Hunted(18)

Yeva remained silent for some time before opening her eyes. Solmir’s face was inches from hers. Only her breath steamed the air, as he held his and waited.

“I cannot accept your offer,” she began in a whisper. His face went wooden, and she hurried to continue. “Not without making clear my situation. My family’s situation.”

“There’s nothing that would change my mind.” His voice was tense with cautious anticipation.

“M-my father is unwell.” Her voice broke, to her horror. Yeva found her throat closing, the anxiety that had hunted her the past week bubbling up without warning. She had discussed it with no one, not even her sisters, but now the need to speak overtook her. “I fear—I fear he is going mad.”

Solmir stepped forward, his hands going to her shoulders. He gently pulled her close. “Then we will find him help. Together.”

Yeva wanted to pull away, but the fear lodged inside her since her father shoved her down fought its way out. And Solmir was warm, and as his hand pressed at the small of her back, pulling her closer still, she found that part of her didn’t mind his touch at all. She knew she could not reasonably spend her life wandering these forest trails in search of something she could not even name—not when Solmir’s proposal offered answers to every misfortune her family had suffered.

“Then I accept,” she whispered, mumbling the words into the leather of his tunic.

His arms tightened, robbing her of breath, and then released her again. “Come. Let us get your barks and herbs into the stewpot, and tell your sisters the happy news.”

Solmir visited almost daily after that, joining Yeva at her tasks. She stuck to her snares in his company, bringing her bow along only for defense. Her daylong hunting expeditions turned into pleasant strolls, Solmir at her side, discussing horses, and hunting, and how to skin leopards. Though she longed for the solitude to which she’d grown accustomed, she found herself growing fond of Solmir nonetheless, with his boyish enthusiasm for all things hunting. At first Yeva feared he might take advantage of the quiet, empty forest to embrace her again, but he remained a respectful distance from her, only offering her his hand now and then to help her over a log or across a frozen stream.

The relief that he was willing to help her father was dampened, however, by the uneasiness still haunting her. She could not quite place it—true, she did not love Solmir, but that was hardly reason not to marry him. She was fond of him, and growing fonder every day. The life he’d spoken of was a far better and richer one than Yeva ever could have hoped for, and yet there was a shadow over her heart, a tight emptiness she could feel every time she took a deep breath. She told herself it was fear for her father. She told herself it would pass once her father returned. She told herself she would be happy, then.

Solmir left in the afternoons to return to the inn where he was staying, giving Yeva a few precious hours before dusk in which to do some real work, checking her traps a final time and using her bow on any stragglers heading back to their dens for the night. She was not as productive as she had been before he began accompanying her, but she still brought home enough food for her sisters and Albe.

The days stretched on into weeks, and there was still no sign of Yeva’s father. She watched for marks of him in the forest, but the trail of his passage from the house had long since been erased by snowfall, and she could not tell in which direction he had traveled.

Her dread grew. It woke her at night with a pounding heart, distracted her during the day when she ought to be listening to Solmir. Her sisters said nothing, and she offered nothing in return, but the tense silences in the evenings were eloquent nonetheless. She felt stretched as taut as the wires of one of her snares, waiting for the tiniest shift to send her springing into action.

So when a commotion outside interrupted the quiet just before dawn, Yeva was up off her pallet by the fire and halfway to the door before Doe-Eyes had even lifted her head.

Yeva threw open the door, but before she could scan the area for signs of her father, a shape launched at her out of the inky blackness. Behind her Doe-Eyes yelped recognition. Someone lit a lamp, and as its illumination fell upon the doorway, Yeva recognized what had thrown itself at her.

“Pelei,” she whispered, dropping to her knees and not bothering to reprimand the dog when he began mopping her face with his tongue. She was too busy staring through the night beyond him, searching for her father’s form, waiting for him to emerge out of the darkness.

The dog was whining insistently, shoving his nose against Yeva’s neck and sniffing anxiously. Yeva dropped her eyes. “Where’s Father?” she whispered, her heart constricting. The dog began to wriggle away but she gripped his front legs, holding him still. “Pelei? Where’s Father?”

She could say nothing else, repeating the words over and over until she felt hands at her shoulders drawing her back. “Yeva! He cannot answer, Father isn’t here!” It was Lena, her voice choked with fear.

“No!” Yeva tore her arm from Lena’s grip. “Pelei, why did you leave him? Father!” she called, into the night, knowing at any moment she would hear his voice call back to her.

“He’s not here,” whispered Lena. “Yeva—he’s not here.”

Yeva turned to see a trio of pale faces in the lamplight, all staring at her. “He has to be,” she whispered back. “Pelei would not have left him. Pelei never would have left him. Something has happened.”