The Last Huntsman: A Snow White Retelling by Page Morgan

Author:Page Morgan [Morgan, Page]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2020-12-22T06:00:00+00:00

The taps were busy when I returned to Volk’s a few hours later. I’d managed to bag a wild turkey to make up for the snared rabbits Bram stole. The pleased rise of Ben’s eyebrows when he saw the fat bird was enough to reassure me no one yet knew of my marked shoulder.

I came up behind the bar and stood next to Ever. “We need to talk.”

“Can it wait?” she replied with her boy voice on. She served an amber ale to someone in a battered tin cup. The patrons must have heard the glassware at Volk’s had been destroyed and brought their own.

If I tried to pull Ever aside, Ben would see and interrupt. He’d want to know what was being said. So I stayed behind the bar, serving drinks, bowls of vegetable stew, and rock-hard biscuits. Ben was quick to tell me I wouldn’t be seeing any storgs for my help, but I didn’t mind. It kept my hands and mind at work so when I checked the clock it felt like minutes had passed, instead of hours.

Before long, the patrons were gone, and Ben was shuffling between Ever and me as we all tidied up in silence. His cold glances told me that he was still suspicious about how I knew Ever was a girl. And yet, I also sensed he had lost an ounce of his rigidity. Perhaps because I’d volunteered to hide her in the loft.

Ever and I exchanged brief looks, each of us clearly anticipating the moment Ben turned in for the night. Each time our eyes met, I was instantly back in the loft that early morning, remembering the feel of her body beneath mine.

At long last, Ben folded the towel he’d been wiping out pots with and set it on the kitchen table. He stood still, one of his hands grasping the back of his shaggy curls while the other was deep inside his trouser pocket. Ever stilled the knife she was mincing leftover biscuits with, to feed to the hens.

“Father?”

“Remember what I told you, Ever. About the place he’ll never be able to find you.”

The knife clattered to the countertop. “Father, I refused then and I still—”

“You’ll do it!” His sudden fury startled me, but almost instantly, Ben’s whole body seemed to sag. “You’ll do it.”

He slugged out of the kitchen. Ever bowed her head over the mess of biscuit crumbs, her knife slicing with wrath. I walked up behind her.

“What was that about? Where is it he wants you to go?”

She shook her head, giving a slight chuckle. “Oh, nowhere too exciting. Just into the Silent Ranges and off the edge of the world.”

The Silent Ranges? He’d have to be mad to want Ever to run there for sanctuary. Frederic and his warriors might never follow her, but the ranges were a void. I’d heard stories of explorers who’d crossed over them and never returned. And never, not once, had any people, or animals, come down out of the ranges, into our empires.

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