bright red as it flowed into the undergrowth. If she followed it, would it lead her back to her forestborn? He wanted her to stay alive until the Devourer returned; he might help her, if not Armand.
Then she heard the horns.
No.
She didn’t “hear” them; the horns sounded, and they devoured her. Her blood pulsed in time to their call, and she wanted nothing except to run after them, ride after them, to join the hunt and run their foolish mortal prey to death.
Then she glanced at Armand. He had planted himself with his chin at a stubborn angle, but she could see the fear in his rigid shoulders.
Foolish mortal prey.
They would hunt him. They would run him to death in the woods, and then they would tear him limb from limb. But they might let her live, because she was bloodbound and destined to become one of them.
She felt like a rabbit bolting across the fields with foxes at its heels. Nobody escaped the Forest. Nobody could fight the Wild Hunt. If she tried to help Armand, she would die as well. And she had a reason to live now, as she hadn’t when she lifted the knife over Aunt Léonie. There were other men with royal blood who could open the labyrinth for her, but no one else knew how to find Joyeuse and stop the Devourer.
Armand looked at her with a sort of resigned fear, as if he knew it was inevitable that she would betray him and he would die tonight.
The horns sounded again, louder, closer. Rachelle shuddered and gripped his arm.
Nobody could fight the Wild Hunt. So she would just have to cheat them.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” she said. “Just do as I say.”
And then the Wild Hunt was upon them.
First came the spectral hounds, their crimson muzzles dripping with blood. Then came the hunters themselves, riding horses and stags and tigers. Light clung to every member of the hunt; they were riotously arrayed in silks and jewels and silver and gold. Their faces shimmered with impossible light and their eyes were dark with unknowable dread.
Their gazes made her feel like a small, frightened animal. But she was one of them. She had to be one of them, so she remembered Erec’s arrogance and her own anger and the chill, sweet bloodlust of the Forest wind, and she stood up straight.
The hunt swirled around them, parting to either side, and drew into a ring. One hunter halted before them: a tall man, clad in rags and golden chains, riding a great black stag.
“You are not yet one of us,” he said, in a voice that was deep and soft and terrifying.
“Nevertheless.” Her lips were dry and stiff. “I am your sister, and I am here by right.”
He looked at her. And then, in a movement more terrifying than all his pride, he bowed. The stag on which he sat bowed down as well, muzzle touching the ground, and all the Wild Hunt with him.
They bowed to Rachelle. Was her heart so cruel already, that they honored her?
Or were they simply bowing to what they knew she must become?
“Do you come to hunt with us?” asked the forestborn. “There is little time left, but plentiful prey.”
“No,” said Rachelle. “I would. But I have business back at home. Will you take me there?”
The hunter’s teeth glinted in a smile. “We would be honored.”
Two slender forestborn women helped Rachelle and Armand mount a huge white horse. Their fingers burned cold against her arm and made her shiver; their eyes were worse. When Rachelle was on the horse with Armand before her, she wanted to tell him, I won’t let them hurt you, but she couldn’t. She couldn’t even think it, because when the hunter looked at her, she felt like she was made of glass.
Instead, she stroked his hair like he was a pet and then said—her voice quiet but carrying—“Ride well for me, and you might live till morning.”
She could see the edge of his smile. “Yes, my lady,” he said, and then the horns called again and the hunt started. Armand straightened; Rachelle wrapped her arms around his waist. She could feel the movement of his ribs as he breathed.
And they rode, through the wind and through the night, the Great Forest whispering around them, the air full of hoofbeats and hunting calls and the wild, tuneless singing of the forestborn.
Far too soon, they stopped. Rachelle had so lost herself in the thrill of speed