Why Master Bane, you look much improved since the last time we saw you." The wolvren's eyes glowed in the morning light, and his thick black hair was brushed rakishly across his temples as I stomped out into the yard.

"Shut up," I hissed, as I dragged my father's pack over my shoulders, and slipped my arms through it. Horses stamped as the prince's men moved about, securing girths and dragging stirrups down their lengths with a meaty slap. Nobody else had spotted me yet. I could hear the prince laughing at something his huntmaster was saying, which seemed oddly out of place, for I hadn't picked Hussar as the type to own a sense of humor.

And I'd have to be careful of him out there in those woods.

I didn't have a choice in going, however.

A little nightsbane in father's tea meant he'd sleep through the day, and wake to find us many hours gone. He'd be furious, but it was for the best.

He'd understand when we returned.

"The huntmaster won't like it," Casimir murmured. Not for him the dulcet tones of his master. Every word he spoke was half growl.

Or maybe that was just my presence. He didn't seem to like me very much.

"He doesn't have to like it. I know the forests as well as my father does, and frankly, I'm more likely to survive it. Father took a turn for the worst."

"In an hour?"

"In an hour."

The wolvren leaned closer, his musky scent enveloping me. "That almost sounded like the truth," he whispered in my ear, "but your scent is all wrong."

I looked up, finding his face only an inch from mine. My heart skipped a beat. Why couldn't it be the prince who stirred the blood through my veins the way Casimir did? "My scent?"

Thick lashes obscured his eyes as he glanced down over my hunting leathers. "You smell like leather, soap, nightsbane... and a lie."

"What's this?" barked a loud voice, making us both spring apart.

Hussar glowered at me, his morning's beard black against his jaw. Every man in the company turned to stare.

"You wanted a tracker," I said, squaring my shoulders. "And now you have one. My father hasn't the strength to make it to the Heart, and I know the way."

"I asked for a hunter," Hussar snapped, grabbing me by the upper arm. "Not a scrawny girl who'd turn up her toes at the first sign of blood."

"I'm seventeen," I replied tartly. "And I'm not squeamish."

As if to emphasize this fact, I strode through the group, ignoring the faint smile of Prince Evaron and heading toward the sacrifice stone. The pigeon I'd caught earlier wasn't ideal, but it would have to do. I wasn't sacrificing one of our chickens or lambs for a king's fool quest.

No matter how much gold he was paying us.

Dragging out the small broken body, I knelt beside the stone. "Vashta watch over me." Then I slit it open from breast to tail, feeling the warm blood ooze over my fingers. I painted the trident on my forehead in a symbol of the three saints of the forest; Vashta, the huntress; Ermady, the trickster; and Rior, the shadow.

"Bleeding superstitious peasants," Hussar grunted, and strode past me into the forest.

The prince cocked his head, as several of his men followed Hussar's example. "You don't follow the Way of the Light?"

"Do you think your new religion holds sway here?" I asked.

Evaron's eyes roved over the silent trees, and the shadows their boughs cast. He sighed, and then moved forward. "Paint me with chicken blood then. We'll probably need every god we know of to help us find the firebird, and my father would be most unhappy to lose me to some old wives tale."

"It's a pigeon," I muttered, tracing his forehead.

"I know," he said, and his eyes twinkled.

It was difficult to hate a prince who mocked himself.

Several of the men allowed me to mark them in the same manner.

Then finally it was Casimir's turn. He stared at my finger, his nostrils flaring. "I don't need the protection."

"You're a wolf," I said, "but here in Gravenwold, you're no longer the most dangerous thing in the woods."

"Just do it, Cas," called the prince, mounting his fine, sleekly bred bay gelding.

Casimir growled. "Blood brings predators."

"The trident scares them away." I smeared sticky blood across his forehead, having to stand on my toes to reach. He was almost as tall as Hussar, and it felt somewhat dangerous to be so close to a creature that could rip my throat out. I had to rest one hand lightly on his chest for balance, and by the time I'd finished, I realized he was barely breathing.

"What if the predator is within?" he murmured, for my ears only.

Wolvren were dangerous creatures, or so they said. Primal in their needs, and filled with such violence that could tear their way out of their human bodies, bringing the wolf to the surface.

I lowered my heels to the ground, a skitter of butterflies swirling in my stomach. "It's a good thing I know how to kill predators then."

And he smiled, the first one I'd ever seen on his face. "Make sure you aim straight for the heart then, Neva."

He might as well have punched me in the chest. Sweet Vashta. I turned away, trying to cover my sudden fumble into a move designed to shift the satchel on my shoulder. "I always do."

