True Lies

‘Why should I trust you?’

Falcon glanced over her shoulder once more with a knowing smile, lifting up a single finger as she mouthed the word, one.

Wynter fell into step beside the woman, her chest felt tight. Fingertips prickling even as she kept her grip upon her bow. Shadow huffed against her chest, whining softly. The dark-haired woman unsettled him.

‘Because I am bound by lore to speak only truth to mortals,’ Falcon explained with a grin.

Wynter opened her mouth, every instinct demanding that she immediately ask if Falcon was mortal. She stopped in her tracks, the leaves rustling overhead. A breeze seemed to surround the pair of them whispering as it stirred the grass and flowers that grew.

She took a breath. Falcon was claiming to be more than mortal? A goddess? Her knees felt weak and the last breath of air in her lungs fled. Leaving her feeling dizzy. That was ridiculous, the Gods and Goddesses didn’t just roam the world. Except that they did. She’d heard a lifetime of myths and legends about the immortals visiting and the chaos left in their wake.

The question was, if Falcon claimed to be a Goddess, did Wynter believe her? Pleased that she had managed to hold her own tongue, Wynter straightened up. She faced Falcon, the woman she’d danced with the night before. She looked her over again; slowly. This time she didn’t skip over the details and took care to examine.

There was something ethereal about Falcon, something that she’d noticed the night before. It wasn’t a quality that Wynter could pin point, a specific perfection but more a sense of power that emanated from the statuesque beauty. The longer Wynter stared, the stronger it felt. She shivered, nervous. Something about Falcon, reminded her of Fenrir.

Falcon was a Goddess and Wynter shivered again. From all the legends that followed the immortals, they were supposed to have short tempers. She didn’t want to offend a Goddess. Falcon hadn’t said anything, she simply stared back. The same teasing smile pulling at the corner of her lips; a knowing smile.

She had been offered three questions, Wynter flexed her fingers on the staff of her bow. Three questions to a Goddess that would be answered truthfully. She swallowed, she needed to make them count.

‘Tell me about the curse,’ she asked quietly and held her ground. Falcon lifted an eyebrow surprised.

‘Well, well - you’re more direct than I imagined,’ the Goddess lifted a finger to her chin, thoughtful. ‘I feel as though you’re going to spoil all my fun,’ she frowned, pouting as she turned and scanned the trees. As though for inspirtation.

Could the Immortals lie? Wynter wondered, she’d taken Falcon’s earlier statement as truth, but she had no way of knowing if it was true, or not. Would Falcon truly tell her the truth about the curse she’d heard so much about, in whispers and rumours?

She could barely remember the stories she’d heard as a child and it was infuriating. Because her life felt as though it was becoming more and more centred around the Whire. Even if she knew that someday, she would need to leave it behind.

‘It’s all a great big misunderstanding,’ Falcon replied eventually, ‘an arrogant Prince who upset a Witch. She cursed him. He was no longer a man, but a beast. Bound to his Castle with the threat of his curse extending to any who stepped into the Hart Wood…’

Wynter chewed on her bottom lip, the words triggering a memory of her childhood. A time when her Mother had sat at the edge of the bed, telling stories with her hands. Making shadows over the fireplace mantel. She did know this story. Word for word what Falcon had explained, but there was something else?

‘A roll of the dice…’ Wynter murmured to herself, ‘to enter the lands of Whire, you cast the dice and gamble with your life.’

‘Very true,’ Falcon winked, ‘how brave of you to venture out each day. To think you’re the huntress of these woods. One might think you’re a fascinating woman to study, Wynter Alana.’

Wynter took in another slow breath. Falcon had known her name, without ever being told. More than anything, it confirmed what the raven-haired woman had said. That she was a Goddess. No one in Whire had ever heard her full name. And nothing would convince her that Falcon was in the employ of Malachi.

It was true then? The curse around Whire and the Hart Wood was still active? She shuddered, the Prince must have been long dead. Whatever he’d done to deserve such a curse, must have been truly appalling. Witches frightened her, along with their magic. She closed her eyes. Life had once been simpler than this. More than ever, she longed for home.

‘Your final question, Huntress?’ Falcon turned and started walking again, leading the way back towards the cabin. Wynter shook her head, feeling overwhelmed by the knowledge she already had. It was all true. There really was a curse around Whire and she was risking her life by roaming the forest.

Her heart was skipping beats in her chest. Fenrir and Dorian had been right to warn her, as had Genevive and everyone else who had told her to stay away from the Hart Wood. If the curse was still active, then how did they live in the Castle? She swallowed, heart heavier with every step. Were they imprisoned by the curse, just as surely as she’d been trapped and held by Malachi, was that the fate of everyone who lived in Castle Whire?

That couldn’t be true, Fenrir had left the castle, Dorian had left the Castle. Even Genevive had left the grounds. So they weren’t imprisoned. Only the whole of Whire lived in fear of the curse of the Hart Wood and kept their distance from it. A shadow looming on the edge of their homes. A threat of thunder thrown over every sunny day. No wonder people stayed away. No wonder the village felt strange.

She wanted to ask how the curse could be broken. They climbed up the steady slope, following the winding silver river as it ran between the oak trees. It wasn’t her quest, and the people of Whire had been living with the curse for so long, perhaps they didn’t want it to be broken. It was local folklore, it didn’t interfere with their lives, did it? Her head hurt.

The Lodge came into sight, her home for the last ten days. Falcon lingered at the edge of the property boundary and turned to her. Hands planted on her hips.

‘You have a thousand questions Hunter…yet you hold your tongue…’

Wynter looked up at the woman, searching her expression. It was true, she wanted to know so much. About Falcon, more about the curse and the people of Whire. About how Fenrir lived as a Prince in the shadow of such infamous ancestors. No wonder he never went to court. Yet she carried her own shadows and her own fear.

‘How can I hide from Malachi?’ She asked the Goddess quietly before looking away. Falcon’s expression had given everything away, before she had even said a word. Sadness and frustration had marred her features.

‘You cannot,’ Falcon replied in a voice that shifted like the breeze. ‘You know that already, Wynter. Your Fate and his remain entwined…whilst that is so, you will never outrun him for long.’

Wynter stared at the ground between them, the flowers that had been trampled into the dirt, their bright petals crushed and shapeless. She didn’t have to believe Falcon, this could still be just some trick. Some way of messing with her. But her chest ached and her heart hurt. She could never outrun Malachi?

‘You know when to hold your string, and when to shoot…and I like a Hunter that can dance,’ Falcon’s voice tickled her ear and Wynter forced herself to look up again. Eyes wet with tears. Tears of frustration. She didn’t want to go back. She didn’t want to face the man again. Did she not deserve to make a new life? But Falcon was gone. The ground where she’d been standing, undisturbed.

Wynter twisted, looking back through the forest at the path she’d found through the trees and scowled there as only signs of one person breaking through the undergrowth. As though Falcon had never been there. It couldn’t be true. Because there had to be a way to escape Malachi.

‘Bella?’ A soft voice called from the lodge and Wynter twisted, peering at the familiar shape of Genevive. Fenrir’s cook. Wynter steadied herself, trying to shake off the dark clouds that gathered over her thoughts.

‘His Majesty requests your presence.’

Fenrir.