The Wildest Things by Andrea Hannah

Author:Andrea Hannah
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: St. Martin's Publishing Group

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Henrick released a guttural sound so loud that a flurry of ravens launched from the trees, their irritated caws echoing in the night. He dropped to his knees.

Time slowed to a halt. The forest and all of its beasts chittered and chirped, the late autumnal air electric with energy. I rushed toward him. If those traitors shot an arrow through my back, then so be it. “Henrick!” I choked, sinking into the grass beside him.

His shoulders shook. When he lifted his head, tears streaked down his dirt-stained cheeks. I grabbed his arm, my hand trembling. My eyes scanned the whole of him, searching for the wound. For blood.

I glanced down and found it.

One of the gray rabbits lay at our knees, its wide eyes staring at nothing. The shaft of a familiar arrow jutted from its neck.

I gasped, relief and guilt flooding me at the same time and congealing in my stomach. I squeezed Henrick’s arm and forced my lungs to breathe. Losing the rabbit was tragic but losing Henrick … that I would not be able to bear.

“Princess.”

I gritted my teeth. “Farrell.”

Henrick shifted to his feet, pulling me up with him. Together we turned to face the mossfolk.

The three stood in the center of the meadow surrounding the Well. They looked like ancient pillars holding up the sky, their branches poking holes into the velvety black. Weapons of all shapes and sizes hung from their belts, sat flush against their bark-skin backs, jutted from their lichen-covered fingers. “I do not know how you did it, Huntsman, but you made the chase particularly frustrating.” Farrell sighed heavily. “But we found you.”

“Only took you three years,” Henrick muttered.

Fie huffed. I stared at Dunn, daring him to look me in the eyes as he stood there with these traitors. But the mossfolk continued to gaze at the ground, his jagged shoulders hunched as if trying to will himself to disappear.

Farrell raised his bow and pulled the string taut with more grace than I thought possible from a rigid oak tree. The tip of his arrow pointed straight at my chest. “Let’s finish this.”

“Finish what?” I blurted. I had to get this offering to Talla. I had to keep them busy long enough to figure out how we could escape. Once I was safe in the woods, perhaps I could loop back around and sneak to the Well from the other side of the meadow. I tried to train my eyes on Farrell, tipping my head only slightly to scan the periphery for an exit point.

Metal flashed as Fie unsheathed his knife. “Your heart,” he commanded. “The sooner we bring your heart to the queen, the sooner she’ll grant us safe passage back to Celara.”

“We had to pay for the years we’d spent in this land when Queen Iliana took the throne,” Dunn added softly. Still, he did not meet my gaze. “We earned our tenancy through … hunting.”

“She will clear our debt and allow us to return to our homeland if we bring her your heart,” Fie said, sighing, as if this was all trivial.

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