The Fall Of Snow: Guard Your Heart

1. One

One

Born To Run

N ot many can say they've cheated death thrice.

Even fewer can say those three attempts were at the hands of their mother—the one person in the entire world who is biologically programmed to love you unconditionally—which is why I made the choice to leave the manor before she succeeds.

She is the reason I am on the run. She's the reason I can feel the fallen leaves crunch through the holes in my worn boots, the reason I don't trust a soul, the reason I haven't had a proper roof over my head in six months. Or a proper bath, for that matter.

I follow the deer run that leads to my temporary home in the woods, a hollowed-out tree trunk just large enough for me to sleep in horizontally if I curl my legs into my chest. I've dug into the ground enough to make it as spacious as humanly possible, added a makeshift cot, and hung a dream-trap on one of the trunk’s crooks. It's nothing like the lavish manor I was raised in, but at least there's no shadow of death haunting me through the halls. At least I can take a sip of tea without wondering when the poison will take effect.

The hair on the back of my neck rises as I spot the first difference in atmosphere. It smells of sweat and something else . . . whiskey? A scent that doesn't belong here. A scent that puts me on alert as I look around for tracks like my father taught me. I never thought I'd be using every trick he instilled in me, but here I am, tracking. I press myself against a tree and grab the hilt of the dagger sheathed at my thigh and listen. Footsteps echo through the trees, and I know without any further investigation, I'll need to find a new place to call home.

Another one of my mother's huntsmen has discovered my hideout.

When I peer over my shoulder, my eyes catch the sketch of my face on my mother's letterhead crumpled on the ground beside his feet. The gray-bearded man sets a snare at the base of the hollowed tree like I am some sort of prey to catch—as if he were going to take me home and mount me on his wall above his fireplace.

My magic stirs within my veins, waking from slumber and igniting my bones. But my magic is useless without anything to fuze to, useless after my lessons stopped—like lightning trapped in a bottle. Silently, I watch him grab my dream-trap off the tree, inspecting it first, then bringing it to his nose for a whiff. He’s a tracker—a rare magic that heightens one’s sense of smell, allowing them to track like a hound.

Boy, did my mother get lucky hiring this one. Not all her huntsmen possess magic, but the ones that do always give me a run for my money, if I had money.

Anger pools in my belly as I watch him cover his snare with leaves and dirt. I try not to take offense at his impression of me, that he would think me simple enough to fall for such a thing. Pathetic. Doesn't he have any idea who raised me?

Before the anger can work its way any further through my system, I take a steadying breath, letting the scent of earth calm my senses before I turn from the shadow of the tree and let my dagger fly. The blade sings through the air, sunlight glinting off its face before embedding itself in the bearded man’s thick neck. Immediately, his hand rises to touch the hilt sticking out of his beard but falls to his knees before he can pull it from his bleeding flesh. Crimson trickles down his leathers and onto the ground beneath him, seeping into my crumpled portrait. After a moment, his face finds the earth with a soft thump before he takes a final breath.

I make my way to him, silent as a phantom wind, to retrieve my dagger from his neck, wiping it on the moss creeping up the hollowed trunk. I check his pockets, finding some coin, a pipe, and another rough sketch of me on rolled parchment. In this sketch, my hair grazes my neck in a way only someone who truly knew me would draw it, and my full lips purse like a heart. The accuracy of the sketch does irk me though. These sketch artists are too gifted for their own good .

Stepping around the blood trailing through the cracks in the ground, I gather my few belongings from the tree and pack up before heading west, further from the manor, and further away from civilization.

Unfortunately, this isn't my first kill, and it probably won't be my last. But this is what my life has turned to since leaving the manor. Kill or be killed.

Every huntsman I have encountered since leaving home has tried to kill me in one way or another and always has the same contract on them—the same letterhead with crimson calligraphy, the same portrait of my face, and my mother's sharp-edged signature at the bottom of the parchment. Some contracts are for coin, some offer a favor of some sort. I even saw one that offered a piece of my mother's estate. Something she would absolutely never do, even in exchange for my cold, dead heart. That huntsman was a fool to think my mother would ever keep up her end of that bargain. Lucky for her, she'll never have to deal with those repercussions because that huntsman is face down in a river now miles back.

Or at least he was when I dragged him there.

