Page 38 of A Taste For Lies (The Apex Kingdom #1)

Chapter 38

ALORA

T he next day, Maeve turns up at my door with a gorgeous riding habit. It has a deep hood to keep out today’s foggy chill, and it’s made of a luxurious green velvet that would make her own emerald eyes sparkle. The high collar even hides the mark from yesterday’s incident with Harlan. But best of all, it’s split up the back in the Shanterran style so that I can ride astride.

“Naturally, you weren’t going to be hunting sidesaddle,” she sniffs, brushing off my gratitude for her thoughtfulness. “How else are you expected to win?”

“Win?”

Maeve gives me that look I’ve come to recognize as her political plotting face. She’s proven many times over that she’s the group’s expert on this front, so I listen intently. “We need as many Elite as possible out of the palace while Taran tries to access the room with the amulet. We need Victoria and all her cronies to attend the hunt, even though Taran is bowing out. She’s competitive.”

“So you think if I challenge her, she’ll be sure to stay,” I reply slowly.

“Not directly,” she replies, “or she’ll be suspicious. But she’s already jealous of you, especially after Taran danced with you at the ball. ”

One corner of my mouth kicks up. “I can do that.” I don’t love being the distraction— again —but if that’s my role, I’m going to damn well succeed at it.

When we reach the stableyard, Maeve reveals another surprise: a bow, a fine set of gold-tipped arrows and a massive black stallion. She greets a lovely brown mare named Acorn with a feisty disposition who matches her lady’s personality well.

“No striders?” I ask, running my hand along the stallion’s strong neck.

“They’re faster and better over long distances,” Maeve admits as she adjusts Acorn’s bridle. “But trained striders are rare, and there aren’t enough for the entire court. The court settles for horses when they’re more interested in spectacle than practicality.”

It seems, though, that the entire court has decided to attend despite the gloomy weather. In the interest of parity in the competition, even the king and queen are upon horses rather than striders, surrounded by their retinue, though the young crown prince has been left behind. The queen, seated atop a pure white mare—of course, the better to match today’s prize—remarks that servants have gone ahead to set up tents and refreshments at a clearing within the forest for lunch.

The king looks jovial, patting Lord Winters on the shoulder in response to something he’s saying. I freeze at the glimpse of the lord—my first since I saw him on the execution platform. Carter said he’s obsessed with researching Apex and their gifts. Meticulous records and his ongoing crusade with the amulet. How eager would he be to examine me , the one supposed Apex without a creature? I suppress a shudder.

“Borrowing the prince’s horse for the hunt, My Lady?” My head swivels to Victoria, dressed in a pale blue habit. She’s one of the few other ladies who’ve also chosen to sit astride. She means to win.

Clever of Maeve to gift me Taran’s horse to get under her skin. “Surely, it’s not against the rules?” I say, tone just sweet enough to sting. “I understood from Lady Ashbourne that he wasn’t coming. All’s fair in love and war, is it not, Lady Winters?” I can’t help my cruel smirk, one aimed directly at her. I couldn’t care less about today’s so-called prize, but beating these Elite ladies? Especially this one? I can’t wait.

“Of course, Lady Thorne,” she responds through gritted teeth, wrenching her poor horse around to rejoin her cronies.

Carter appears at my side, leading a strider. “Taran would not be pleased you’re antagonizing her.”

I tilt my head. “It is possible that I have just a touch of a competitive streak.”

An unexpected laugh bursts out of him, startling a few of our neighboring horses. I shoot a glare in his direction. “Stop scaring away my prize!”

He keeps chuckling, quieter at least. “Just as long as you’re not going after the boar.” He weaves his hands together and assists me in mounting the enormous gelding, big enough to support even the prince’s towering frame. Then, he swings up atop his own mount.

I frown. “Why do you get a strider?”

That crooked smile pulls at his lips. “I am not part of the royal hunt and therefore not burdened by its rules. But fear not, Onyx is the next best option.”

I pat his neck. “Are you going to help me win, Onyx?”

“Likely better if he doesn’t,” Carter points out.

I frown. “Why are you even here?” Shouldn’t he be accompanying Taran, who is no doubt having to force himself into the room where his mother died?

“To keep watch over you of course.”

I turn an outraged look onto the guardian.

“There’s an enormous wild boar in these woods, and you don’t have an Apex with you.”

I bite back a curse. Mei’s absence, due to the “illness” we had to fake, is highly suspicious. But what else could I have said? My poison catcher ate something bad?

“Then who’s guarding the prince of the realm?” I hiss .

Carter groans. “Can we just skip ahead to the part where you agree? You’re not going to win this one with him. I guarantee it.”

I haven’t seen Taran since we spoke in my bedroom before I left for the disastrous meeting with the key master. I’m a bit ashamed. He was so filled with confidence in me and my ability to pull this off—as he’s been since the beginning. But this time I failed.

The sight of Lord Winters disappearing back into the castle wrenches me from my errant thoughts. I swing an alarmed look in Carter’s direction. His grim face tells me he’s seen it, too. The lord must have decided the hunt wasn’t worth his time once Taran didn’t show.

“Go after him,” I urge under my breath.

Carter’s expression is torn.

“Carter. I’ll stay close to Astrid and Maeve. Please, he might be going to—” He might be heading straight to the amulet. Straight to Taran.

He spears me with a sharp look. “Stay close to Astrid,” he commands. He dismounts quickly, handing his strider off to a confused stableboy and disappearing into the palace after Lord Winters. Hopefully, he can use his gift to catch up.

The distraction has cost me. The hunting party is already well on its way and Astrid and Maeve are lost to the thick forest.