Something told me I hadn't fooled Casimir with my play at nonchalance. I could feel his gaze burning between my shoulder blades.

"Move out!" called Hussar, glaring at us as we stepped into the forest.

It was with some delight I called back, "But you're going the wrong way."

* * *

We made camp well before the sun set.

The forest grew more oppressive the deeper we went, and the sound of voices had gradually faded during the day. We encountered nothing—man or beast—but you couldn't escape the whisper of wind through the trees and the feeling something out there was stalking us.

I watched the prince move among his men, casting a gentle word here and a laugh there to assuage their fears. He was good at managing them, I thought cynically, though his golden looks didn't hurt. Prince Perfect. Evaron seemed like the sort of prince who could slay dragons, with his golden armor gleaming, and his sword glittering with gemstones.

It was Casimir who took the prince's horse and brushed it down; Casimir who dragged both of their leather satchels to a small thicket, and began setting up the prince's bedroll. He ignored most of the men and they returned the favor, though sometimes they looked uneasy when their eyes lit upon him. Wolvren were outlawed in the kingdom, unless they were leashed. It kept their wildness at bay.

Hussar, of course, dumped his gear in the middle of the clearing for one of his men to set up. Catching my eye, he made a deliberate motion to take a piss right near my bedroll, until the prince caught sight of him and sent him scowling into the woods with a few sharp words.

Evaron sought me out. "How far did you make it today?"

I shrugged, shaking out my father's blankets. "Not far. The trails are twisting, and I wouldn't be surprised to find it only ten or twelve miles."

He squatted beside me, watching as two of the men started to strike a fire. "You're good at what you do."

"Are you surprised, your highness?" I arched a brow. "I am my father's daughter."

Slowly he smiled. "And your mother?"

He didn't need to ask more. My coloring spoke of the south, and he wasn't the first northerner to comment upon it. "My mother was born in the plains of Burubar. She fled the war there—or something else perhaps. She never truly said, but she was trying to get as far away from her homeland as she could."

And she'd been unnaturally frightened of storms, hiding beneath the bed at night when lightning split the sky.

Once she'd asked me if I could see anything in the stormy sky. I'd asked her whether she meant a bird or a man, but she'd only brushed away my question. I'd know what she meant, she said.

Evaron scratched at his jaw. "I wanted to apologize for earlier. I shouldn't have allowed Hussar to threaten your father."

I tucked the edges of the blankets into my bedroll, keeping the emotion off my face. "You're a prince."

"And you're one of my people," he countered. "It was ill done of me, and I'd ask for your forgiveness."

Ask? Or demand? "As you wish, your highness."

Evaron's eyes narrowed. "You say 'as you wish' but your eyes say, 'I'll see you in the Darkness'."

His Darkness was a place reserved for those who lost their path from the Way of Light. I knew only a little of the religion the citygoers flocked to. "What is forgiveness to a prince?"

"It is everything to a man who has watched others overstep their place in this life."

Who was this man? Prince who brooked no argument, or a charmer determined to please? Whoever it was he meant when he said 'others', it had cast a vast shadow over him, I thought.

I softened. "To grant forgiveness seems an easy thing. Perhaps you should earn it, or how can you tell if it's real?"

He looked taken aback. "Earn it?"

"You clearly dislike the sanctions against wolvren, and yet you allow your boyhood friend to wear a collar. You ask for forgiveness, and yet you were quick to demand an ill old man venture out into the snows. Your father bleeds us dry with his taxes, and here you are, throwing good coin about my village as if you meant to make it rain gold. Perhaps if you lived a different life, you would not have to ask for forgiveness."

He was definitely taken aback now. "Did you just—" Then a shocked laugh escaped him. "You did. I don't think I've ever been chastised by a...."

"Village girl?" I suggested.

He rubbed at his mouth, his eyes twinkling. "I was going to leave it at 'girl'."

I rolled my eyes. "I doubt you've never been chastised by a girl. I've heard all the stories, you know."

"Well, not for throwing coin around, or ordering my country's men to fall in line. Or for Cas." His brow furrowed, as if he didn't like the thought. "I don't have much choice in Cas's predicament. That's my father's doing, and you cross my father at your peril."

"Even a son?"

"Especially a son."

None of the stories I'd ever heard about the king were complimentary. His legacies involved endless wars, and the crushing destruction of his foes. Crippling taxes, and thousands executed for a long-ago rebellion... I barely knew Prince Evaron, but I decided to reserve judgment.

