Page 113 of Fire to the Stars

“Why don’t we set up camp early?” Claire suggests.

Her voice brings me back to my body. “What for?”

“The sooner we sleep, the more energy we’ll have to stay awake tomorrow night.”

She’s not wrong, but I’m still impatient to investigate.

Not my jurisdiction. I’m not a gendarme. I’m just a slayer. I need to get out of my head, or I’ll regret wasting time I should spend with Claire.

“All right.”

Once we set up camp, I consider our food rations. We’ve paced ourselves just fine, but fresh meat will give us more energy than bread and produce. I grab my crossbow.

Time to hunt.

I nod to Lucy. “Keep an eye on her while I’m gone.”

“Where are you going?”

“I saw deer tracks a short while back. I want to hunt while the suns are still up.”

She worries her lip, though she resumes arranging the furs inside the tent. Lucy paws her for attention, but Claire doesn’t indulge her as usual.

“Don’t take too long,” she says in a strained, singsong tone.

I nearly abandon the crossbow to pull her under the furs and never leave the tent again. But the privacy we retreat to every night can’t save us from the rise and set of the suns. Only a cure can, and we’re no closer to one. Hunting gives me the opportunity to burn through some of this anxiety.

I enter the thick of the trees.

The deer tracks remain where I found them. They’re fresh. One set. I doubt the deer strayed far from its herd, though, which means there’s more than one set of ears to hear me coming. I crouch low, my steps measured and deliberate as I navigate the pines. I inhale, exhale. Inhale…exhale.

Slow. Patient. Breaths.

My body stills. The subtle sounds of the forest peel apart from each other. A hawk’s cry, a rabbit’s hop, a bird’s wingbeat. The crackle of growing icicles.

Claire was right. This place makes people feel small.

Something shuffles in the snow.

Head hidden behind a pine tree’s thick trunk, a deer rummages around the base of it. Green clovers sprout from the wet soil. A lucky find. No wonder this deer strayed from his herd and stopped for a bite.

I lift my crossbow and aim the bolt at his heart. Ten yards out. An easy shot. He wags his stubby white tail and rocks back, no doubt tugging on a new mouthful.

Patience.I exhale.Patience.Snowflakes settle on my crossbow.

The deer steps backward and lifts his head. Vibrant, multicolored flowers decorate the buck’s broad antlers. He stares at me with shiny black eyes while he chews the clovers, unafraid.

Not a deer. A fawna.

Another set of hooves crunches the snow. A simple doe emerges from behind a distant tree. The fawna glances at the doe, then at me. With a shuddering breath, I lower the crossbow. The fawna prances away with her, carefree, as if he knows his presence makes me feel the Gods’ eyes on me.

If I see a fawnaandan owl, does that make my luck good or bad?

—Question for a visiting cardinal from an unnamed altar girl in Jardincourt

Chapter Forty

Claire