PROLOGUE
Once upon long ago, always and evermore, a girl rode into the Darkwood.
Her lips were the color of ripe cherries, her skin as soft as new-fallen snow, her hair as dark as midnight.
The tall pines whispered and sighed as she passed under them, the queen’s huntsman at her side. Crows, perched high in the branches, blinked their bright black eyes.
As the sky lightened, the huntsman pointed to a pond ahead and told the girl that they must dismount to let the horses drink. She did so, walking side by side with him. Lost in her thoughts, she did not hear the soft hiss of a dagger leaving its sheath. She did not see the huntsman lift his face to the dawn, or glimpse the anguish in his eyes.
A gasp of shock escaped the girl as the huntsman pulled her close, his broad hand spanning her narrow back. Her eyes, wide and questioning, sought his. She was not afraid—not yet. She felt almost nothing as he slid the blade between her ribs, just a slight, soft push and then a bloom of warmth, as if she’d spilled tea down her dress.
But then the pain came, red clawed and snarling.
The girl threw her head back and screamed. A stag bolted from the brush at the sound. The crows burst from their roosts, their wings beating madly.
The huntsman was skilled. He was quick. He had gutted a thousand deer. A few expert cuts with a knife so sharp it could slice blue from the sky and the delicate ribs were cleaved, the flesh and veins severed.
The girl’s head lolled back. Her legs gave out. Gently, the huntsman lowered her to the ground, then knelt beside her.
“Forgive me, dear princess. Forgive me,” he begged. “This foul deed was not my wish, but the queen’s command.”
“Why?” the girl cried, with her dying breath.
But the huntsman, tears in his eyes, could not speak. He finished his grim task and got to his feet. As he did, the girl got her answer. For the last thing she saw before her eyes closed was her heart, small and perfect, in the huntsman’s trembling hands.
In the forest, the birds have gone silent. The creatures are still. Gloom lingers under the trees. And on the cold ground, a girl lies dying, a ragged red hole where her heart used to be.
“Hang the huntsman!” you shout. “Burn the evil queen!” And who would fault you?
But you’ve missed the real villain.
It’s easily done. He’s stealthy and sly and comes when you’re alone. He stands in the shadows and whispers his poison. His words drip, drip, drip into the small, secret chambers of your heart.
You think you know this tale, but you only know what you’ve been told. “Who are you? How do you know these things?” you ask.
Fair questions, both.
I am the huntsman. Dead now, but that’s no matter. The dead speak. With tongues blackened by time and regret. You can hear us if you listen.
You will say that I’m telling you tales. Fairy stories. That it’s all make-believe. But there are more things afoot in the Darkwood than you can imagine, and only a fool would call them make-believe.
Keep to the path, the old wives say. Stay out of the forest.
But one day, you will have to walk deep into those dark woods and find what’s waiting there.
For if you do not, it will surely find you.
ONE
The day before …
“Tally ho!” shouted the queen, spurring her fierce courser on.
The hounds had flushed their quarry. A gray wolf broke from the cover of a blackbriar patch and ran for the deep woods. The pack swept after it, baying for blood.
The bravest members of the hunting party followed the queen, galloping hard to keep up with her, but the princess, riding a swift, nimble palfrey, boldly streaked past her. She chased the wolf at breakneck speed, weaving in and out of trees, her skirts billowing behind her. She jumped a stone wall, a stream, a tangle of brush so high, there was no telling what lay beyond it. Her hat came off; her black hair unfurled like ribbons of night.
The queen couldn’t catch her. Nor could the princes, Haakon and Rodrigo. I saw them flashing through the woods, the queen in white, her nobles in rich hues of russet, moss, and ochre. I saw a baron crouched low over his horse’s neck, his hands high up in the animal’s mane. He narrowed the distance between himself and the queen, but just as he was about to pass her, his horse stumbled. The baron lost his balance. There was a cry, then a sickening crack as he hit the ground.
“Leave him, huntsman!” the queen shouted. “Leave anyone who falls!”
The man lay crumpled under a tree, his eyes closed, his head bloodied. I thundered past him; the rest of the riders did, too. Only the princess cast a look back.
We trailed the hounds, navigating by their cries, swerving through the woods as they changed direction. I lost sight of the queen as she rode through a pocket of mist, then found her again, some moments later, with the pack. And the princess.
The hounds had surrounded the wolf. The creature was huge and fearsome. It had killed two dogs already. Their broken bodies lay nearby.
And him? Oh, yes. He was there, too.
He was always close by. Watching. Waiting.
I heard him in the wolf’s low growl. Felt him in the nervous stamping of the horses. I saw him rise from the depths of the princess’s eyes, like a corpse bobbing up in a river.
And then, without warning, the wolf charged the horses, snarling. The palfrey whinnied and reared, but the princess kept her seat. The courser’s nostrils flared, he flattened his ears, but he stood his ground as the queen jumped down from her saddle.
Circling the fray, she shouted at the hounds, exhorting them to attack. They did, barking and slavering, snapping at their prey’s haunches. The wolf rounded on them, but it was one against many. The hounds knew it and grew bolder, but one, small and slight, hung back from the pack.
The queen saw it; her eyes darkened. “Fight, you coward!” she shouted.
The hound tucked its tail and retreated. Furious, the queen snatched a whip out of a groom’s hands and started after the dog.
“Your Grace! The wolf is escaping!”
It was Prince Haakon. He’d just caught up to the pack. The queen threw the whip down and ran to her horse, but by the time she’d swung back into her saddle, the pack—and the princess—was already gone, in hot pursuit once more.
For a long and treacherous mile, the princess pursued the wolf, until a ravine brought them up short. She stopped her horse a few yards from the edge, but the wolf ran right to it. When it saw the sheer drop, it tried to backtrack, but the hounds closed in from the left. A tangle of blackbriar, a good ten feet high, ran from the woods to the edge of the ravine creating a wall on the right. The frantic animal paced back and forth, tensed itself to jump across the chasm, but saw that it was hopeless. Shoulders high, head low, it turned and readied itself for its last fight.
The princess had moved closer. She could see the scruff of white at the animal’s throat now, the ragged edge of one ear. The wolf looked up at her, and she saw the fear in its silvery eyes. In a heartbeat, she was out of her saddle. Striding among the frenzied hounds, she drove them back, yelling at them, stamping them away, until she’d created an opening for the wolf.
“Go! Get out of here!” she shouted at the creature.
The wolf spied a small opening at the bottom of the blackbriar. The thorns were curved and cruel; they carved stripes in the desperate creature’s snout and tore at its ears, but it pushed under the dense vines and disappeared. The hounds rushed after it, but their snouts were tender, their hides thin; they could not break through.