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“No,” she said, but she looked guilty as hell. She couldn’t meet my gaze for more than a moment, and she was wringing her fingers into the shawl in her lap.

I’d been trying to temper my foul mood, but it was starting to seep through. “I carried it over last night and laid it right here with the others.” I gestured to the small table. “It’s not like anyone else lives here. Just give it back. It’s my best hunting knife.”

Jory’s warning of the quiet ones slitting throats all the same came to mind then, and I wondered what her plans were for the thing.

I decided to take a different approach. “It's okayif—”

She stood so quickly her chair nearly tipped clean over. Then, to my great surprise, she marched up to me, past me, grabbed all my knives in her arms, then hoisted them up and out the window, dumping them into the mud below.

My jaw was hanging open, but when she turned on me, I snapped it shut.

Her voice was quiet. “Leave me alone.” There was a moment of stillness, her seething mad, me shocked to silence. “I don’t ha-have,” she swallowed, “your s-stupid knife.”

Then she turned on her heels, climbed into her bed, and buried herself under blankets. The dog was at her feet, watching me suspiciously and with no amount of kindness in his eyes. He seemed to have forgotten about the meat I’d tossed him.

I looked at my battle sword, the only blade she’d left on the table, and I blew out a breath. Any ground I’d thought I’d made was lost, and I found myself right back where I’d started: hated by my wife and her beast-child. Only now, I was down a knife as well.

Chapter Seven

Fenli

Iwent into the forest. It was a stupid thing to do with so many hunters around. I knew it, even as I wove between trees, followed the deer trails, and took myself deeper into the woods. I could be discovered.

But I didn’t care.

Making the decision to run away had changed something in me. If I was going to leave these people, making them angry now hardly mattered. Years of wanting to fit in and be accepted crumbled away. I was giving up.

The woods folded in around me, and I felt more myself with every step. I was at home. The women didn’t keep track of me, not so long as I was getting my chores done, so when the men who tended to the fields and to the livestock were off about their work, this was where I came. Esska and I had spent our youths roving these wild spaces. We’d climbed trees, built homes out of sticks and sod, jumped rocks in the rivers, and made whole stories for ourselves in the process—I, the brave explorer; Ess, the mighty hunter.

Those memories weren’t kind to me now. Just the thought of Ess and how I was about to leave her hurt my heart. And my mother,my gods.

I went faster, trying to escape the bad feelings, but they followed me to the place where the cedars grew the thickest and the ground under my feet became soft with moss. There I found the earthen shelter Ess and I had made years ago, and I stashed my supplies—clothes and tools for my journey. I’d packed plenty of fire starter, a bedroll I’d grabbed from the stores they’d been prepping to move, a small hatchet, rope, and a knife.Myknife.Not the one Roan had lost and accused me of stealing—asshole. I’d bring food with me when I left for good. By my estimation, I’d have more than enough to get me through the four-day journey Goose and I were about to make.

I tarried there for a long time. I didn’t want to leave Ess; I didn’t know what my mother would do without me.

But I didn’t have a choice. I wouldn’t be Roan’s wife, and I wouldn’t join my father’s clan, so I was going to take the only option left to me. I would leave the Caed people altogether.

The Saik lived to the east, and I was in good standing with them. Umbra did much of their trading with my clan, and the woman had a keen eye for worthwhile mischief. Five summers ago, she’d caught me peeking at some maps she’d brought with her and found it in her to interfere just enough to give me a start in the work.

We’d negotiated quickly and with no common language. We hadn’t needed it, and I wasn’t much for words anyway, even if she had understood them. That first trade, she gave me a small pot of ink and two rolls of parchment no longer than my lap in return for three mats I’d woven from lake grass and more bundles of fire starter I’d twined together than I could hold. She’d also showed me how I could use rolls of birch bark if parchment wasn’t available or I wasn’t ready to commit it to being inked.

Then she’d shooed me away, before we could be seen.

Every time the Saik swung out to the coast to trade with our clans, Umbra had stopped in to see me, bringing more parchment and ink in exchange for everything I could think to pull out of the forest for her. Rose hips I collected in the autumn and dried; chaga mushrooms I’d shimmied up birch trees to saw off, dry, and ground into a powder; I’d still made her grass mats and fire starter, and I’d added bone needles, bone beads, and whatever fresh edibles were in season when she came ‘round to my supply.

She’d taught me more about mapping each time, and, when my maps were good enough, she’d traded me for those, too. The space between our peoples was largely uncharted, something the Saik had been working to remedy, and they found in me a helper from the other side.

I was a Caed, but I could live with the Caed people no longer. Toke’s clan didn’t want me, and I would never let Runehall’s have me. Elsynbr and Rynwyn’s clans would turn me out, not daring to steal away the child of a different god and tempt his wrath.

The Saik seemed my only choice.

Maybe it was a stupid plan, but I didn’t know what else to do.

I made it back to the village before anyone noticed I’d been gone.

First, I visited Indi. It was the last time I would see her, and I had to say goodbye, even if I was a coward and didn’t say it out loud. She’d look back later, when I was good and gone, and she’d know. She’d realize what I hadn’t said.

Thank you, thank you for everything. You were the best mother I could have had. I’m leaving you, but I love you. I’m breaking your heart, but it’s probably because I don’t deserve you.