Magni
I had come to Alaska to make the pain stop.
But even though the shitty, small cabin I’d moved into three weeks ago provided cover from the cold, the snow, and the wind, it did nothing to stop the pain of defeat.
My pride was hurting, and my sense of justice was destroyed.
For as long as I could remember, Khan and I had fought to expose anyone who was a threat to the rule of the Northlands. Any talk about democracy was considered treason and the person spewing such poisonous thoughts would be dealt with as a rebel.
So how the fuck did my brother end up marrying a woman like Pearl? Others had died for whispering about change. She spoke the words out loud like a proclamation of doom, and Khan allowed it.
Tramping through the snow, my warm breath stood out in clouds of moisture. I had to turn around soon or find my way back in the darkness.
Hungry and feeling angry with the world, I kept going. The days of breakfast buffets, room service, and delicious dinners prepared by the chefs at the Gray Mansion were gone.
Alaska offered the solitude I’d wanted, but my diet had become meager and unvaried. I’d never thought I’d miss vegetables.
For three weeks I’d survived on melted snow and a deer I shot on my first day here. Now, I was out hunting again, freezing my butt off, and hating life.
For the last three weeks, I’d been going over how everything fell apart from the moment Christina Sanders crossed into the Northlands. In hindsight, we should have sent her back as soon as we learned she was a woman.
I blamed Christina for putting thoughts into Laura’s head.
I blamed Laura for running away to the Motherlands and for lying to me about becoming a Motlander.
I blamed Pearl for manipulating my brother into marrying her.
I blamed Khan for being weak and not seeing through Pearl’s soft words.
My list was long and right now, I blamed myself that I hadn’t gone fishing instead of hunting for meat. The snow was too fucking deep and I hadn’t seen any signs of deer or elk today at all.
Turning back, I reached down and scooped a handful of snow into my mouth. It wouldn’t do much for my hunger and I’d have to find another way of getting food. People who lived up here had spent the summer stocking up to survive the winter. Only a moron or a desperate man would come here with nothing but his clothes and boots. The last description fit me.
How long have I been out hunting?
My reflex of looking down to my wristband hadn’t left me despite the fact that it’d been three weeks since I took my wristband off.
Khan would have been able to track me with it, and I wanted to be left alone. That’s why I had parked my drone further south and bought an old drone to take me here.
As I climbed over a fallen tree, my eyes caught something that made me sneak closer to investigate. The roots of the large tree formed a cover and inside it lay a hibernating bear.
My stomach rumbled and I lifted my gun, pointing it at the bear’s head.
With my finger on the trigger, I hesitated as a pair of large blue eyes popped into my mind. Mila would be devastated if she could see what I was about to do.
Swallowing hard, I focused on my hunger, but it still didn’t feel right to kill a sleeping animal.
Who might be pregnant, a voice that sounded a lot like Mila’s pointed out in my mind. It wasn’t long ago we had talked about bear cubs and how they were born around the end of January while their moms were still hibernating.
This is such bullshit. Mila might love animals, but she wouldn’t want me to die of hunger either.
As if I’d lost my fucking mind, I began talking out loud to myself.
“I can’t eat a whole fucking bear and it would be too heavy to drag back to the cabin anyway.”
My hunger didn’t care for the excuses and to make a point, my stomach gave a loud growl of complaint.
“I could cut off a leg. That should be plenty of meat.” Leaning my head back, I looked up to the sky, wondering how long it would take me to cut off the leg. “I don’t have time, it’s getting dark soon. And what if the blood from the leg attracts wolves? I don’t need to become the hunted one.”
Lowering my gun, I hissed out, “Fuck!”
I couldn’t kill the bear; I would have to find another way of feeding my growling stomach.
The hike back to the cabin should have taken an hour, but without my wristband to guide me, I had to rely on the marks I’d noticed on the way here. It would have been fine, if the snow hadn’t started falling so hard that I couldn’t see a thing.
Lost, cold, and miserable, I promised myself that if I made it back to the cabin, I’d fly south to buy provisions. The downside to being recognized was nothing compared to the chance of dying alone in the wilderness.
That’s why the next morning, I found myself back in the small rural town where I’d left my drone and bought the old one that had taken me to the cabin. Fresh food and friendly service, it said on a handmade sign outside the only store in town. I didn’t find either, when I entered the shithole of a shed that was half empty and only had canned, frozen, or processed food. Picking up a bag of nuts, I checked the expiration date and put them down again. March 2437 was nine months ago.