When our housemaid, Violetta, died last winter, I knew I had to leave. She was the only person who’d kept me alive thus far, saving me from my mother's vicious attempts to my end. If it weren't for her, I'd probably be worm food by now, fertilizing the earth with my flesh, leaving an imprint of bone.

The first attempt at my life came at age twelve, when my mother laced my corset too tight, causing all the air to leach from my lungs until I fell unconscious at her feet. I remember feeling like enormous trees were growing from my skull before I dropped like a stone. She didn't try to revive me. She didn't loosen the corset. She just walked out of the room without a word.

Violetta found me on the floor, my red lips turned blue. The laces were so tight, bunching in the tiny holes of the fabric, that she had to cut me from the corset before breathing life back into my body. It had only been a day since my mother's new husband told me what a beautiful young woman I was growing up to be—that my mother better watch out, or I might surpass her. Whether it was a joke or a prediction didn't matter much to my mother. She saw me as a threat either way.

I didn't run then, at such a youthful age, I was too scared to be on my own. But I think a part of me knew I wouldn't make it either, and I could never leave Violetta. She was the closest thing to a mother I'd ever really had.

I knew it was coming, her most recent attack. I could feel it in her gaze every time she looked my way. I should have known she'd go with poison again, it being her niche and all. Where the front of my mother’s Fuzion Shoppe held items of low magic, things that are subtle and harmless, the back of the shop held items more harmful and aggressive. Items only certain clientele knew existed. She probably made it there, knowing it was a safe place to fuze something so vile, now that I was banned from the shop.

But did she really have to use my favorite food? I didn't even think twice before biting into that butter-crusted pastry as I made my way to the gardens for tea. As soon as my tongue began to tingle, I spit the mixture of apple and cinnamon into the grass and began running to Violetta for help. I didn't make it far before the poison paralyzed me, but it didn't matter. Violetta again came to my rescue, feeding me an antidote.

Looking over my shoulder has become second nature to me in these past months, always wondering if anyone recognizes my ebony hair, my insufferable red lips, or my unnaturally fair skin. I try to steer clear of the villages when I can, but when I'm in need of supplies or food, I find myself walking through the cobblestone streets, a hood over my telltale features that mark me as the person with an unofficial bounty on her head. I've picked up on enough talk through the villages to know word is spreading.

My mother's got her deck stacked with dirt on every influential person, and she knows just when to pull her cards. Everybody has secrets and she knows them all. She gets close to anyone who matters and knows how to manipulate anyone who holds power. Another unfortunate "gift" of hers, I guess.

Regrettably for me, most villagers are desperate enough for coin or something bigger that they would hand me over without a second thought. For that reason alone, I've found solitude in the woods. The curled edges of white birch are like a blank slate around me, the forest ever-changing. I've learned how to cover my tracks, how to hunt for myself, and how to move in the shadows without notice. This has come in handy on more than one occasion when slipping through a village in search of fresh bread or a bowstring.

I don't know how long I can make it out here, but I don't plan to give up. I won't let her win. Not yet anyway. And I have a plan: make my way to the west coast and find passage on a ship headed to Wisterion. It's not the best solution to my problem, but it's the only one I've got. Truthfully, it scares me to my core to set foot on Wisterion land, a place that trades women like property. They don’t value women like they do here in Roselaria. They don’t even honor the Mother, creator of all. But my back’s against a wall and I have nowhere else to turn if I was to be free from my mother’s grip.

In Wisterion, if you possess magic, they don’t believe it’s because you’ve been blessed by the mother. No, they’re just hoping they can get a better price for you.

Not all women fall victim to the trade, but the ones who rise above it are just as bad as the ones calling the shots. But I plan to find work before I can wear the brand of Wisterion property, learn the language, and eventually . . . maybe I won't have to fight for my right to live or live freely. My plan is to have my magic under control by the time I hit Wisterion soil. That is my ticket to freedom.

The only place I know of past the Endless Forest is the warrior camps, but I'm hoping I find myself a nice tree to settle into for a while. The trick to staying alive is to never stay in one place too long. Finding a climbable tree with enough limbs to settle on is far-fetched, but a girl can dream. I stop to wipe my hands on the dewy grass before filling my canteen from the stream and heading west.

Further from my mother's claws.