Brandon Ashveil's Arc

Chapter 1 of 18

Brandon Ashveil pressed his palm against the arrow wound in his thigh and felt his enemy laugh a mile away. The cut was not his. He had not been shot. Somewhere in the pines, the fae lord he had hunted for two years was pulling the shaft from his own leg, and Brandon's body was bleeding for him. He limped through the wet ferns until he found the longhouse at the edge of the clearing. Timber walls, sod roof, one crooked step. He had been told the woman inside knew things the fae would not teach a hunter. He kicked the door open because his hand was full of blood. The herbalist did not flinch. She was crouched by the hearth, grinding something green in a stone bowl, and a red dog with a white-tipped tail stood between her and Brandon before he crossed the threshold. The dog did not bark. It watched his leg. "Shut the door," she said. "You're dripping on my floor." He shut it. "Dayna Sable." "You know my name. I don't know yours, and I don't care. Sit." He sat on the bench by the hearth. She was small, ginger-haired, streaked with dirt at the wrists. No pointed ears. A human, alone, in a forest that should have eaten her a hundred times. He had heard she paid the fae in tinctures for the right to stay. He had heard other things too. "It isn't my wound," he said. She looked up. Her green eyes went to the blood, then to his face, then to the blood again. "Bond-cut." "You know it." "I know of it." She set the bowl down. "Whose?" He told her the name. Her mouth tightened. The dog sat. "I came to have it cut," Brandon said. "Break the tie. I'll pay what you ask." "You'll die." "I'll pay." "You'll die," she said again, slower. "A bond like that isn't a rope you snip. It's stitched through the meat of you. Cut it blind and your heart stops with his. Maybe before his." He stared at the fire. His leg had already stopped bleeding. The fae lord had bandaged himself, somewhere, and Brandon's skin was closing over nothing. "Then teach me what it is," he said. "Before I cut it." She wiped her hands on her trousers. "That's a different bargain." "Name it." She studied him a long moment. The dog leaned against her knee. "I need something from the fae lord you hunt. A living piece. Hair, blood, a bitten nail. Without it I can't read the shape of what's inside you. I won't guess. Guessing is how hunters like you come back as corpses on my step." Brandon stood. The false wound was gone. The real problem had a name now, and a price. "I'll bring you a piece of him," he said, "or I'll bring him."