The Grace Year(92)

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We stay up all night, talking, touching, basking in each other’s company, and when every last feeling has been revealed, he speaks to me of the future. Something I never allowed before. But instead of tensing up, I stay soft, like raw clay in his hands.

“We’ll leave just before dawn,” he says, wrapping clean bandages over the open blisters on my hands. “We’ll take one of the canoes. Most of the hunters left today to get more time at home.”

“They don’t stay until the end?”

“A few of the first-years will stick around, hoping for a miracle, but it’s extremely rare to get prey this close to the end.”

“What about supplies?”

“Knives, pelts, food,” he says as he looks around the blind. “I’ve been preserving all summer for the next hunting season. We’ll take as much as we can carry. Go east. We’ll drift until we find an island of our own or a settlement where we can live as man and wife. Even if there’s nothing else out there, I’m a good hunter. You’re resourceful and sharp as a blade. If anyone can make it, it’s us.”

“And what about Anders?” I ask.

I feel his muscles tense at the mere mention of his name. “We were supposed to meet in two days to go back to the outskirts together. I’d like to tell him good-bye, but I’m afraid if I see him, I’ll have to kill him.” He lets out a deep sigh, leaning back on the bed. “He shouldn’t be a problem, though. He’s been preoccupied lately, spooked by a guard who’s been lingering between our territories.”

“A guard?” I ask, my breath hitching in my throat.

“Anders is convinced this guard knows about us, knows that I harbored a grace year girl. I thought he was just being paranoid, but now I think it was probably the guilt eating away at him.”

Now it’s my turn to tense up.

“Whatever we face out there, Anders or a guard, I can handle it. I will protect you.”

Curling up in his arms, I let it go. Some secrets are best left buried.





Just before dawn, we pack up whatever we can carry. While Ryker tends to the weapons, the heavy jars of food, I use my overskirt to bundle up the pelts and blankets, then hoist them onto my back. I can tell he doesn’t like me carrying anything, but he’s smart enough to keep it to himself.

The sun is on the cusp of rising, the softest orange glow making the water look like it’s on fire, which seems fitting—Ryker and I running straight into the flames.

As we walk toward the shore, I notice how much the leaves have changed; how much I’ve changed with them. Instead of thinking about all the ways I could die, I start planning for all the ways I want to live.

I think about waking up alongside him, our children tugging at our covers, tending to our garden, laughter all around us, and at night, sitting around a roaring fire, telling long-forgotten tales of the grace year. I’ll miss my family. I’ll miss seeing my sisters grow up. But we’ve been given a chance at another life, and we have to take it. Sometimes I wonder if I’m so accustomed to struggling that anything else feels foreign to me, like something I’m not supposed to feel, but here we are. We’re really doing this. Together.

As we clear the last of the trees, we keep our heads down, bodies hunched low. Moving in the open like this is dangerous under any circumstances, but I can see the shore. I can feel the sun on my face.

Hearing a noise behind us, the rhythmic crunch of leaves, a clipped huffing sound, we both freeze midstep. Slowly, Ryker peers over his shoulder and holds out his hand, signaling for me to stay put. Still.

The rhythm is getting closer, so close that I can feel it pounding up from the earth. I’m about to dive for cover when I see the rise of Ryker’s cheek. The start of a smile.

Glancing back, I see a deer running straight toward us. A young buck. I’m thinking we should move out of its path, but Ryker stands his ground, watching in awe as it thunders past.

And I know exactly what he’s thinking—it’s just like his dream, only the stag didn’t run right through him.

Smiling back at me, he reaches out for my hand, but before I can grab on to his, I stagger forward to my knees, as if I’ve been shoved from behind. I look over my shoulder to see a dagger embedded in the pelts.

“Ryker?” I whisper.

He has the strangest expression on his face. His skin has turned to ash; his breath is coming out in short bursts. “Run for the gate. Head straight south, follow the barrier.”

His words … his face … nothing makes sense … and then I see the hilt of a blade protruding from his stomach.

“I’m not leaving you,” I say as I start to get up.

“Then stay down … close your eyes,” he grunts. “But if something happens … I need you to run.”

I nod. I think I nod. I know he told me to close my eyes, but I can’t do it.

Grabbing the hilt of the blade, he pulls it out, blood dripping from eight inches of etched steel. That’s when I hear the caw. It’s more than a warning. More than a call to run. It’s the sound of death.

“They’re coming,” he says, his eyes focused somewhere behind me. Holding the blade to his side, he widens his stance and takes a deep breath through his nostrils.

Two sets of heavy footsteps approach. “We only want the prey,” one of them says. “Leave right now and we can forget all about this.”