Provision

            Yesterday, the news spread through the village with the cold morning mist: Rama and Lemar’s second daughter died in the night. Everyone expected it. Even before Lemar’s accident, the little girl’s skin stretched tight across her bones. Once the food ran out, there was nothing left on her to keep her body going. So it didn’t.

            Everyone expected it, yes, but when I left town this morning, every door and window stayed shut, as if they could protect themselves from what killed her because it was out there. And maybe he was.

            “It’s not over yet,” Tiran said, pulling my mind back into the moment. He yanked his spear from the thick-furred flesh of the wolf-hog. “His mate’ll be ‘round here somewhere, and she won’t be too pleased.” His careful eyes scanned the surrounding trees.

            Mine remained fixed on the carcass.

            “What if we took some of it?” I looked over at him. “No one would ever know.”

            He met my gaze with a wide-eyed warning.

            “Just think about it,” I went on, circling the mound of fur to stand in front of Tiran. “We make a cut at the neck—believable enough, if the spear didn’t quite finish it off—and just take a little slice of what’s inside. If we’re careful, it won’t be missed.”

            “No.”

            “But we could feed so—”

            “I know.” He ground his jaw, and a little prick of pain glimmered in his hard eyes. “But the law’s the law. You break it, you won’t be feeding anyone.”

            Tiran turned back to the forest, off to find another trail to pick up.

            I looked again to the slain beast, thinking past the skin to the banquet feast that lay beneath: three hundred pounds that would stuff three already-satisfied stomachs in as many bites and then spoil because some law says meat from the Silv can never touch a peasant’s tongue.

            My stomach roiled.

            “Come on, Mira!” Tiran called. “The Guard’ll be arriving to pick it up.”

            With one final, helpless gaze, I turned my back on the dead creature and followed my colleague into the woods.

 

 

 

Three Months Later

 

His Imperial Sovereignty hereby issues this NOTICE OF PROBATION to HUNTSMAN MIRA, in disciplinary response to vocational insubordination: On account of her suspected theft attempt of the Royal provisions on the eleventh day of the sixth month, the Crown requires one month’s relief from service on the part of Huntsman Mira, during which period she shall not be permitted access to the Silv Forest on penalty of expulsion from the Royal Order of the Huntsmen.

                                                                                                             LONG LIVE HIS MAJESTY!

 

            “I’m hungry,” Lymia moans, in a voice smaller than she is. Her ratty little blanket—her mother’s old baby blanket—tangles in her stumpy toddler’s legs as she tries to kick it off.

            I crouch beside my tiny niece, taking her bony hand and swallowing the bile that rises in my throat.

            “I know, kid,” I say. “It won’t be much longer. For now, though, you gotta rest, okay?”

            Her big grey eyes latch onto mine. “But I want to play,” she whispers, then struggles with a breath.

            I try to smile and reach to pull her blanket back up. “Resting will get you better, so you’ll be able to play later.” I feign a yawn, stretching my mouth open as wide as it’ll go.

            Success. The little rascal squints, succumbing to a yawn of her own. She rolls over. Matter settled.

            I join Niko at the table on the other side of the room but don’t sit, instead strangling the back of the chair opposite him, my bones white beneath my skin. For a while, we’re both quiet, waiting for Lymia to drift back into sleep.

            Eventually, Niko murmurs, “It’s been too long.”

            I look at my younger brother, just months shy of working age. He’s forgotten his book, his gaze now fixed on our niece—the last remaining piece of our older sister, Kyna.

            Then Niko looks to me, with eyes as grey and almost as wide as Lymia’s. “She and Mama should be better by now.”

            I grind my jaw. It’s been three weeks since the page delivered His Mightiness’s decree and a fist-sized leather drawstring sack half full of coppers. Despite my rationing, I spent the last of the coins on food at the end of last week, so there wasn’t any to buy medicine with. And now the food’s run out. I feel my stomach expand when I breathe in deep. I should’ve listened to Tiran.

            As if reading my thoughts, Niko asks, “Have you asked Tiran for help?”

            I flinch, then try to cover it up by shrugging. “We’re not his to worry about. I’m the one to take care of this family.”

            “But he kept you out of jail, didn’t he?” Niko presses. “By making sure they didn’t find that hog’s leg in your stuff? Surely that means he cares what happens to us.”

            I shake my head, remembering Tiran’s face that day. The anger. The disappointment. He covered for me, yes, but then he turned his back and stomped away. “Tiran’s not going to help us.”

I glance over my shoulder at the tiny body on the cot, then at the closed door to Mama’s room. She still hasn’t woken up from her fever-sleep.

            “This can’t go on,” I say.

           “What can we do?” Niko whispers.

            I don’t answer—he won’t like it. I just stalk out the back door, across our dirt field, and slip into the barn.

           Niko must’ve followed me, because I hear the barn door open again when I’m assembling my quiver.

           “What are you doing?” he asks in the voice of someone who already knows.

           “We need food,” I say, slinging the quiver onto my back and tightening the strap.

           “But Mira, you can’t! You’re banned.”

           I grip him by the shoulders. “Just watch over them, okay? I’ll be back.”

 

 

            There’s a portion of the city wall that no one watches. It’s buried behind a long-dead orchard that’s shrouded in ghost stories. I’ve never seen another soul there.

            With the help of a peeling wooden bench and a few handholds I’ve chipped into the stone, I scale the wall and drop into the domain of the Silv Forest.

