Hunter / Raven

No amount of whiskey seemed to drive away the thoughts running through Raven’s mind, but it dulled the pain that came with them, built an amber wall between her and the visions, the daydreams and nightmares that plagued her otherwise.
Out in the Forest beyond the walls at which she stared, not as numbly as she would have liked, the Hunter was stalking his prey, another woman she had brought here to be his victim, another stain on her conscience and her soul. She could picture her now, alone and frightened, not understanding why she’d been chosen to suffer like this and to die feeding an insatiable, implacable hunger. The Forest was cold and hateful, would torment and terrify her, driving her ever onward without offering the path she sought to freedom. Raven’s hands trembled as she poured herself another round, and the sound of the bottle striking the glass rang loudly through the mortuary silence of the empty room.
Those were the nightmares, and she fought them tooth and nail, struggling to block them out, to drown them and forget them. But then the daydreams slipped in, beautiful and terrifying, offering her glimpses of another world, a world where the knowledge that had blossomed in her heart like a poisonous rose had value, had some use besides her personal torment.
In the will-o-wisp world of those visions, silk-draped arms wrapped around her, pulled her close to protect her from the world outside. Pale hair fell over her shoulders, mingling with her own, and slender fingers intertwined with hers. In dreams more painful than the nightmares, silver eyes mirrored her own thoughts and feelings, and she was cherished for who she was, not simply valued for the power her existence granted.
But the reality would never change. She had had too much to drink, days ago, weeks, who could say? (Lies. She could say, and she knew it. It had been eight days, and she would never lose count, even as the centuries passed.) Freed from her usual self control by the brandy she’d been drinking, and mesmerized by the play of firelight on spider silk hair, she had turned to Vyriden in the library, longing to speak the words locked safely away in her  heart.
He lay a finger across her lips, silencing her before she could voice the thoughts shining in her gaze. “Say it,” he had warned in a deadly whisper, “and you will die.” The glacial ruthlessness in his eyes was terrifying; they had burned the words into her soul as he spoke them. “Before I allow you to do so, you will suffer at my hands as no woman has done in the centuries of my cursed unlife.” Without moving his finger, he curled his hand around her windpipe, stroking her throat gently with his fingertips, watching her struggle against the fear that her instincts were using to warn her. She was in danger and she knew it. “And when you awaken, strapped down to a cold steel table, it will be to see me standing over you, waiting only for your awareness to return before I begin the process anew.”
Raven had known then how his victims felt when he caught them, still lost in the Forest when their time ran out. There was no mercy in his expression, no compassion, only a cold dark hatred of life and love and light. She had shivered, not from the cold she no longer felt, but from the fear her imagination gave birth to as it translated his words to images, remembrances, knowledge. It changed nothing, but sobered her abruptly, and she nodded, then went limp against him in defeat, hoping for release though she was afraid to expect it.
He granted it, a mocking knowledge of her thoughts glittering in his eyes. “Go out, Raven,” he said softly. “Find a woman in your image,” and he stroked her hair lightly, a possessive caress that held no warmth, “and bring her here, to run helpless in my forest, abandoned and betrayed, until I find her and gather her into my arms—”
He might have continued, but Raven had fled, coward that she was, to her rooms, where she turned on every available light and sat on her bed, arms curled around her folded legs, chin resting on her knees, and stared at the open window, waiting for tears that never came.

Booted footsteps sounded now in the hall, and she glanced up, startled, to look at the clock through one perfect sapphire eye. Focusing on it took effort and she realized with a detached sense of shock that the night was nearly gone, drained empty like the bottle beside her. She stood, brushed clumsily at her clothes, trying to smooth out the wrinkles, to appear as he wished her to be, elegant and reserved like himself, not a disheveled and careless drunk.
He knew where she would be, and what she would be doing. Drink was the vice her master allowed her, though only when her presence was not required at his side. He appeared in the doorway in heart-stopping silence; his footsteps upon arrival had been a warning, to let her know he’d arrived and intended to see her.
She met his crystalline gaze with trepidation; he looked upon her drinking as a weakness, and though he never spoke of it directly, his derisive glances and the disdain in his voice when he spoke to her at these times made it clear.
Vyriden had dressed well for the night’s hunt, and her breath caught in her throat at the sight of him. Delicate silk in crimson and black draped his slender frame, falling nearly to the floor. Gold embroidery matched the wide belt at his waist and the exquisite detail-work on his scabbard. A long cloak was swept back from his shoulders, lined in a soft cream color that provided the perfect backdrop for his exquisite form. One hand, sheathed in a black gauntlet, rested on the frame of the open door, and eyes that glittered like frozen starlight settled on her own.
