When the Snow Thaws... (Part III)

I find Anneliese after a few minutes of searching, a good deal into the forest with a rifle slung over her shoulders and a half-shuttered oil lamp dangling from her waist. She is crouched down over some bloody deer tracks, addressing me without lifting her head. "He shot the poor bastard in the side of the skull — there's chunks of viscera so it can't have been grazing, but it's still alive, so it must've missed most of the brain. Remember Caroline got a wound not too different from this one?"

I tighten my grip on my own rifle as I scan the treeline. "Died of infection after ten days of awful struggle, yeah."

"Bad way to go." Anneliese rises to her feet. "I've always regretted how I handled that whole mess — there was no chance she was going to return to a normal life, after an injury like that. I should've just ordered Lise to put her out of her misery."

"Is that why you're out here, then?" I glance at her weapon. "To put the deer out of its misery?"

"… No." Anneliese turns to face me at last, and my heart drops when I register the dried tears running down her cheeks. "I wanted away from that table."

"Annie—"

"I know," Anneliese says. "You were just… trying to be polite. That's how the College always taught you to be and I'd be a bitch to fault you for that." She scrubs away at her eyes. I try to reach out but she just steps away again. "Appeasing them doesn't work, Rue."

I nod slowly.

"I wanted you to say something."

"… I'm sorry." I take a hesitant step forward and, when she doesn't retreat this time, I reach out to grasp her hand in mine. "I… don't really know how to deal with bad families."

"I know…" She lets out a wet chuckle. "I'm sorry for being a brat about it."

"You weren't being a brat. I'm sorry for keeping quiet through all that. I can't take it back, but… I can promise you that it won't happen again."

"Not the least because we're not coming back there. I told you to turn down the sparrowhawk she sent you; she was probably just trying to embarrass you—"

I let go of her hand as I catch a rustle from the bush ahead of us. A pair of beady eyes stare back at me, crystals of red and black sticking out from the left of its skull where an antler should be. It scampers off into the darkness when I point it out to Anneliese.

"Did it look bad?" she asks.

"I saw bone chunks of sticking out, so… yes."

She nods, then turns to look at my dripping pants with a frown. "You should probably head back and get those changed. I won't be long, and… if you don't think you can make it up to the manor alone—"

"I'll be fine," I insist, "and I have a better idea."

"You drop the pants here and run back to the manor like a lunatic?"

"I stay here and help you—"

"No."

"Annie—"

"You're not at your best right now, Rue. You'll only slow me down."

"Slow you down?" I give her a frustrated smirk. "I'll shoot that dumb deer dead before you get anywhere close, you cheeky little shit, and then we'll see who's really the burden between us."

"I never said you were a burden, Rue."

"You implied it."

"We're not making this a competition."

"That sounds like loser talk to me."

Anneliese loads a bullet into her barrel with a suffering groan, seemingly weighing her sense of responsibility against her desire to humiliate me. The latter seems to win out in the end as she calls over her shoulder, "Better get used to the taste of dirt then, Comtesse," and launches into the underbrush as swift as a sparrowhawk, lantern juddering wildly through the gathering mist.

I curse as I scramble to catch up, already regretting my bravado as my legs strain under the effort of a light jog. I lose track of her lantern five minutes in, and more than once I find my way out of the forest instead of deeper in, nearly jumping out of my skin when the owls perching on the church's eaves scream in concert like the souls of the damned.

Just beyond it I glimpse the foundation stones of the Mayor Brandgraven's summer home, lit by a dying lantern held by a lone watchman. Clustered around the site are two dozen or so tents housing about twice as many labourers from the city, from which the sound of drunken laughter reaches my ears — from both men and women. I frown to myself at the thought of the Mayor's son, who was supposed to be supervising them; but the boy has been strangely fickle in the days since my recovery.

Suppressing the sour taste in my mouth, I turn back for the forest with aching knees. Troubles best saved for another day.

My hunt continues for another quarter-hour, but it isn't much of a competition in the end.

A gunshot rings out from a glade farther afield of me. When I arrive at its source I come face-to-face with Anneliese, crouched beside a bleeding hole in the deer's neck where a bullet had ruptured its windpipe. The poor creature writhes in the mud and kicks uselessly while Anneliese holds it down.

She nods to me, then at the festering wound on the deer's head, then at my rifle, with a knowing frown. I step up to her side without another word and unload my bullet straight into the poor animal's skull.

We spend the walk back in silence for the longest time, until halfway towards the manor, my legs grow weak and Anneliese has to support me for the final trek up the hillside. She breaks the silence as I stumble over my own feet for the dozenth time. "Let's rest here for a few minutes?"