            Trees stand as columns in a palace, tall and proud. The highest branches intertwine like the fingers of beloveds, transfiguring late-afternoon into the illusion of dawn. The green glow coaxes creatures to wander freely, unafraid.

            A forest is just a forest to those who don’t speak its language. Every track is a fingerprint, every trail and river a signature, every tree a vital organ. His Imperialness tried to make the Silv submit, at first. He didn’t know that the only way to get anything from a forest is to work with it. To bow to its grace and authority.

            Unlike the Emperor, the forest meets the needs of all its creatures. Bears pluck fish out of the streams to fill their stomachs and keep them alive another day. Birds slurp worms out of the ground. Even us humans are allowed our piece—hunting the otherwise unstoppable predators that roam the woods—so long as we aren’t greedy.

            I lay my hand against the scratchy bark of a cedar and whisper an apology. “We ask too much of you.”

            Bow gripped securely in my palm, I bound deeper into the forest. After about a minute, I spot the crisp paired divots of fresh deer tracks. Multiple sets. For half a mile, I follow them, till they cross a trickling brook and the trees around me fill out like squat old men.

            I slow my steps.

            After a little while, I come upon a small grassy clearing spotted with clumps of fallen leaves and surrounded by exposed roots and a few scraggly bushes. In the center stands a round-bellied doe.

            I hunch down, shifting my course to a spot amongst the bushes where the crunchy leaves won’t give me away. Once there, I squat low and tug an arrow out of the quiver on my back. I raise my bow, nock the arrow onto the string. Then I drag the bowstring back to the corner of my mouth.

            The leafy carpet of the forest floor crackles. Two fauns come out from behind the brush, their twiggy legs carrying them hazardously to their mother. The smaller of the pair slips beneath the doe as if seeking shelter—the kind of shelter only a mother can provide.

My fingers twitch on the nock of the arrow. I take a breath. Two. Three.

            The doe nuzzles the bigger faun then dips her nose back into the grass to continue grazing. A breeze sets the leaves overhead to whispering. A few resilient rays of sunlight break through the dense canopy. Birds sing from their hidden stages, some better at carrying a tune than others. The deer family shares a meal, secure together in the provision of the Silv.

My bowstring slackens.

            I stuff the arrow back into my quiver, and the second I let go, a hand snatches mine. My eyes stretch wide, but I don’t scream. Instead, I tighten my grip on the hand and yank it forward. Before I can throw the person over my shoulder, I’m grabbed and spun around to face my attacker. Tiran.

He’s on his knees in the dirt, so we’re eye-level, and Tiran uses that fact to his advantage by throwing the full force of his glare at me. “Just because I covered for you once—”

           “I’m out of options,” I tell him.

           “You shouldn’t even be out here,” he hisses. “Gracious, Mira, you’re on probation!”

           “Hence zero options,” I spit back. “And this time it’s my family at stake, so don’t you dare try to stand in the way.”

           “Your family?” His forehead scrunches into lines. “I thought your mother’d found a solid job this time.”

            I snort. “Yeah, real stable. So stable she worked herself into exhaustion and came home sick over a week ago.” I swallow, dropping my gaze to stare at the dirt. “Now Lymia’s got it, too. And they’re gonna need strength if they’re gonna get better. So,” I look at him again, “like I said: don’t try to stop me. I have to make this right.”

          Tiran grabs my forearm again before I can rise from my squat. He holds my gaze with another intense look. “I’m not here for you.”

          I squint at him, then finally understand. My heart strikes up a furious beat. “How far behind is the Guard?”

          “Not far,” Tiran says. “Mira, leave. You get caught—”

          “I know.” Part of me wonders, though, what it matters. If I leave emptyhanded, I’ve already failed.

            I glance around. Only trees. The deer must’ve scampered off. I rise to get a better look.

            “Mira—”

            A shout from somewhere in the thicket cuts him short.

            I drop back to the ground, cursing under my breath.

            “I’ll take care of it,” Tiran tells me. “Go to town. Be seen by folks. Then wait at my place till I can tell you it’s safe.”

            “But my family—”

            “I’ll take care of it,” Tiran repeats. Then he dashes off, following the tracks left by the deer family.

            I wait, staying crouched in the dirt until I hear another shout farther off: Tiran leading the Guard to him.

            Then I run.

 

 

 

            Dusk has succumb to the thickness of night by the time Tiran finds me in one of the hard leather chairs in his cottage and tells me I can go home. The Guard didn’t see me. My family is safe, he says.

            I still make the walls rattle when I leave.

            The whole way from the Highland Sector back to the Hollows, my empty satchel clings to my leg. The streetlamps run out after the town square, and the moon is just a toenail in the sky, so the last couple of miles are all dark houses and shadows that twist into familiar faces. Rama and Lemar’s daughter. Kyna. Niko. Mama. Lymia.

I shake my head and the shadows scatter, creeping back into their corners for the night.

           It’s past midnight when the edges of our cottage jut out of the black background. A dim glow in the window means Niko left a candle burning. With that knowledge, I move faster.

          But I stop on the doorstep. A large sack leans against the wooden door, something round and pointy sticking out the top. I frown. Taking the bag inside and setting it on the table, I tug open the top of the drawstring bag to inspect its contents. A mountain of vegetables—carrots, potatoes, cabbage—buries a cloth parcel tied with a strip of leather. My fingers pull the knot apart before carefully unwrapping the bundle. There, in the center of the cloth, lies a venison hindquarter. Deer meat.