He shifted slightly, brought forward his other hand. With a negligent gesture, he tossed a burlap sack on the floor between them. As it fell open, small pale figures tumbled forth, limbs and fur stiff with the chill of death.
“Someone threw it over the wall,” he said coldly. “I suggest you dispose of the bodies.” And he was gone, his cloak sweeping out behind him like a fading memory.
Raven fell to her knees beside the bag, tears sliding down her cheek as she cried for the tiny dead kittens, though she seemed unable to shed them for herself. She stroked a body gently with one finger, and hated him for bringing them here for her to see, more death in this realm of darkness and pain.
Then, even as she cursed him silently, a faint motion caught her eye. She frowned, puzzled, then reached out slowly to open the bag and dump it out, biting her lip as the fragile bodies scattered across the floor. A tiny cry reached her ears, piteous and weak, and she lifted the bag, shaking it slightly.
It was necessary, in the end, to turn the burlap inside out. Clinging to the bottom like a living burr was the last kitten, white and cold like the others, but alive and struggling to remain so.
She stared at it blankly for a moment, then swept it to her chest, bag and all. It was damp and chilled, but a precious monument to life’s tenacious fight to persevere. Healing power poured through her fingers as she stroked it tenderly, still crying, but laughing as well, and now without the hemorrhaging ache in her heart and soul.
Thoughts crowded unbidden into her mind. He could never have carried one kitten by itself—the cold of his touch would kill such a fragile thing in an instant. In the bag, if he moved swiftly, then and only then would there have been a chance for the little one’s survival. For a moment, she wondered how many of the kittens had been alive when he’d found them, had died simply from his proximity, but she dismissed the question. He could have left them all where they lay. It was what she knew he would have chosen to do, if she hadn’t been a consideration.
“Morpheus, my little one,” she whispered, naming it as she rose to her feet and started for the kitchen. “A hope in hell, although you’ll never understand.” Food for the living, and then she would see to the dead.



The last member of the council to whom Raven had once planned on delivering the Hunter for trial and execution stretched out a twisted and rotting hand toward her as he fell. Impact with the ground shattered his form, frozen even as it decayed by the Hunter’s preternatural cold.
Pale silver eyes glittered in triumph as Vyriden surveyed his handiwork. The council’s chamber room was littered with broken bodies, some—like the one before him—shattered while frozen and helpless, others eviscerated by the killing blade even now held in his expert grip. Raw magic had consumed two of them, Raven’s work, performed in obedience to the will of the man before her.
“Leave the bodies here,” he commanded, sheathing his sword with an easy, graceful motion. “Burn the building to the ground.”
There was power behind his words, a measure he used without hesitation to enforce his orders. He knew that Raven condemned his actions, and left her no say in her own. The blood that had sprayed across him during his grisly work fell to the floor in frozen shards, and he turned at last to look at his apprentice.
Raven stared at him numbly, horrified by what she had seen, what she had done. Her stomach rolled, and she longed to flee, but he wanted her here, so she stayed. Her hands were curled into fists; blood trickled down her fingers from the crescent cuts her own nails had carved in her palms. The blood of councilmen stained her ivory shirt, a gruesome contrast to the bone-white pallor of her skin.
Passing her on his way to the door, he paused to brush her cheek lightly with the back of a soft gloved hand. Though he said nothing, he met her gaze, and for a brief instant let her see that he understood what the night’s work had cost her.
Raven leaned so slightly into his touch, then fell into place behind him, sick at the carnage, but powerless to disobey. Outside, she turned mechanically to face the building, a stone edifice the council had used as their own for nearly three centuries. Flames licked at the base of it as she concentrated, and she felt the Hunter feeding her power. Fire alone would not suffice. She poured pure magic into it, and the destructive entropy forces that Vyriden had taught her to use, which he himself wielded with casual ease.
The Hunter fell back as heat from the flames swept toward them, and Raven struggled to control it. Her hair singed, and as her exposed skin began to redden and blister she began to retreat, frightened by the effect the fire was having on her.
“Enough.” Vyriden summoned her to his side, and she followed his call, found him waiting by a picturesque lake surrounded by manicured lawns and graceful willow trees. He glanced down without turning his head as she walked up beside him. “A century and a half late, but you see me here at last.” He smiled faintly at the irony, a fleeting expression that held no joy, but cold triumph. “And so the council falls.” The words were a whisper, and barely reached Raven’s ears as she turned to walk away. The pain from her burned skin, the images of all she had witnessed in the last few hours, and the frustration she felt at the reminder of her age-old failure whirled within her, tying her stomach in knots, leaving her dizzy, empty, and helpless. She wanted to lash out, but to strike at the Hunter was folly. He was riding on a wave of power gained from the death and destruction he had caused; she wasn’t fool enough to court death so openly.
