The Fourth Night

The waterfall hides my scent.

I press myself into the hollow behind the cascade, spine against slick rock, water thundering inches from my face. My lungs burn from the climb. My legs tremble from four nights of running.

But I'm still breathing.

That's more than any tribute has managed in a hundred years.

The Hunt passed overhead an hour ago, I felt them before I heard them. The wrongness in the air. The way the forest went silent, every creature frozen in place. Then the thunder of hooves that weren't hooves, and horns that turned my blood to ice.

They're looking for me. All of them. Because I've made them look like fools for three nights running, and the fae don't handle embarrassment well.

Too bad. I didn't ask to be hunted.

I count my injuries by feel. Gash on my left calf from the second night, a thorn the size of my finger, courtesy of a plant that definitely shouldn't have thorns. Bruised ribs from the fall on night three. My right ankle throbs with every heartbeat, twisted in a rabbit hole while one of the riders laughed above me.

I'd crawled into a hollow log while she circled. Waited until dawn pushed her back to wherever the fae go when the sun rises.

Four nights. I have to survive until dawn.

The mist from the waterfall soaks through what's left of my dress, torn, muddy, more holes than fabric. I'm shaking with cold, with exhaustion, with something that might be terror but feels more like rage.

They chose me because I was nobody. Orphan. No family to mourn. No one to come looking.

What they didn't know: I've been mapping these woods since I was eight years old. Every stream, every cave, every hollow tree. While the village children learned to sew and farm and fear the forest, I learned its secrets.

The forest has been my only friend for fifteen years.

Now it's keeping me alive.

A horn sounds. Closer than before.

I go still. Stop breathing. Even my shivering stops, survival instinct clamping down on everything that might give me away.

The sound echoes off the cliff face. Then another horn, answering from the east.

They're coordinating. Closing in.

The Hunt has never had to work this hard. I should feel proud, maybe. Instead, all I feel is the cold certainty that I'm running out of places to hide.

The horns fall silent.

That's worse.

When they're calling to each other, I can track them. When they go quiet, it means they've found something.

Or someone.

I ease forward, just enough to peer through the curtain of water. The moon is bright tonight, too bright. It turns the river below to liquid silver, makes shadows sharper, exposes every hiding place.

The forest looks empty.

It's not.

I know that wrongness now. The way the air tastes like metal before a storm. The way my skin prickles with something that isn't quite cold.

Fae magic.

"Impressive, little mortal."

The voice comes from everywhere and nowhere. Smooth as poisoned honey, amused and ancient and terrifying.

I spin, pressing my back to the rock.

Nothing behind me but solid stone. Nothing beside me but the waterfall. Nothing below but the river, forty feet down.

"Three nights." The voice is closer now. "No tribute has lasted more than one. Most don't survive the first hour."

My hand finds the knife strapped to my thigh. The village blacksmith's daughter had pressed it into my hands hours ago, in the preparation room. "For the bleeding," she'd whispered. "If they catch you. Make it fast."

I haven't used it. I won't.

If they want my death, they'll have to take it. I won't give it.

"I watched your escape from Lord Fennrin's arrows." The amusement deepens. "Ducking into that bramble patch. He's still furious. His pride may never recover."

The prickling on my skin intensifies. The wrongness is everywhere now, pressing against me like the air itself has solidified.

"Show yourself," I manage. My voice comes out steady. Good.

"As you wish."

He steps through the waterfall.

Through it, not around, not under. Through the solid curtain of water like it's nothing but air. And he's not wet. Not a single drop on the silver-pale hair that falls past his shoulders, not a mark on the black leathers that cling to a body built for violence.

His gaze caught me.

Winter starlight. Cold and bright and ancient. The face beneath was too beautiful to be real, all sharp angles above a cruel mouth that curved into a smile, pointed ears marking him as something other than human.

The Hunt Lord.

I've heard the stories. Every child in the village has. He's led the Wild Hunt for a thousand years. He's never failed to catch his prey.

And he's looking at me like I'm the most entertaining thing he's seen in centuries.

