All's Fair in Revenge

Chapter 35: The Hunt

"Are you sure about this?" Liv ran her hand along the muzzle of a two-toned mare, one the prince had chosen for me. According to the stable hand, Enric wanted to make sure I had the best of his herd lest I injure my fragile little girly body.

"Are you sure this horse is the one he assigned me?" The animal was a beautiful one, sure, with cornsilk hair and striking tawny markings like jagged lightning strikes. However, her proud stance punctuated with a judgmental glare had me considering whether I might be better off to hunt on foot. Or perhaps Sleipnir had jaded me; you can't feed a wolf wild boar after it's tasted sirloin; should I be any different?

"The oversized bow doesn't speak for itself?"

"I suppose." I had half the mind to ask for Sleipnir, but I wouldn't take him from Thorne. Not yet anyway. The fabric tore as I ripped it from the saddle. "To answer your question, yes, I'm sure about this. There are few things I'm good at. Hunting tops the list, no matter the prey. Plus, all evidence points to Wickham. I need to be done with this so we can get home." I yank on the corset's hem, hoping for some room to breathe. The way I'd kill to slip into a pair of healer's robes.

"Evidence?" Liv ducked under a rope securing the bridle to a post outside the stable. "What evidence? You have a hunch. Let's not pretend it's anything more than that."

"The queen is against the marriage. She admitted she'd go to great lengths to stop it. She has her little fingers wrapped so tightly around Wickham's cock I have no doubt she could get him to do whatever she wanted. What more evidence do I need? A confession? Who would admit it? How would I even get close enough to drag it out from her? The hunt is the only opportunity I must make that murderous coward kneel before me and beg for his life. I will not squander it."

"What happens after? Once you've killed your prize, what if you find it's not enough?"

"Enough?" I questioned. "Enough of what? Arin will have justice, Eyr will allow her into Elysios, we'll head home, and I'll finally get a good night's rest."

"What of the queen? If your theory pans out, does she not face justice?"

"Have you seen her life? She is a battered pawn behind pretty bars. I think that's punishment enough."

"What of Kelvia, Hana?" She'd brought the same argument up many times over the last few days as we had hammered out the last bits of a plan to isolate Wickham during the hunt. Her forehead bent toward me, voice lowering into a whisper. "Do you think the humans will let this go?"

No, of course not. I might have been reckless, as Thorne continuously reminded me, but not foolish. The Dorsi broke the treaty long before I came along, first with the wall and then with the murder of Arin. If reconciling that action meant our countries warred, so be it. Name me the catalyst if you will, but anyone who investigated further would see no different. I'm but an incendiary lighting the tinder left behind after too many years of one-sided compromises.

"It's worth it."

"I see." Liv placed a friendly palm on my shoulder. "Just remember it's perfectly acceptable to change your mind mid-hunt. You have nothing to prove to them; to anyone. Not even Eyr."

I frowned. Was this Liv's way of trying to dissuade me? "Don't I?" I thought back to that morning. In the bathroom, Liv had sat on the dressing table as though it were a chair, her legs crossed under her. She muddled various ingredients including one of the flowers I'd stolen from the larder with a stone pestle and mortar. Once ground to a fine powder, she added the component to a bulbous bottle containing a clear liquid with a sheen like oil. She shook it vigorously. She then coated my weapons with it and laid them in the early sun to dry. During which, she described no less than ten ways every part of my plan could go wrong forcing me to create contingencies upon contingencies. Yet, in the end, it was still not enough to assuage her 'bad feeling' about the whole ordeal. I almost wondered whether she had truly come to help me or simply hoped I'd change my mind before I dragged her into any real trouble.