Chapter 7: Chapter 6 - Crowned

The stag stood before me.

Majestic, towering, antlers like a crown of bone and shadow. Its hide gleamed copper-bright where the sun pierced the canopy, every line of muscle rippling beneath its skin. My throat tightened at the sight of it. Never, not in my soft castle dreams nor in those first desperate days in these woods, had I believed I could face such a beast. To hunt it, to bring it down—it was madness. The kind of tale men boasted over mugs, swearing they had done it single-handed when everyone knew it had taken three.

Yet here I was, bow in hand, breath shallow, eyes fixed on the rise and fall of its flank.

I crouched in the thicket, knees sunk into damp earth, every part of me strung taut as the bowstring I held. My heart pounded, but I forced my body still, forced my lungs to remember the rhythm of silence. The stag’s ears flicked, its head lifting for the barest instant. I froze with it, not daring to blink, willing myself into shadow and bark.

The hours of tracking poured through my mind like a flood. The bent ferns where it had bedded. The deep-cut prints pressed into mud near the stream. The faint musk that lingered on the air when the wind shifted just right. I had followed it step by step, patient, relentless, my senses sharpened to the thrum of its passing.

Now the moment had come, and I almost laughed at the enormity of it. Ari, the bastard princess of Raul, knees caked with mud, hair damp with sweat, stalking a king of the forest. Marden would die of shame. My father would rage. And I—what I felt was the rising heat of triumph coiling in my chest.

My fingers tightened on the string. My breath slid slow between my lips. For a heartbeat, there was only the stag and the silence.

I loosed.

The arrow cut the air clean. The stag startled, half-turning, but too late. The shaft struck deep, sliding into the broad chest just behind the shoulder. It staggered, magnificent even in its falter, antlers tearing through low branches as it bounded, crashed, and at last collapsed in the undergrowth with a heavy thud.

My breath came hard now, fast and hot. I lowered my bow but did not move at once, listening as the forest stilled again around me. My chest trembled with disbelief. I had done it. I had brought down a stag.

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The girl I once was—bare-handed, empty, starving—would have shaken apart at the very idea. That girl would have wept at the blood, turned away from the gash of hide, fled at the weight of what needed to be done. But this me—this Ari—stepped forward without hesitation.

I drew my knife, pressing my palm against the stag’s cooling flank for a long, reverent moment before the work began. I slit clean and true, as I had taught myself from watching others and fumbling through mistakes. My hands were steady, my cuts precise. I worked in silence save for my own breathing, sharp in my ears, and the rustle of hide parting beneath my blade.

I peeled the pelt back in practiced lines, stretching it wide to dry later, the antlers still crowning the head as though mocking me with their majesty. I bled and dressed the carcass with a care that surprised even me—taking what I could, saving what I must, wasting nothing. My arms, once soft, now bore the strength to turn and lift the heavy frame of the beast.

When I sat back at last, I was smeared with blood, my hair plastered damp to my brow, my chest heaving. And I smiled. Wide. Wild.

This was not the trembling girl who had fled the castle with only fear and desperation. This was a woman who could track, who could kill, who could carve her own life from the marrow of the world.

I hauled what I could back to camp, my shoulders burning beneath the weight. The meat was heavy, but the heaviness pleased me—it was proof of my work, of what I had made mine. Step by step, I dragged, carried, shifted, until the clearing I called home smelled thick of stag and smoke and sweat.

I laid it out on the stones, sorting what I could use at once from what needed keeping. My knife flashed, red and sure. Strips for the pot. Slabs for the rack I had built for smoking. The choicest pieces cut thin to dry. I worked until my arms ached, but the ache was welcome; it sang in me like triumph.

The pot went first—bones cracked, marrow scooped, meat dropped in with handfuls of herbs I had gathered days ago. The scent rose rich and savory, so thick I nearly laughed. A feast, and mine alone. No servants to ladle it, no court to judge my manners as I ate. Only the fire and me.

I smoked what I could not eat, hanging the meat in strips that dripped fat into the flames, the smoke curling around me like blessing. The rest I wrapped in hide and bark, carrying it to the hollow I had dug days before. The earth was still cold there, deep and dark, its chill biting my skin as I pushed the meat into its belly. I buried it like treasure, marking the spot with a stone.

When I stood again, the camp was full with the smell of meat and smoke. The fire cracked, the pot bubbled, the racks hung heavy. For the first time in weeks, I did not feel the edge of hunger gnawing at me. I had provided. I had taken a king of the forest and made him mine.