"Kestrel." He spoke my name slowly, rolling it across his tongue like something he might swallow. "The orphan girl who knows the woods better than my own hunters."

I don't ask how he knows my name. The fae know everything about their tributes. They've been hunting us for generations.

"Are you here to kill me?" The knife is steady in my hand. Useless against him, probably. But it makes me feel better.

"That depends." He takes a step closer. The space behind the waterfall is small, maybe six feet deep, ten feet wide. He fills it. "Are you going to make me work for it?"

"I've been making you work for four nights."

The smile widens. "You have. That's why I'm here."

Another step. I back up until rock presses against my shoulder blades.

"I haven't personally joined a hunt in a hundred years." His head tilts, studying me like something fascinating. "There hasn't been a need. But you've made my riders look incompetent. Embarrassed my best trackers. Turned the Wild Hunt into a joke."

"Good."

He laughs. The sound is unexpected, genuine, delighted, nothing like the cold cruelty I expected.

"Good," he repeats. "You're about to die, and your response is good?"

"If I'm going to die, I'd rather die knowing I made your life difficult first."

"You did." He's close enough now that I can smell him, night-blooming flowers and cold stone and the musk of something feral. "You made it interesting. Do you know how long it's been since anything was interesting?"

The knife is between us. It won't stop him. We both know it.

But I keep it there anyway.

"Kill me or cage me." My voice doesn't shake. "But I won't beg."

His eyes flicker to the blade, then back to my face. The amusement remained, but a new hunger crept beneath it. Sharper. More deliberate.

"No," he says slowly. "You won't, will you?"

The horn sounds again. Much closer. His hunters, closing in.

"The rules say you should die," he murmurs. "Tribute runs, Hunt catches, tribute dies. That's how it's always been."

"Then get it over with."

"But the rules also say I decide when the hunt ends." He reaches out, slow, deliberate, and pushes my knife aside with one finger. "And I'm not done being entertained."

The air stalled in my throat.

"You're too interesting to waste on a quick death." His hand finds my chin, tilts my face up, forces me to meet those ancient winter eyes. "So here's what's going to happen, little prey. You're going to put down that knife. You're going to come with me willingly. And you're going to serve me instead."

"Serve you."

"As my household requires. Cleaning, perhaps. Errands. Whatever I decide." His thumb traces my jaw, and I hated the warmth that bloomed where his fingers lay. "In exchange, I won't let my hunters tear you apart. The Hunt ends. You live."

"Until when? Until you get bored and decide to hunt me again?"

"Perhaps." The smile returns. "Or perhaps I'll keep finding you interesting. Either way, your odds are better as my servant than as everyone's prey."

The horns are converging. I can hear hoofbeats now, thundering closer.

He's giving me a choice. A terrible one, but more than any tribute has ever been offered.

"And if I say no?"

"Then the Hunt continues. And it ends the way it always does." His fingers tighten slightly on my chin. "You've survived four nights. No one else has managed four hours. But you can't run forever, Kestrel. You know that."

I do.

I hate it, but I do.

The hoofbeats stop. Just outside the waterfall, probably. His hunters, waiting for his signal.

"Clock's ticking, little mortal." His voice went low, intimate. "What's it going to be?"

I could fight. Die with my knife in my hand, like I swore I would.

But dying doesn't win anything. Dying just means they get what they wanted. Another tribute. Another victim. Another grave no one mourns.

Living means I might find another way out. Might learn their weaknesses. Might survive long enough to make them regret ever choosing me.

I drop the knife.

"Fine."

His smile turns triumphant. Predatory.

"Wise choice." He releases my chin, but doesn't step back. "Welcome to the Hunt, Kestrel."

He turns toward the waterfall, and I hear his voice echo off the rocks, addressing the hunters waiting outside.

"The prey is taken. The Hunt ends tonight."

Silence. Then, reluctantly, horns sound the close. The hunt is over.

He looks back at me over his shoulder. Winter eyes bright with a hunger that needed no name.

"Oh, this is going to be fun."

And somehow, those words terrify me more than four nights of running ever did.