“I don’t know why I bothered coming home,” Oryn muttered, throwing a glare in my direction, too.
Father’s skin was nearly as gray as the frazzled, frizzy strands of hair jutting out in every direction from the half-crown along the back of his head.
“Is he always like this?” my brother asked.
“He’s usually worse.” Oryn was gone more than he was home, and when he did show up, he never stayed long. He didn’t see the all-consuming obsession Father battled. He never saw his demons, the ones that took him to dark places and turned what was once a good man into a monster.
Oryn stepped over Father’s leg, made his way to the corner where our cots were, and started packing. How long would he be gone this time? Would he even come back?
If he was leaving, so was I.
My brother fumed, grumbling under his breath about how Father would never change. He was right. Father wasn’t going to change. Not because he couldn’t, but because he didn’t want to.
Oryn was carving his own path now. He was a hunter. And that’s exactly what I needed to do. I needed to make my own way somehow. I was drowning here.
Hell, I’d rather live in the dark forest with the devilish fae than stay here like this.
“Oryn?”
His eyes flicked to mine. “Don’t start,” he barked.
“I’m not,” I bit back at him.
His cot was adjacent to mine, so while he slammed his only belongings into a leather satchel, I grabbed the few undergarments and spare dress I had and began tying my boots.
“What do you think you’re doing, Bells?” He sat back on his haunches.
“I’m going with you.”
“The hell you are.”
“Fine. But I’m not staying here.”
He raked a frustrated hand over his face. “You have to. You’re all he’s got left.”
Not willing to let him brush me off so easily, I countered, “Don’t act like you care about him. Not when every time you step through the door, this happens.” I gestured toward Father’s bedroom door. “And besides, you’re half of all he’s got left, too.”
“You can’t just leave him.”
“You are,” I argued, continuing to pack my things. “Why is it so easy for a man to escape his responsibilities, but when a woman does, it’s considered blasphemous for her to chase something better?” I didn’t have a satchel, so I spread out a small quilt and started throwing my things into the middle.
“I’ll be back,” he promised. “I need to clear my head and get out of here for a while. I’m just going hunting. I’ll bring back what I kill. If you don’t get some meat soon, you’ll blow away in the next storm,” he lied, trying to tease me into forgetting about leaving. He turned away from me and laid on his back, reaching up under the cot where he’d hidden a cache of knives. Those went into the bag, and then I watched as he raised the lower legs of his cot and retrieved parchment he’d stashed inside.
If he was coming back, why was he taking everything he’d hidden away? He’d have nothing to come back for now.
I smiled sweetly at his back. “If you really are just going hunting this time, I’ll help you heft the meat back. Besides, you’re right. The sooner I get food, the better.”
He froze in place with his head hung low. “Bells—I don’t need you following me around.”
“I’m not staying,” I growled. “I want out of here.”
He glanced back at our father, whose chest rose and fell peacefully. A trickle of blood had run out of his nose and down his cheek and was drying into his patchy beard. Oryn’s jaw ticked; his lips thinned into tiny lines. He shook his head in disgust, threw his tattered and soiled bag over his shoulder, crossed the room in a few steps, and shoved his way out the front door. I grabbed the shard of glass and threw it in among my things before quickly tying the quilt ends together to form a makeshift sack. I eased it over my head and tucked one arm through, the sack clinging to my back. It was so light, it’d be easy to carry for long distances.
I hurried to the door. Despite his size, Oryn was fast when he wanted to be, and great at disappearing. I searched in every direction until I found his broad back heading north. I caught up easily. He groaned as I caught up to him and then fell in step.
“You have it good here, Bells.”
I snorted. He had no idea how bad it was.
He stopped abruptly, his pale eyes boring into mine. “You do. You just don’t know it yet.”
“Look, you can either let me travel with you or cut me loose. I can find Ringsted or Grithim easily enough. But I’ll be damned if I go back in there.” I stabbed a finger toward our shack.
He squinted his eyes in the sun, took a deep breath, and exhaled slowly. “You’ll hate me for this.”
“I’ll take my chances.”
“You’ll be begging me to bring you back here within a week. You have no idea what monsters lurk in the forests I’m going into.”
“None worse than him.”
“There are plenty worse than Father,” he grumped. “Ever heard of Queen Coeur?”
“Only my whole life,” I answered shortly. “Have you ever seen her?”
He pinched his lips together. That was a no. Neither had anyone else I’d ever met. Was she real? Probably. Was she dangerous? Apparently not.
We made our way toward town, weaving around others walking the path, carts full of goods and horses. I stuck close to my brother. It was market day and Brookhaven teemed with people… people who hadn’t bathed in several days, by the stench of them. Summer was my favorite season most of the time, but the myriad smells of unwashed people in this place made me wish for the bitter cold of winter.
“Why are we here? Why aren’t we headed to the woods to hunt?”
“I’m not happy about it either, Bells, but I need supplies,” he growled, dragging me by the wrist into an alley. “You stay here. Don’t move. Don’t talk to anyone, especially men.” He removed his bag and shoved it at me. “And don’t let anyone take this from you.”
“Where are you going?”
“Inside,” he answered, ticking his head toward the tavern beside us where the smell of ale seeped through the walls.
“Because they have supplies in the tavern,” I deadpanned. “Right.”
He ignored the jab and crouched low to the ground. With his finger, he drew a shape in the moldy earth that looked strangely like a rabbit. I craned my neck to get a better look, but Oryn stood and scuffed his boot across the surface before I could get a good look at what he’d done. Before I could ask him why he drew rabbits in the earth and then stomped their faces away, he finally answered my smart remark with an order. “Best place to get what I need. You stay out here.”