Chapter 11

Chapter11

Felipe told me what to expect from the hunt, but it still catches me by surprise when the hunt master blows her whistle and the staghounds explode from her side, charging into the trees and fanning out to find the deer.

With a jerk of her reins, the queen follows the hounds, the hunt master close by her side, the rest of the court following at various paces ranging from fast to sauntering. That too, Felipe had prepared me for, because a hunt is first and foremost a disport, and most of the riders will mill about and gossip until the cold and damp grows tiresome, and then they’ll relocate to the pavilion erected in the forest and mill about and gossip there instead.

Only the queen and the hunt master will be hard on our prey, and even then, there is no certainty they will stay together in pursuit of it. A hunt at the Court of Stags seems to be half parade, half the queen off by herself in the woods. And looking at the woods—gold birch, red rowan, carpeted in bronze and green ferns—I can’t blame her.

Somehow I lose Felipe in the charge and then get turned around enough that I lose sight of most of the court too. My horse, chosen for its patience and docility, is more than happy to plod aimlessly through the trees, and after a while, I give up trying to find the rest of the riders and focus on trying to make it back to the road. If I can find the road, I can find the castle…or even try to find the tomb and a possible doorway back into my own life.

I immediately dismiss the thought. I made a bargain, and even if bargains with kidnapping queens don’t count, I still want to keep this one. Especially if it means being the queen’s pet for another day.

We tromp through the ferns, weave between trees, periodically stop as I strain my ears for the hunt master’s whistle or the chatter of the courtiers, but there is nothing. Nothing but the cool, damp air and the trees fluttering and the occasional huff from my horse when I change direction.

I’m starting to panic that I’m lost in a fairy forest—something that’s never good for people in the stories—when I see another horse standing under a large oak, riderless and patient.

I know immediately it’s the queen’s. The other horses in the hunt are silver or gold, with ribbons and flowers braided into their manes and tails.

The queen’s horse is unadorned, its coat a dark red that reminds me of the color of her lungs.

If it’s here, then she must be too.

I somehow manage to dismount my own horse—clumsily, it must be said—and it obediently ambles over to the queen’s and begins nosing the ground for food. And with the feeling of being lost still tugging at my mind, I look for the queen, searching an ever-wider radius around our horses, until I finally catch sight of red wool and raven-dark hair.

The queen is standing between two slender birches with her crossbow drawn and raised, her finger not yet on the trigger. At her hip is the dagger I saw this morning, along with a quiver full of bolts and a silver goat’s foot lever for drawing the weapon’s string.

There’s no one else around, not even the hunt master. And there’s no sign of the hounds.

The queen doesn’t speak as I step closer, but she does take a small step to the side, allowing me to stand next to her.

I know enough to be still, to be as silent as I can, but I will never be as still and silent as the queen, who’s as motionless as her throne, as the hill the castle is carved from. Her gloved hands are completely steady; her pulse jumps in her neck.

And then I hear it. The rustle and crush of the stag moving through the trees, subtle at first, and then more and more obvious as it gets closer, as I can clearly make out its thick, multipoint antlers, its onyx eyes. It’s coming to drink from a small burn that runs through the woods here, and I feel the queen shift ever so slightly as it dips its head to drink.

I’ve seen deer before, of course, and as a girl from the American Midwest, I grew up knowing plenty of hunters who exclusively hunted deer, but it’s still shocking to see the stag up close, majestic, heedless, innocent, and know it’s marked for death. That every second might be its last. Even the forest seems shocked—a heavy hush filling the air, a feeling like the world is holding its breath, caught between life and inevitable death.

The queen doesn’t miss when she shoots. The drawstring snaps, and the bolt sinks into the stag’s neck, deep and clean. It makes a choked noise—a wounded sound that cuts me to hear—and then staggers to the side, collapsing first onto its forelegs, and then all the way onto its side, its ribs heaving and blood running from its neck.

The queen lowers her crossbow and looks for a moment. Breathes.

“Come,” she says quietly to me and then makes her silent way over to the stag, which is still alive, but barely.

She kneels in front of the dying beast, as do I, and she pulls her goatskin gloves off with her teeth. Her naked hand goes to its fur, and her eyes close for a moment. When she opens them, I realize their eyes are the exact same pitch of glittering onyx.

“Thank you,” the queen says to her victim, pressing her forehead to its head. Her voice is solemn, trembling a little at the edges of her words. Her hand drops to the knife at her hip as she speaks. “Thank you.”

