The Cursed Heir

Chapter Four

Each day Cassie spent in the forest felt as long as a week, but she was almost happy. There was no true escape from the gnawing fear that the Guard or Longheirce would track her down, but she was kept so busy that she was able to ignore it for short periods of time. There was always more for her to do, more to learn. Largely, learning how to survive.

Fully committed now to protecting her, Silvana and Skylar made no mention of sending her away. It was obvious to them all that she had nowhere to go, and no idea how to survive on her own. For all the time she had spent looking out her window at the trees surrounding the manor she had grown up in, Cassie had little knowledge of the Esren woodlands. She knew there were villages scattered within it and that she was in the southwest part, but not much else. She had never had a reason to visit the forest towns before, and knew only a few of the more significant ones' names and general locations from spying on war councils.

She had little reason to learn more once she was in the forest. She was safe where she was, and that was enough. In the banisè cottage she was protected from the open wilderness and the anyone hunting her, and she found herself growing rather fond of her gruff guardians.

Silvana and her brother made a good team. Skylar taught Cassie stealth, patience with menial tasks, and which plants were deadly, while Silvana drilled her in sword, dagger, and archery, then taught her how to cook. Together, they pulled Cassie from the abyss of pampering and began to transform her into a slightly passable heathen. For the first time in her life, she was unafraid to leave the dirt under her fingernails and the grass stains on her clothes.

True, the clothes she donned these days were worn-out cast-offs of Silvana's and Skylar's, but the soft leather shirts and threadbare pants were infinitely more comfortable than the stiff dresses she had been laced into every morning before. The bandit outfits allowed her to run at a crouch, tumble through fighting lessons, and chop firewood with ease—that is, they allowed for the ease with which Cassie should do those tasks. The execution of ease proved more elusive.

Every morning they woke with the sun, ready to kill, catch, or fight something. Cassie would accompany Skylar and the morning trip to the brook to collect water or food, receiving instruction on whatever he decided she was worst at that day. It was preparation, he said, for the trip they were going to have to make soon.

Cassie's stunt with the bread dough had had another, additionally humbling, effect. She had used up their entire store of flour, and there was no ready supply of it to replace what had been wasted. They would have to journey to the closest town and trade for it, with whatever extra they managed to kill or scavenge as their only tender.

The salt was dwindling as well, their stocks disappearing more quickly with a third mouth to feed. The haggling could sometimes give you a headache, Skylar told Cassie, but they rarely had trouble bartering for what they could not make themselves. It was a mutually beneficial relationship. Villagers, locked in by the dangerous boundary of the trees, appreciated the opportunity to acquire more meat that trade with the banisè afforded. Few paid attention to the illicit trade with the outlaws, although occasionally the king would send out the Guard to burn down an offending town.

They had little to fear on the trip, but it would take them half a day to walk there, Skylar told her. And because Cassie had been the one to waste the flour, she would be the one to come with Skylar for the trading.

"You mean Silvana isn't coming?"

"No, she will walk with us, but the miller doesn't like trading with her."

Silvana snorted without looking up from the bag she was packing.

Skylar smiled slightly. "They're mostly afraid of us," he explained to Cassie.