Hunted(17)

She whirled, nocking the arrow and drawing it back in one movement, sighting down it at the figure in front of her before she registered what it was.

“Yeva!” it cried, throwing itself backward onto the ground.

Yeva was following it down with the point of her arrow by the time the voice registered. “Solmir!” Her hands tried to let go of bow and arrow both, in surprise and relief. She managed to throw the bow aside instead, sending the arrow to thump harmlessly into the ground.

“What are you doing?” she cried, heaving a breath into lungs that were fighting to work properly.

“Looking for you,” gasped Solmir, still sprawled on his back in the snow, staring up at her. “What are you doing?” Wild-eyed, hair in disarray from his tumble, he looked more like a boy of twelve than a man of twenty-five.

Yeva lifted her hand to brush it, shaking, across her forehead. “I thought you were—something else.”

He picked himself off the ground, brushing the snow from his cloak. “Something else? What, a bear tiptoes over your path to catch up with you?”

She shook her head, adrenaline leaving her angry, but not without relief. “Why are you here?”

Solmir’s expression was blank for a few long seconds. “It has been a fortnight,” he said. “I came as I promised. Your sisters said you were out gathering barks and winter herbs for remedies. The trails are not hard to follow.” His eye fell on her bow, chin lifting to point at the rabbits dangling from her belt. “I see your medicine chest will be full indeed.”

Yeva fought against the flush rising to her cheeks. “Why did you sneak up on me?”

“I had thought to surprise you,” Solmir said. “Foolish. Don’t worry, I don’t intend to try it again. At least not unless I am certain you are unarmed.”

She began to bristle, but he held up his hands, palms outward. A gesture of peace. “Please, I didn’t come to argue. I know that Yeva comes armed. I would not have her any other way.”

Have her. The blush won, and Yeva cast her glance away to focus on the snow trampled by his body when he fell. “My father is out again. You have missed him by more than a week.”

“I know, your sisters told me.” Solmir paused, the hesitation betraying that he was choosing his words carefully. “Did you speak to him? About what I asked two weeks ago?”

“It—did not come up.” Yeva could not quite bring herself to look at him.

“Oh. I see.” The silence stretched between them, only the distant sound of snow falling from another branch to lessen it.

“He was only here for a short time,” Yeva burst out, the silence drawing the words before she could stop them. “I am sorry. It wasn’t because—because I intended to refuse.”

“But you do intend to refuse?”

Yeva lifted her eyes at the catch in his voice to find him looking at her, gaze full of that same mute appeal it had held when he first made his offer. “I know I should not.” Her voice was a whisper.

Perhaps Solmir saw something in her face to give him hope, for he strode forward to bridge the gap between them. “I am not asking you to love me,” he said, his voice ringing in the quiet winter air. “Only that you let me love you. As I do.”

Yeva wished she could remove her cloak—the cloying warmth of it stifled her thoughts. “You don’t even know me,” she protested.

“I know enough,” said Solmir. “You and I are the same.”

“That is not reason for marriage!”

“It is!” he countered.

“I am not gentle and wifely, I am coarse and—and impossible! This is impossible.”

“But you will learn those things, Yeva! There is time for you to learn gentleness after we’ve had our adventures, after I become baron. When there are children you will—”

“Children!” she exclaimed. Suddenly the forest seemed to close in around her like the woven bonds of a cage.

“Yes! Children. You act as though I’m trying to hold you captive. If you would only cool your temper and listen to me, I am trying to offer you a life beyond this!”

“I don’t want a life beyond this!” She paused, breath steaming on the frigid air as she panted. Even as she spoke them, she knew the words were not entirely true. There was a yearning in her, something that had lodged deep in her heart since the first time her father had told her of the wonders that lived in the forest’s heart. But what she wanted, Solmir could not offer. She drew another breath, slower this time. “I’m not what you want.”

“I’m not trying to fight you,” he said quietly, breath misting in the air between them. “You must know how hard it will be to survive this winter here. I would wait, and bide my time, and let you come around, but neither of us has that time. Every week that passes could bring a storm that makes travel impossible. If someone in your family should become unwell, what would you do?”

Suddenly it was not Solmir’s face that Yeva saw, but the wild, unnatural focus of her father’s stare before he left, determined to catch the thing that he imagined was tracking him. Yeva closed her eyes. Her heart fluttered against her rib cage like a bird trying to beat its way free.

“Please,” said Solmir. “Let me help your family. Let me help you.”