Snow raised a pale eyebrow.
“She might turn you in to the queen. You can’t take the risk.”
“She’s a nun,” said Snow. “I don’t think nuns are allowed to do that sort of thing.”
Arrin gritted his teeth. “Snow, you haven’t known all that many people, at the castle. Don’t — don’t trust too easily. Not everyone is trustworthy.”
“My own mother is trying to kill me,” said Snow dryly. “What do I have left to fear from strangers?”
Greatspot thumped a hip into her, half warning and half reassurance. Snow rubbed the sow’s back.
They walked on for a little while, and then Arrin said, “The king is returning home.”
It was Snow’s turn to jerk in surprise, and then she thought this is the way we have talk to each other. Everything we say is like a blow.
It’s not my fault. Or his. Maybe it’s no one’s fault. The world keeps handing out blows.
“How do you know?” she asked.
“I went to the tavern in town while you were speaking to the nuns. Everyone’s talking about it. And yes, they recognize me there, but word has not gone out that I am being hunted.”
“Likely it hasn’t gone out that I am, either.”
Arrin shook her head. “It’s been a few days for me, but months for you. And I am not a king’s daughter.”
Snow sighed. Of course that would be the way of it.
“They’ve seen him,” said Arrin. “He’s a few days away. He’s got an army, and — ah — ” He took a deep breath. “A new young wife, they say.”
Snow nodded. The words had very little to do with her. “That’s nice for him.”
The words were so idiotic, hanging in the air between them, that Snow felt herself blushing.
“You should care,” said Arrin. “She’ll be your stepmother.”
His words, in turn, hung in the air, and they were so profoundly stupid that Snow’s cheeks cooled. The entire conversation was absurd. It wasn’t just her.
She trudged on.
A year ago, she would have given anything to attract her father’s attention. She would have been making plans to go and meet him right now.
Her winter with the boars had wrought some strange alchemy. Desperation had become indifference, almost without Snow noticing.
How strange, how strange … you’d think you’d notice something like that.
And instead you just sit up one day and think, “I used to care about that.”
She felt an odd little pang, not so much of mourning but of a suspicion that she should be mourning, and wasn’t.
(Some of it was witchblood, but sometimes even very ordinary people find themselves feeling this way.)
After awhile, she said, “Do you really think I can just go home and live in the castle again? ‘This is Snow, she lives in the midwife’s cottage. Yes, she’s the king’s oldest daughter, why do you ask?’”
“You can’t stay with the boars forever,” said Arrin.
“No. I thought perhaps I’d go to the convent for a little while. And after that, who knows?”
“Could I visit you there?” asked Arrin.
It was a strange question. Snow didn’t know the answer, and turning it over in her mind, she wasn’t sure what she wanted the answer to be.
“I don’t know,” she said. “Let’s see what happens.”
Arrin was determined to go and speak with the king. Once he had seen Snow safely back to the boar’s den, he mounted his horse. “I’m going to tell him what has passed,” he said. “He should hear from me, what I was charged with, and what I have done.”
Greatspot stood patiently while Snow undid the panniers, and then she said, “Wait, hunter-man. I’ll come with you.”
Puffball nodded and stood up alongside.
“What?”
“It’s dangerous,” said Greatspot. “You plan to walk up to a king and tell him that you were sent to kill his daughter. Do you see that going well?”
“What does a pig know of kings?” asked Arrin.
“More than a king knows of pigs, I suspect,” said Greatspot, lowering her head. “We’ll stay well back, Puffball and I, but you may be glad of a friend in the woods, if all goes ill.”
“They’re right, you know,” said Snow. “I don’t recall my father being a terribly … ah … calm man.” Arrin grimaced.
“No one will see us,” said Puffball. “Unless we want to be seen.” He grinned with all his tusks.
“We can’t just leave Snow alone,” said Arrin. He looked around the wooded glade. Leaf buds were coating the trees in a fine green haze, and the other boars had dispersed through the woods to look for early mushrooms.
“They’ve been leaving me alone all winter,” said Snow, rolling her eyes. She slung the panniers over her shoulder. “I’ll be fine.”
“The bears are waking up,” said Arrin stubbornly. “One could smell the food and try to come in.”
“Only ever two bears in this territory, hunter-man,” said Puffball. “The old black queen died in her den, and her oldest son’s been awake for a week. He’s over on the far side of the woods, digging up roots.”
Arrin opened his mouth to argue, and Snow stopped on the doorstep of the den. “Ashes is still here,” she said. “I’ll be fine. Go talk to the king.”
He looked into the mouth of the den and saw the pale, oblong face of Ashes, the small, silent sow. She saw him looking and ducked back inside.
He mounted his horse and went to face the king.
The queen had been in the woods for several days.
She did not sleep. Her dreams the first night were all of the mirror, and she did not try again.
The leaves crunched under her feet. By day, she followed the sun and by night, she followed the burning of the witchblood. Her joints ached and the small bones of her hands throbbed with age.
Her pockets were full of apples.
She had taken them from the kitchen, from the barrel of dried apples. It did not occur to her that the cook would not recognize her, as ancient as she now was. She hobbled through the kitchens and out the gate.
The cook saw an old, old woman,
