Raven Girl

Chapter 7

Nadine woke abruptly. She wondered what had disturbed her, rolling onto her side. Elias was deep in sleep beside her, looking more peaceful than she'd ever seen him, but the corner of his mouth tugged downwards. She wondered what he was dreaming about. On her other side, Regina lay with her hair spilling out around her like a princess in an enchanted sleep. Gylfi's sleeping bag was empty because he was still keeping watch.

Nadine sat up. Gylfi wasn't keeping watch. Gylfi was nowhere in sight.

She got up and stumbled into the fog. It had grown thicker in the past few hours, and swirled around her. She couldn't see the sky – couldn't even see the trees that surrounded them on the edge of the forest. Dread coated her tongue.

Gylfi was striding off into the open space, armed with his bow and arrow. His leaving must have woken her.

Nadine ran after him. The grass, compact and glittering with frost, was springy and crunched beneath her boots. "Gylfi!" she hissed. The daylight felt so wrong. The light was still visible, even through the fog. The open space made them vulnerable, unsheltered, unprotected. Catching up, she grabbed his arm.

Ripping away immediately, he swung around. "Go away, Raven Girl. Run back to your hidey-hole like the rest of your country."

"What do you think you're doing?" Fear made her bones shudder.

"Hunting. If I don't do it, no one will, and we'll starve without meat. Hunting in the day is the only way we can catch anything."

"The monsters –"

He spread his arms. "Look around! There's nothing here. No monsters. I've been in this country for weeks and I only heard them when I was in the city. You're all paranoid."

"We haven't heard them because they usually stay away from enclosed spaces, like the forest!" Nadine countered as he continued walking. She followed. "Does this look enclosed to you?"

"This is where deer graze. This is where we find food." Gylfi looked at her stubbornly. "Go back if you're such a coward."

That was it. Now she couldn't go back, because – damn you, Skarsgård – she was not a coward. And she wouldn't have him thinking she was. Every step she took sent a jolt through her gut. Her mouth went dry and her breathing turned ragged.

A noise erupted from the shadowy shapes of trees close by. Nadine couldn't hold back her cry of terror – she broke into a run, pelting for a boulder that looked like a smudge in the distance. She flung herself down behind it, pressing into the grass. She was a coward. She was afraid.

The noise had faded. She peered over the top of the boulder to see Gylfi smirking at her. "That was a flock of birds taking flight. Maybe if you had wings, you'd fly after them. You're just as frightened."

"You arrogant bastard." She tried to stop it from coming out in a wheeze. Her legs weren't working. She couldn't stand up.

His smirk grew. "Ladies shouldn't use such vulgar language." She responded with a rude hand gesture over the top of her rock. He returned it, still grinning.

"Sit there for as long as you want, Raven Girl, but I'm going to find something to shoot."

Nadine slumped against the rock, listening to his footsteps for a few moments before heaving herself up and following him. But only because she couldn't see the shelter in the fog. Actually, Gylfi was the only thing she could see – him and the murky rocks scattered around in the distance, most of them dripping with moss.

"Watch and learn, sweetie," Gylfi breathed when she reached him. Before she could do so much as raise her eyebrows at his low, husky tones – did he actually consider himself attractive? – he'd nocked an arrow to the bow. He let it fly. It disappeared into the fog and she heard a dull thud – an animal hitting the ground.