I urge Onyx into the brush after them.

But I soon lose myself within the quiet forest, far from our competitors. Onyx makes his way steadily around trees and over fallen branches while I keep my eyes trained for Maeve’s royal-blue riding habit. I’m scanning the surrounding forest when I catch the barest hint of snowy white tucked within a bramblewood bush. Even better.

I move slowly, drawing my bow. But just as I align the shot, two horses crash into the vicinity. The hare streaks off, a blur of white against the brown and green of the forest.

Cursing in Shanterran, I take off after the hare, ignoring my competitor and her Apex. Out of the corner of my eye, I spot the doe-eyed handmaiden from the queen’s luncheon. The one who sighed about Taran showing me the lilies.

She’s after me like a shot, her Apex trailing behind. I urge Onyx faster, and Taran’s stallion easily outpaces the handmaiden. Soon, the Elite lady is lost to the forest, but so too is the hare.

“Woah, boy,” I murmur to Onyx, patting his heaving neck and offering endearments in various languages.

A steady ache starts up in my chest, and my fingers fly to my breast. Apart from the beautiful beast beneath me, I’m alone.

Maybe I could try…

Maybe now, surrounded by the natural world and the adrenaline rush of the hunt coursing through me, I could connect to my lynx. It’s reckless, foolish even, but the idea takes root before I can stop it.

I shut my eyes and allow my pulse to regulate to a steady thump. Just how Taran said he finds his connection to his stoneclaw, I train all my attention on my auditory sense. First, Onyx’s heavy exhales find my ears, then, the wind whistling through the pine. The quiet rustle of small creatures making their way through the dead leaves that litter the forest floor. My heart swells with a momentary surge of hope, but then…

Something strange happens.

Instead of sound sharpening to Apex level, it’s my olfactory sense that increases until I can smell the clean scent of the mist clinging to the nearby pine needles. It’s disorienting enough to shake me out of the trance, and my eyes fly open.

Disappointment floods me. What did I expect? That I could just close my eyes and find my creature on my first attempt after ten years in hiding? Ridiculous. I rub my chest—has the ache lessened? Even a little? It’s hard to tell.

All at once, a streak of white flashes in the corner of my vision, and Onyx and I are off again, chasing after the day’s prize. We crash through the forest, just managing to keep it in sight.

“That’s it, Onyx, you’ve got it,” I coax .

The hare darts ahead into a small clearing. Afraid of missing it again, I draw my bow, notch an arrow mid-canter and send it flying. I miss spectacularly, but the hare freezes, its ears flat to its head, perhaps hoping to hide among tall grass.

Once again, I pull up the stallion.

This time, I’m ready. Bow in hand, I sit up straighter and focus. Inhale. Exhale. I listen to the rhythm of the forest—the wind, which way it’s blowing. I notch another gold-tipped arrow and on the next exhale, release towards the speck of white hidden among the winter-faded bushes.

“Did we get it?” I ask Onyx quietly in Veridian. He huffs in response. “I can’t tell, either.”

I dismount and tread on silent feet to the spot at the end of my arrow’s path. The prize hare is lying there helplessly, stuck with a golden-tipped arrow. But it wasn’t a clean shot. It’s not dead yet. Its eyes are wide and rolling with terror. Its muscles twitch with impending death throes. In silence, I watch the hare’s breathing slow until at last, it stills forever.

To my dismay, a tear streaks down my face. I wipe it away, unsure where this feeling is coming from. I’m no stranger to hunting snowshoe hares—they’re one of the more plentiful small game options in the Shanterran mountains. This one, sleek and well-fed, was obviously bred for Elite hunting games. Pierced with a golden arrow.

Then it hits me.

Ethan.

Seeing a dead animal, so close at hand, has brought me right back to the trauma of watching Ethan’s copper head separate from his body. Another death the Elite are responsible for.

A noise startles me out of my melancholy, and I turn, resigned, expecting another hopeful lady who has found the hare too late.

Instead…

A massive wild boar—bigger than any I’ve ever seen—with hairy black skin and tusks larger than my forearm, starts running pell-mell across the clearing, heading straight for me .

A strangled scream escapes. And then I run .

I’ve got one dagger on my person, but it’s not nearly enough to take on this huge beast. My bow and arrows are on Onyx, who is neighing madly, still at the entrance to the clearing. I spare an ungenerous thought that perhaps the boar will go after the stallion instead, but a quick glance over my shoulder shows that it’s me the creature has in its crosshairs.

I put my head down and sprint like the god of the underworld is nipping at my heels. I make it across the clearing and, without slowing, leap onto a skinny pine tree, hands singing in pain as I scrabble at the rough bark and begin to climb.

The boar reaches me and, with a supernatural leap of its own, manages to sink its monstrous teeth into the flesh of my left leg.

A bloodcurdling scream wrenches from my throat, but somehow—by some small vestige of self-preservation—I manage to hang on to the tree with my arms and my remaining leg, refusing to let go. The boar shakes its head like a dog with a bone looking to pry me loose, and I cry out again as the white-hot agony of it nearly blinds me, every tooth cutting like a knife into my flesh. But I don’t let go. I will not let go.

I’m going to lose the leg. Any second now, this vicious thing is going to chomp it clean off. I’ll be left clinging to the tree with nothing but shredded muscle and bone. In the haze of the pain, a single thought rises above the others. If I can just hang on…if I can keep hold of this tree, maybe the rest of me will survive.

As the boar’s jaws tighten, and before it can sever my leg for good, the roar of another beast echoes through the woods. Guttural, savage—a sound no human throat could ever produce.

A stoneclaw.