I nod numbly as she directs me towards a dry patch of rock overlooking the river pier. She tries to take my rifle from me, but I only clutch it tighter.

"Rue."

"I can still shoot, even if I can't run."

"Shoot at what?"

"Those construction men in the tents might try something, or a wolf might have stalked us from the forest, I don't know."

Anneliese just continues to stare at me over the lantern glow. "You know, I would normally ask if you let me win."

I don't answer her anymore; I really don't want to.

"I told you." She settles down beside me on the rock, procuring an old rag and wiping down the barrel of her rifle. "I told you that you weren't at your best. It doesn't even feel like I got one over you — just feels like I'm kicking you while you're down."

"Stop that."

"What?"

"Stop talking to me like… like this. Like it's a miracle that I'm even alive and talking to you."

Another bout of silence stretches between us as the wind picks up, saturating the air with cricketsong and rustling grass.

I groan. "I didn't mean stop talking entirely, Annie."

"I don't know if there's anything I can say here."

"You can try?"

"I've got nothing to say that won't piss you off."

"Can you try anyway?"

"I…" she hesitates, "I don't know, I guess I hope that Bea's still as stupidly upbeat as she used to be. I never really thought about it, but… if you and I are able to change so much after just a year of peace, then there's no real guarantee that she'd be the same person either."

"That's… really thoughtful of you. Moreso than I expected."

"What's that supposed to mean, Rue?"

I am about to answer with another jab when a particularly loud rustle sounds from the thicket of tall grass to my left flank. A memory flashes in my mind, of pine needles parting to reveal a Volkhovsky prince, and I turn to place the source of the noise down the barrel of my rifle.

Anneliese catches my trigger hand with a frown. "It's probably my brothers spying on us."

"Have you ever known either of them to be so quiet?"

"Well—"

A person's silhouette emerges from the foliage and Anneliese's empty rifle immediately snaps up to join mine.

"Who's there?!" she barks out.

"I'm unarmed!" comes a man's reply. "Wait wait wait, Arthur, I'm Arthur, the Mayor's son, I just, I was just trying to find my pistol—"

"Why the hell would you be looking for a pistol out in the middle of nowhere?"

"Target practice, Madame!" he screams. "I dropped it in the river when I was hunting some ducks—"

"You're lucky you didn't happen into us bathing there then, Arthur." I smirk and gesture at Anneliese to lower her gun. "We might've cursed you to live the rest of your life as a deer."

"Venison, specifically." Anneliese slumps back on the rock. "Now step out of there and show your face before Rue here changes her mind."

"Yes, I'll do just th—" the man freezes in place, squinting against the light of our lantern. "Wait, Madame la Comtesse? Is that you out there?"

I quirk an eyebrow. "It's a strange meeting place that you've chosen for us, Monsieur."

"My father told me to find you!"

"Did he now? Is he unsatisfied with the frequency of my visits to the inn?"

"No, he…" Arthur steps out of the grass with his hands on either side of his head. "He wanted me to thank you for granting him his request!"

"I would feel even more gratified should he cease his attempts to amend the terms of our agreement."

"A-ah, has he been doing that?"

I narrow my eyes at him. "Why are you really here, Arthur?"

"He, ah…" His throat swells as he gulps down his fear. "He's… It's… It's alright, I can see now that you aren't in the mood to discuss—"

"Just spit it out, man."

"He's instructed me to deliver you a token of his appreciation!" Arthur blurts. "He's ah, he's told me that it might… make you more amenable to, ah… because it uh, it… has not escaped his notice that you weren't invited to the Reconciliation Gala in Artigny?"

"… Indeed." I purse my lips. "Then, he has asked you to invite me as your…?"

"Guest!" Arthur says. "As my, erm, guest, Madame. We are all of us obliged to extend an invitation to any one guest of our choosing, and… my father would be— I mean, I would be honoured if you would attend with me…"

I turn to Anneliese, who gives me a simple shrug. "It's a free trip to Artigny. We were planning to visit Bea anyway, so…"

I nod. "Will I have free roam of the city before the Gala, Arthur?"

"And after it as well, should you please!"

"Then I accept your invitation." I lean back against the rock and stare out into the darkness where I know the unsleeping lights of the Capital to be. A memory of an age-worn voice and a dinner table choked with spices resurfaces in my mind, and I cannot help the smile that joins it. "Convey to him my thanks, and let us make this excursion one to fondly remember."