If he took after his father at all, then I'd be dealing with a miniature tyrant.

What would it have been like to be raised by such a man?

Evaron cleared his throat. "Am I allowed to wash the blood off my face?"

"Only if you wish to die a gruesome death in these woods."

He looked at me sharply.

And despite myself, I softened. "I jest. The blood doesn't protect you. You asked for Vashta's protection, and she granted it when you entered. Her protection shall rest over you like a mantle, until you leave these woods."

Little lines curled in the corners of his eyes. "You have almost as bad a sense of humor as Cas."

"Casimir has a sense of humor?"

Evaron rubbed his mouth again. "Only with those he trusts. It's a small list."

I'd seen the pair of them act throughout the day. If I didn't see the wolvren collar, then one would almost think them friends.

"Tell me about these woods," he finally said, and then seemed to recall my previous words. "Please."

"What would you like me to speak of? Gravenwold... it's not just a forest. It's not just trees. Do you wish to know the length and breadth of it? The ruins it chokes with its vines? The creatures within it? The Heart? The Old Ways—"

"Let us start with the Old Ways," he said firmly. "How do you know of them? What are they?"

I sat on my heels, and breathed out. "My father taught them to me. His father, and his father's father before him, and so on... My family has been in these parts for centuries, long before the Empire of Velides fell. They were here when Vashta finally succumbed and created the Well of Tears to fight the Darkness."

"My Darkness, or your Darkness?" he asked quickly.

I frowned. When one came down to it, there were similarities between his Way of Light, and my Old Ways. "Do you know the story of Vashta?"

Every child learned it at its parent's knee here in Densby.

"The patron saint of hunters."

"The Huntress," I murmured, holding my hands out to the fire. "It is said there was a great darkness lurking in these woods once—the Darkness—and when the empire kept expanding, building its keeps and strongholds in the borders of the forest, they awoke it. It killed men and women in the night, leaving entire villages slaughtered by morning, their throats torn open. It murdered every man in one of the empire's finest cities, and turned the hearts of another city to pure evil. The people there killed and stole and raped, until finally the empire was at war with itself, and the capital city was burning.

"And with every death the Darkness grew, both in itself and in the hearts of men. The emperor sent his finest warriors to battle it, but they could not see it. And they could not track it. Nor could they fight it. All they could do was bury the bodies of their fallen comrades as one by one they fell to its teeth and claws in the night.

"The emperor grew desperate; he promised half the treasury to any man, woman, wizard or beast who could destroy it. And so, three of the greatest hunters in this area rode to his call. Vashta the Huntress; Rior the Silent; and Ermady the Fox, who had the gift of shape shifting.

"They fought the Darkness for many days and many nights. Ermady fell, his blood soaking the earth, and from his body burst a mighty ash tree. Rior changed into a dragon and tried to burn the Darkness, but it surrounded him like a cloud of night and he plummeted from the skies,

"The only one left was Vashta. Carving a spear from the branch of the ash tree, she lit the head of it in the fires of Rior's ashes, and sank it into the heart of the Darkness. But their blood had bound them during the fighting; as long as Vashta lived, the Darkness could not be vanquished. Knowing this, she fell upon her sword, and when she fell, she took the Darkness with her. The creatures of the forest wept, and where her body lay the tears pooled, and swallowed her body whole. Thus the Well of Tears was formed. Or so they say."

Silence

"My Darkness is a little different," Evaron mused, turning to survey his men as they set up camp. Nearby, Cas blew smoke from his tinder, nursing a small flame. He looked at us, clearly not liking what he saw.

I scowled back.

"It is said that only those who turn from the Way of Light fall to the Darkness. A monstrous, demonic force that will blind your eyes—and your heart—to the Light forever."

I shrugged. "I like mine better."

He laughed.

"I wonder where the origin of your story came from?" Evaron mused. "It's not the sort of story to spring from nowhere. There had to be some origin—some foul beast—that made people spin grand stories about its appearance."

"They say the Darkness means ‘Death’ in the Old Tongue." I replied, feeling a little stung. He might as well have called us superstitious peasants. "It's dead now, thanks to Vashta and her companions. I suspect we shall never know. As long as we bear the mark of Vashta's protection, then the Darkness cannot touch us here."

Evaron frowned, looking over his men. "Not all of us have that protection."

"No." My eyes fell upon Hussar, and a few others who'd not deigned to let me mark them. "Not all of them. But you do, my prince. You should be safe." I glanced up at the overhanging boughs of the forest. "From the Darkness, and hopefully from whatever else lurks in these dark woods."