Don’t let it be Deer

(Gwen’s POV)

I caught up with Rhea at the foot of the palace steps, tugging my sleeves back up. "Rhea, may I speak with you for a moment?"

She didn't stop walking. "You may speak while we walk."

"Could I change my clothes? This tunic is far too big, and I think there's been a mistake." I held out my arms so she could see the sleeves hanging past my fingers. "If I could just get a smaller size, I promise I'll be quick."

"No."

"No?"

"There are no smaller clothes left." She finally glanced down at me, I thought I saw sympathy in her eyes before it was swallowed up by that flat, professional calm. "The seamstress prepared ten uniforms by the king's measurements for the girls he was expected to choose. Yours was the last one cut, and the last one left."

"But I can't hunt in this. I'll trip."

"Then you will trip carefully." She turned and started walking again. "After the hunt, I will see what can be done about your clothes. Until then, you will make do."

I stared at her back, my chest tight, and then hurried after her, because there was nothing else to do.

The armory was a low stone building at the edge of the courtyard, and a guard handed each of us a bow and a quiver as we filed past.

Mine was almost as tall as I was. I lifted it with both hands and nearly dropped it, and the girl behind me made a small, amused sound.

"Try not to shoot yourself, nymph," Sera murmured, strolling past with her bow slung across her shoulder.

"I'll do my best."

We marched out through the palace gates and down a long dirt road until the trees rose up ahead of us like a wall, tall and dark and so thick that the morning light barely reached the ground.

Rhea stopped at the edge and turned to face us. "Each of you will enter by a different path. You will not follow each other, and you will not help each other. Return before the noon bell with meat worthy of the king." Her gaze moved over us. "Anyone who is not back by then is out. Understood?"

"Yes, Rhea," we said.

The girls scattered like birds. A guard pointed me toward a narrow trail on the left and I walked into the trees alone.

I could hear my own breath, the creak of the leather quiver against my back, the soft crunch of leaves under my boots.

The tunic dragged at my knees with every step, and the trouser legs kept sliding down over my heels until I had to stop and roll them up again.

"Okay," I said aloud, mostly to hear a voice. "Okay, Gwen. You can do this."

"You have shot a bow before."

I had, a dozen times, always at straw targets, always badly, while my father stood behind me sighing and adjusting my elbow.

I had never hit anything that moved, never hit anything that breathed and now I was supposed to kill. With a king's dinner and my entire future riding on it.

The trail curled downhill past a mossy stream. I stopped to drink, my hands shaking a little, and a branch cracked somewhere ahead.

I froze.

Through a gap in the trees, a deer stood eating from a bush of red berries.

It was white, completely white, from its ears to its hooves. It seemed to glow against the dark trunks.

I could do nothing but stare at how beautiful it was. "Oh," I breathed. "Oh, you're lovely."

Then I remembered why I was there, and my stomach twisted. "Sorry," I whispered. "I'm so sorry."

I pulled an arrow from the quiver and fit it to the string with trembling fingers, drew back as far as my arms would allow, and tried to remember everything my father had said. ‘Breathe out. Keep your elbow up. Don't think, just let go.’

I let go. The arrow whistled past the deer's ear and thudded into a tree.

The white head snapped up. It looked straight at me, dark eyes wide and then it bolted.

"No, no, no, wait!"

I ran. My legs just started moving, the oversized trousers tangling around my ankles and the quiver thumping against my spine.

Branches whipped my face. The deer was a flash of white ahead, leaping over logs and ducking through bushes.

"Stop! Please stop!"

It did not stop. I stumbled, caught myself on a trunk, and nocked another arrow without breaking stride, aimed on the run, and loosed it.

Miss.

"Come on!"

I shot again and hit a branch. Again, and the arrow buried itself in the dirt.

I was gasping now, my lungs burning, sweat soaking through the tunic, and the pin at my shoulder had worked loose and was digging into my skin.

"Why won't you hold still?" I panted. "I'm trying to be nice about it!"

Another arrow, and another, each one flying wide, and my hands began to shake so badly that I could barely draw.

My eyes stung. I wasn't sure whether it was from sweat or from something else, something hot and humiliating that kept climbing up my throat.

Sera was right. I was a child playing in her father's clothes.

I reached over my shoulder for the next arrow and my fingers brushed against the empty leather.

One. I counted again, and then again, hoping I was wrong. There was exactly one arrow left in the quiver.

"No," I whispered. "No, please, I need more than that."

But there wasn't any more.

I came to a stop at the edge of a small clearing, doubled over with my hands on my knees, my chest heaving, and when I finally lifted my head, my breath caught.

The deer had stopped.

It stood about thirty paces away beside an old apple tree, its flanks trembling, and had dropped its head to the fallen fruit scattered over the grass. It was eating like it had forgotten about me.

I lowered myself slowly onto one knee, the way my father had taught me, and slid out the last arrow with fingers. I fit it to the string.

I took a breath, and then another, and my hand, to my own surprise, went still. "Please," I whispered. "Please Goddess, please, just this once."

I thought about my mother's hands pinning the hem of my wedding dress. I thought about my father clearing his throat in the doorway. I thought about the thin black line crawling toward my elbow.

"Please." I loosed the arrow.

It flew straight and low, and I heard it hit, a dull thud. The deer screamed. It was a high, raw, human sound.

The white body staggered, tried to run, and then its legs folded and it crashed down onto the grass among the apples.

I stayed where I was, kneeling, the bow trembling in my hands, and let out a breath I had been holding.

"I hit it," I said, my voice cracking. "I actually hit it."

I laughed, a weak, shaky sound, and then my eyes filled, and I wiped them roughly on my sleeve. Then I got up and walked across the clearing on legs that felt like water.

Up close, it was enormous. I hadn't realized how big it was from a distance. Its white coat was already stained red where the arrow had struck, and its sides rose and fell once, twice, and then went still. I knelt beside it and pressed my hand gently against its neck.

"Thank you," I whispered. "I'm sorry. I really am."

I thought I heard the faint toll of a bell…was it Noon bell?

I stood, took hold of one of its back legs with both hands, and pulled.

Nothing happened.

"Come on," I grunted, digging my heels into the dirt and leaning back with all my weight. "Move. Please."

It shifted an inch. I pulled harder, my arms screaming, my boots slipping on wet leaves, and step by step I began to drag the deer back along the trail, its white head rolling against the ground.

"If you're allergic to this," I muttered between breaths, tugging at it, and tugging again, "I will personally never forgive you, Xaden."

The the noon bell tolled again, closer now.

“Please”, I prayed silently, with the whole weight of the deer behind me. “Please don't let it be deer.”