“No need to be greedy,” the old man who worked here said in a gruff voice when I emptied his shelf of the only eight beers he had out.
“I’m thirsty – do you have more in the back?”
“No.”
I could tell a liar when I met one and insisted. “Would you go check?”
His upper lip lifted in a grimace of irritation as he shuffled his feet past me toward a door in the back of the store. I wrinkled my nose at the stench of alcohol and unwashed hair and clothes that reeked from him. Not that I smelled too good myself, but that old fucker was disgusting with his greasy hair, his beer-reddened nose, and the rotten teeth that showed when he spoke to me.
“Don’t think I don’t know who you are. All high and mighty, coming in here giving orders as if I’m your personal slave or something.”
“I only asked if you had more beers.”
“More beers, more beers…” he mocked and disappeared behind the door.
Less than five seconds later he returned. “Nope.”
“You sure you don’t have any more beer?”
“That’s right, your highness.”
Marching past him, I slammed the door open to see for myself. As I suspected, he was lying.
“That beer isn’t for sale,” he said behind me.
“Why the hell not?”
“It’s for other customers.” He ended the sentence by muttering something under his breath that I didn’t hear.
“What did you say?”
With his bent-over posture, the greasy old man turned his back on me and moved away.
In two quick steps, I grabbed his shoulder and swung him around. “Answer me.”
“The beer is not for sale. Go back to the palace. I’m sure you people have more than enough.”
I narrowed my eyes. “Careful what you say, old man.”
He smirked. “Or what? Are you going to kill me? I’m not scared of dying. It would be a fucking relief compared to living this miserable life.”
“Your misery isn’t my fault.”
He scoffed. “Then whose fault is it? Why do you get to have a wife, live in a palace, and own that expensive red drone that you hide behind Elton’s house? It’s not my fault that I wasn’t born with a silver spoon in my fucking ass like you were.”
“I won a tournament,” I said through gritted teeth and shoved him away from me. “Men have gone from rags to riches plenty of times. If you didn’t win that’s on you. Unless you entered and fought, I don’t want to hear your complaints.”
“Tournaments cost money and you only end up dead.” He flicked his finger up and down to underline his point. “Rich people should be forced to share their money with the rest of us.”
“Right. Because you’re so fucking great at sharing. Maybe you wouldn’t be so poor if you sold your beers instead of drinking them all yourself.”
“Fucking royal prince, coming here to lecture me.” The old idiot muttered and shuffled his feet again when he moved away from me. “Thinks he’s better than us.”
“You’re damn right I’m better than you. At least I clean my teeth, and I don’t talk to myself like a crazy person.”
The minute I said it, I remembered talking to myself in the forest. Shit!
While tearing food items from his shelves, I lashed out at him. “You’re just a bitter old man who’s lost touch with reality. Why don’t you take some responsibility instead?”
“It’s not my fault. It’s their fault.” He pointed out the window as if talking about the whole world, and when he thought I wasn’t looking he pulled up a beer from under his counter and emptied it.
“He’s just a drunken bastard,” I muttered to calm myself down, and frowned when I realized I’d just spoken out loud to myself again.
“You can only buy two of those.” The old grease ball sneered when I emptied his stack of dried beef sticks.
“I’m getting all of them.” I smacked the items I’d found onto his counter and he rang them up with grunts and low cuss words.
“I dare you to say that louder to my face, old man.”
Lucky for him, he had enough self-control to keep his mouth shut.
I left there with enough provisions to last me a week. After loading my things in my drone, I looked over at the store and was tempted to walk back to correct the fresh food and friendly service sign to a more honest version saying food and no service.
“Fuck, I really need to get my shit together.”
A crazy person like that wouldn’t rile my feathers on a normal day, so why did I let him get under my skin like that?
The answer was evident, even to me. That crazy, bitter man in the store would be me in thirty years if I stayed here. I was only three weeks into my solitude and I’d already begun talking to myself. If I weren’t careful, soon I’d be blaming the whole world for my misery instead of taking responsibility.
I already am, a voice in the back of my head whispered, but I wasn’t ready to hear it and pushed it down. After all, I wouldn’t be in this bloody situation if it weren’t because of Christina, Pearl, Khan, Laura, and all the other people. It was all their fault.