The stag breathes out, almost like a sigh, and then goes entirely still. Animal to object in the space of an instant. The dagger glints in the silver light of the forest as the queen straightens once more. I think I see a single tear caught on her lashes as she does, but then I can only see her in profile as she moves to the side of the deer, her hand bracing on the deer’s chest as she swiftly, expertly, begins cutting its chest open.

I watch, fascinated, as she opens the deer up, layer by layer, like she’s unstitching a doll. First its hide with quick, precise flicks, exposing the ruddy muscle underneath. And then its sternum, which she saws through with the serrated back of the knife as easily as I might saw through a loaf of fresh bread. And then she pries the animal’s chest apart with her bare hands, revealing something as intimate as what I saw when I looked at her glassed back. The beautiful clockwork of a being, caged and padded with bone and muscle.

The heart rests inside, a heavy fruit, and the queen reaches inside and plucks it from the chest. When she pulls her hand free, blood shines on her wrist and fingers and ring. With another deft flick of her knife, she cuts open the sac covering the organ, and then, dropping the knife to the leaf-covered ground below, she peels the heart of its caul like an orange. What’s left behind is mauve, wet, tender looking.

Blood drips between her long fingers as she lifts it to her lips and takes a bite. A big one, her white teeth sinking into the soft flesh of the heart and leaving behind a small concavity in the shape of her mouth. Blood smears her lips, runs down her chin, and she looks at me with feral, flashing eyes, and I should be horrified, I should hate this, I should be afraid.

Horror is the last thing I feel.

She offers me the heart, the way a lover might offer a sip of wine from their glass, and I look back up at her blood-smeared face, I think of the blood on the hem of my gown last night, I think of her cunt around my fingers and the petals falling from her hands and the gruesomely lovely expanse of her back.

I’m not becoming infatuated at all; I’m already infatuated and then some.

I barely know the queen at all, I don’t even know her name, and yet kneeling with her in the forest, her bloody hand offering me a bite of raw heart, I think I know everything I need to know.

I take the heart from her hands and lift it to my mouth. It’s still warm, and heavier than I think it will be, and soft. Softer than steak. Blood drips onto the leaves and crushed ferns underneath me as I take a long breath, smelling the metallic tang of fresh blood. And then I take a bite, having to pull to tear it free.

It’s tender between my teeth, and it tastes like blood, and it’s shockingly delicious. Like a rare cut of meat, like tartare at a fancy restaurant. And for a moment, long and lingering, I taste something more than meat, more than blood.

I taste the forest. I taste here. Faerie. History and magic and cruelty and wonder and depth.

I taste what I wanted to taste my entire life, until I made myself stop wanting it.

I swallow the heart meat and then lift my eyes to the queen’s. Her stare is shining with something I don’t understand, but I don’t have to wonder for long. She takes the heart from my hands and sets it carefully on a pillow of ferns. And then her bloody hands are twisted in my dress, dragging me close to her for a hard, crushing kiss.

She tastes of blood and, past that, like she did last night, like lust and hope and promises I’ve broken to myself only to find that someone else was keeping them for me.

She tastes like fairy fruit. And I choose each and every lick of it.

I open more to her searching tongue, melting against her as it strokes against mine, flickers, devours. Our lips are slippery with blood, and when she lifts a hand to hold my face in place for her pleasure, I feel the blood on my jaw and on my cheek.

The entire world is inside of me and inside of her, and between our mouths is the truth of living, dying, wanting.

The truth is that I want to swallow it all whole, come what may.

I hear the excited baying of the hounds and then the whistle of the hunt master, very close, and the queen breaks off our kiss. Through the dizzy fruit feeling, I’m gratified to see she looks very annoyed at the interruption.

“Your Majesty,” the hunt master says, sounding out of breath as she kneels. “Well shot.”

“Thank you,” the queen says, rising easily to her feet and then helping me up with firm fingers wrapped around my hand. The dogs sit obediently near the hunt master, but their noses work with avid intensity, smelling the deer and the spilled blood. “I trust you’ll make sure our prize is ready for the feast tonight?”

“I will, Your Majesty,” the hunt master says, already pulling out her own knife to dress the deer. “Would you like me to save the rest of the heart for the others?”

“Yes.” The queen smiles sharply. “Morven shall have the rest. And will you have someone see to our horses as well? I think we’ll take the long way to the pavilion.”

“Yes, Your Majesty,” answers the hunt master, and after stopping by her horse to sling a bag over her shoulder, the queen leads me away from the stag and deeper into the forest.