Daphne catches Bairre’s gaze and lifts a shoulder just an inch in a shrug, as if to say I told you so.
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Daphne says.
Rufus waits for a moment to see if she’ll say more, offer anything, but when he realizes she won’t—she can’t—he shrugs. “Friv is a stubborn country, Daphne. We’ve survived worse, I’m sure we’ll survive this.”
He doesn’t sound sure, though. Daphne doesn’t doubt that if Cliona’s father were to approach him, if he were to promise Rufus things that Bairre and Daphne can’t, Rufus would have to consider his offer. Taking even more allies away from Bartholomew will further her mother’s goals as well.
“Can we stop for some water?” Zenia interrupts, pouting. She’s the youngest, only ten. She carries her bow by the string, hanging at her side in a way that makes Daphne cringe. She hasn’t fired an arrow all afternoon and seems perfectly content with that.
“We haven’t seen any deer yet,” Verne says. “We should get at least one before we pause.”
“We would have gotten more than that if the rest of you would hush,” Della says.
Of Rufus’s siblings, Della is Daphne’s favorite. It must be middle-sister camaraderie.
“Zenia’s right,” Bairre says with a sigh. “Let’s take five minutes, and then we’ll try awhile longer.”
Della scowls but drops her bow, sticking the arrow she’d nocked back into her quiver.
Liana opens the satchel she carries, drawing out several skins of water and passing them out. When she hands Daphne hers, she doesn’t look at her.
“Tell me, Daphne, are your sisters as much of a pain as mine are?” Rufus asks, causing Liana to throw his waterskin at him, nearly hitting him in the face with it.
“Oh, absolutely,” Daphne says, unscrewing the top to the waterskin. “Once, Beatriz got so angry with me, she went into my room and emptied my entire wardrobe onto the lawn outside my window. It was quite a surprise when I returned from the bath.”
And my other sister decided to throw a decade and a half of careful planning away the first chance she got, she adds silently.
Everyone laughs, even sullen Liana. Satisfied, Daphne lifts the waterskin to her lips and takes a deep drink. After walking and riding for an hour, the water is cool and refreshing. She takes another drink, but before she can finish it off, there’s the snap of a twig to her left and she freezes, the skin halfway to her lips.
There, in the middle of the lush forest, is the most beautiful stag Daphne has ever seen. There were deer aplenty in Bessemia, but they were lithe things, more sinew than meat. This stag is easily twice the size of those creatures, towering all the higher because of the antlers crowning his head. He’s a handsome creature, and he hasn’t seen them yet, has somehow missed their chatter. He grazes on, head bent low over a patch of grass.
Slowly, Daphne lowers her waterskin, setting it softly on the ground at her feet before reaching for an arrow and nocking it.
“What—” Verne starts, looking at her with bewildered eyes before Rufus claps a hand over his mouth, nodding toward the stag. The others follow his gaze, but no one moves to draw an arrow.
This one is all Daphne’s.
She draws the arrow back, keeping her eyes on the stag and, specifically, on the long stretch of his neck. The muscles in her arm tighten and strain, but she forces herself to take a deep breath, to focus on the stag and nothing else.
Then she releases the arrow, sending it whirring through the air with a soft whistle.
It misses by a yard, finding the trunk of a tree behind the stag. At the sound, the animal straightens up, its eyes finding Daphne. For a second, it stares at her, unmoving, before taking off into the woods.
Della and Rufus are ready, giving chase with their siblings at their heels, but Daphne’s feet are anchored to the ground. They feel so heavy suddenly. Her whole body feels heavy. The bow falls to her side and her head spins.
“Daphne?” Bairre asks. “Are you all right?”
“Fine,” she says, too quickly. She shakes her head to try to clear it, but that only makes him look at her more strangely. “Why do you ask?”
“Because you shouldn’t have missed that stag,” he says before pausing. “And you look ready to keel over any second.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” she says, though she has to force the words through the fog descending on her mind. Why is she so tired? She wasn’t a second ago, but now all she wants is to find a soft patch of ground somewhere and lie down, just for a moment.
“I’m fine,” she tries to tell him, but the words don’t make it out of her mouth before her knees suddenly buckle and her mind goes quiet and black. The last thing she’s aware of is Bairre’s arms catching her before she hits the ground.
Consciousness slips through Daphne’s fingers like smoke, but every so often she grasps enough to open her eyes. Every time she does, she isn’t alone. Bairre sits in a chair beside her bed; sometimes he is upright, hands knitted in his lap, brow furrowed. Other times he is sprawled out with his head back and eyes closed, his chest rising and falling in long, even breaths. In those moments, he could be a stranger, his expression smooth and peaceful and open. In those moments, her fogged-over, feverish mind wonders what it would be like to touch his cheek, to run her fingers through his messy hair, to press her lips to his.
Once, she opens her eyes to find him watching her, his silver eyes resting on hers.
“Why are you here?” she asks him. Her voice comes out raspy, and he’s quick to pass her a glass of water from the table beside him.
She doesn’t drink from it, instead staring at its contents.
“It’s been tested,” he says, reading her wary expression. “You remember what happened?”
Daphne frowns, taking a small sip of the water, then another. She doesn’t fully trust him, but her thirst wins out over her sense. In a few seconds, she drains the glass, passing it back to him. He pulls a rope hanging beside him. Far away, she hears the tinny ring of a bell.
“Vaguely,” she says. Her voice still sounds rough, but her throat hurts a bit less. She leans back against the pillow. “The waterskin—it was poisoned.”
The thought is a thorn beneath her skin—how disappointed her mother would be, especially after the lessons Daphne and her sisters have been given in detecting and concocting poisons of their own. Especially considering Daphne has always excelled at those lessons. Her failure to recognize the fact that she was being poisoned is an embarrassment.
He nods. “My father is having everyone questioned, trying to ascertain who is responsible.”
“I’d imagine it’s the same people who were responsible before,” she says.
It’s only when he looks at her with alarm that she realizes she’s spoken out loud. She cringes and sits up a little straighter.