red streaked down the stag’s throat. It let out a cry that ended abruptly when Kaisa plunged the sword—for it was a sword she held up in the sun—down behind the front left leg and into the heart of the stag, and it fell onto the fading grass of the meadow, its magnificent rack of antlers lolling onto the ground like the weight of its life, spent.
Kaisa slid off her horse and went to the stag and pulled her sword free, and the stag’s body shuddered once more. She knelt down near it and put her free hand on the stag’s great head, touching it with a gentle hand, and closed her eyes and whispered something that Ash could not hear. Then she stood up and, with her sword, slit the belly of the stag open from its throat to its tail, and blood and innards spilled out into the midafternoon sun. She cut across the breast as well, and then from the vent up the inside of each of the stag’s rear legs, and from within the mess that extruded from its belly Kaisa cut out the warm liver. She sliced off a generous portion and gave it to the lead bloodhound who was waiting patiently near the head of the fallen stag. The hound took it with a growl of appreciation, his teeth sinking deep into the flesh of the animal he had chased. Kaisa cut off another small piece of the liver and held it up in a bloody hand for the prince, who dismounted from his horse and knelt down on the ground before the huntress. She placed the flesh in his mouth, her fingers streaking dark red over his lips, and she marked his cheeks as well with crimson slashes.
Then the prince stood and turned to the hunting party that had circled around them and said, “Let us all celebrate our success today!” He took the wineskin handed to him by the lymer and drank deeply, and a trickle of red wine slid down his throat, darker than the bright splashes of blood on his skin. The hunters let out a cheer, and Ash watched as Kaisa turned her back on them and wiped her sword off on the meadow grass. As the other riders dismounted and began to pass around the wineskin, Ash went to Kaisa, who still stood with her back turned to the others. She put a hand on the huntress’s shoulder and asked, “Is everything as it should be?”
There were tears in Kaisa’s eyes, and they ran down her cheeks as she answered, “Yes.” Ash looked back at the carcass of the stag, and saw that the dogs were being held off now, and one of the men was approaching with his kit of knives to begin the butchering.
“Why do you do this if it affects you so?” asked Ash.
Kaisa looked down at the ground and said, “It is the way of life. It ends.”
Then Lore was standing beside her and said, “Come, let us drink to our success.” She handed Ash the wineskin and Ash took a drink, and it was the taste of ripened grapes in the sunlight. When she swallowed, it coursed down her throat in a thick warm rush, and then she handed the wineskin to Kaisa, who took it and drank as well.
Ash asked, “What happens now?”
Lore answered, “The stag will be flayed and the carcass divided up, and then we’ll head back to camp.”
Kaisa smiled and said, “There will be a great celebration.”
Lore laughed. “Indeed.”