At least I hoped she would.
But even if Tessa was ignorant, useless, skinny, and slightly selfish, I was determined to keep her safe. She had experienced enough hardships in this life, even though I had done everything in my power to protect her.
And if this was going to help protect her, I would do it with a smile on my face. A fake smile, at least.
“It’s getting dark,” I said after a few minutes. “I’m going for one more hunt before tomorrow. I won’t be long. Go inside and make sure father is asleep by the time I get back.”
“Okay,” she agreed, rolling her eyes. “Be careful out there!”
“I always am,” I said before grabbing the rest of our rope and throwing it over my shoulder, bending down to kiss her cheek before turning my back on our cottage and heading toward the tree line.
My mind was racing. From the day I learned of the deal my father had made with the fae king, I knew I would die for his mistakes. I just always thought I would have more time.
Now, I had only a handful of hours left in my life.
But there wasn’t time to panic. Tessa needed food. My biggest fear wasn’t dying. It wasn’t marrying one of the most evil creatures on the planet, and it wasn’t traveling to the fae lands.
My biggest fear was Tessa dying because of me.
If I died–when I died, Tessa would have nothing. I had tried to prepare her for this, but there was only so much I could do. My father was nothing but a drunken burden. He was no provider. He was no father. Ever since I could carry a knife, I would wander into the forest and gather food for Tessa and me. Without it, we certainly would have starved to death. Not like that was rare in the human lands, but still.
I was all Tessa had. I wasn’t going to let her die, too.
I buried my emotions and focused on the land around me. We were lucky to live close enough to so much empty land, making it easier to hunt for food instead of paying for meat at the markets.
Saints, everyone knew we didn’t have the money for that.
I never caught anything too big. Mostly rabbits with snares that Tessa and I would make. But it kept us alive. It kept us fed, which was better than most people who lived in these lands. It wasn’t rare to see children so skinny that you could count every bone. It also wasn’t rare to be killed over a loaf of bread if a family was desperate enough.
Tessa would need as much as possible after I left if she was going to make it.
The ground turned from the plowed dirt path to the full, leafy jungle that surrounded our land. Walking my familiar path deep into the forest, I approached the snares I had set up yesterday.
Please have something, I silently pleaded. Anything.
My old, worn boots crunched on every dead leaf and broken branch beneath me. Those were the sounds that had grown to comfort me all these years later. This was the place I learned to find my peace.
Relief flooded my body once I saw the dead rabbit I had caught.
I wasn’t leaving empty handed. That was something.
There were many nights when I hadn’t been so lucky. I pushed away the memories of Tessa crying from hunger, my father screaming that I was no good to the family.
I began releasing the prey from the trap, pushing away any emotions that came with it.
I was nine when I killed my first. My father had forced me with him on one of his hunts. He used to love hunting. That was before my mother died, of course.
The only thing he loved now was drinking.
They don’t deserve to live more than you do, he said. They die or your sister will starve to death. Pick one.
I shot an arrow through its tiny body and cried for the rest of the day. How cruel life was, to create something so fragile and give it no chance at surviving.
A deep growl rumbled the air around me, piercing through the silence. The hair on the back of my neck stuck up. A few feet away stood the largest wolf I had ever seen, eyeing the rabbit that he had thought was his.
He was going to attack me.
Perhaps this was how I was going to die. I had to admit, it sounded better than marriage.
“Easy there,” I whispered under my breath. “Is this what you want?” I held the rabbit out between us, trying to draw the wolf’s attention from me to the meat.
The wolf bared his teeth and growled again.
I guess he was really pissed.
“Take it and go,” I whispered again, as if he could understand what I was saying anyway. Every inch of my body was telling me to run. But I was no fool.
And I knew that wolves never traveled alone.
Human footsteps on the forest floor approached behind me, but I didn’t dare take my eyes off the creature. It wasn’t all that rare for other hunters to run into me out here. If I was lucky, whoever it was would scare the wolf away.