Instead she walked around the lake, savoring the moment of tranquility and solitude. It was broken too quickly as she came out from a copse of graceful willows and found herself face to face with her master, regal and proud, silhouetted against the red glow of the dying fire.
“This is only the beginning of my campaign, Raven,” he said softly. “Leave me for a time.” To her surprise, he took her hand in his and raised it to his lips, brushed them across it lightly. “Go now, and return to me only when you feel the need. I will not follow you, or summon you without cause.” He released her and stepped back, bending slightly in an understated but courtly bow, and then, in a rush of power, was gone.
Raven stared at her hand in shock, then tentatively reached for the bond between them. It flared to life; he was back in his Forest, warding the items he had appropriated from the council’s possessions. And she was left behind, miles and miles from the only home she’d known for well over a century, the clothes on her back her only possessions.
For a long moment she stared blankly at the eastern sky, gradually lightening with the coming dawn, then her lips curled in a slow mad smile as she recognized the unfamiliar sensation tugging at her memory. Illusionary or not, for however long it might last, she was free.



Raven viewed her surroundings in shock, carefully keeping her face an unreadable mask. Nearly three centuries after she had bound herself to Vyriden Tarrant, the Hunter, he had finally accomplished his goal of world domination. It almost made her laugh to think of it, as images of half-comical megalomaniacs flashed through her mind, but there was nothing humorous about the Hunter’s methods.  
Before him knelt the remnants of the world’s governments. They had gathered here at his command, in their own court, a room six stories tall, with a floor that covered 9 acres. Three levels of balconies lined the walls; literally hundreds of delegates should have filled them, with others arranged on the floor according to the influence they wielded. Television cameras ran here 24 hours a day, allowing the world to watch as decisions were made, laws enforced, and the balance of power shifted.
Today they had watched an execution. Lightless blue flames flickered along the balconies still, and the cries of the dying echoed in Raven’s mind. To reach this point, Vyriden had played the game of politics, rising in power until he held a seat in this room. He had the power and influence to sway the court, but that would never be enough. Only complete domination satisfied his hunger, and he had achieved it today. He had called an emergency session of the court, requiring all members to attend. As the session opened, the doors had closed, and Raven had held them barred at his command.
Mounting the podium, he had quietly announced his intention to dissolve the court and rule in its stead. Those standing near had seen the look in his eyes, merciless and cold, and had done no more than exchange concerned glances, but others had been less fortunate. As nervous laughter and angry protests had filled the air, pillars of blue flame had erupted throughout the chamber, indiscriminately slaying anyone foolish enough to make a sound.
Next, he had sent sheets of the killing power along all three balconies and the back of the ground floor. Screams of terror had filled the air those as those in their paths had panicked, trampling each other in their haste to reach a door, hoping to escape with their lives. Behind the Hunter, her expression indifferent because to show the horror she felt would have earned her instant retribution, Raven had held firm the barriers preventing them from doing so.
Slowly those remaining had sunk to their knees, where they now remained, silent and frightened, waiting to learn what their fate would be.
As Vyriden’s gaze swept over them impassively, tongues of power licked up throughout their ranks, destroying those he found unsuitable for his purposes. When perhaps two-thirds remained, he spoke again.
“You will govern here as I see fit,” he said softly. “You live now because I allow it. Serve me well, and your lives may continue.” He paused for a moment, then added, in a voice Raven knew well from lessons the Hunter had considered vital and had written into her mind and soul, “Displease me and you will die, along with all that you love and hold dear.”
Stepping slightly to the side, he allowed them a clear view of her where she stood in his shadow. “My Raven,” he informed them coolly. “My right hand, and an extension of my will. Treat her with the respect you would show me.” All of the cameras in the room were focused on the two of them now, and he raked his gaze over them, narrowed his eyes slightly. “Not one of you lies beyond my reach.” He raised his hand, and Raven felt the rush of power that he called forth. Dark lightning flickered about the room, and she felt the spell he cast, sending threads of death magic throughout the world, keying them to the bloodlines of the dead littering the chamber. Dismissing the cameras, he returned his attention to those before him.
“Clean these chambers.” Cold mercury eyes flickered over them disdainfully. “Court will reconvene at nightfall tomorrow.” He offered Raven his arm, and when she took it, summoned the power that would remove them from that place.