Free Eyes of the Woods by Eden Fierce

hadn’t realized how obvious I’d been.
    “We can take a turn at being friends first,” he said. “Get to know each other. Isn’t that what the next year is about?”
    Something inside of me twinged. That was why Father chose William. He was understanding. Patient. Two things a man would have to be to spend a life with me.
    “I suppose,” I said.
    He shifted nervously in his seat. “Could you show me?”
    “Show you what?”
    “The woods.”
    “No.”
    “I admit I’m curious. I’ve never been allowed in the woods. But with you…It would be rather safe, I would think.”
    “Not necessarily. There is a reason the woods are forbidden. It’s dangerous. Even for me. It would be irresponsible to take you out there without training.”
    “Just inside the tree line? We’ll just take a peek.”
    “I don’t have anything to protect us with. My weapons are at home.”
    “We can’t get into much trouble at the edge of the woods. And your family is just there,” he said, nodding to the party.
    “You don’t have anything to prove, William. We have a whole lifetime to—”
    He sat up tall. “Not to you, maybe. To myself, for certain. If I don’t have the nerve to step into the woods, I have no business marrying a daughter of the Priory.”
    I sighed. “It would be rude to leave our own party.”
    “They’ll never know we’re gone.”
    The more we discussed it, and the more William insisted, the more I wanted to go. I didn’t want to be celebrating my betrothal anyway, and the woods were comforting to me. It was the one place I felt free.
    “Just inside the tree line?” I asked.
    William nodded, his eyes bright with excitement.
    “Just for a bit. And then we can’t go again until you’ve had training.”
    He nodded again.
    “And we can’t be gone long. Or else my father will notice.”
    “Deal.”
    I took two fistfuls of my dress, and we walked to the edge of the pines. The forest was quiet and dark. William’s breath puffed out in small clouds of white. We hadn’t walked that far. He was already afraid.
    “You’re sure?”
    He hesitated and then nodded.
    “Follow me,” I said, walking into the tree line.

    I crouched in some tall grass, and William did the same. We listened for a while.
    “What now?” he whispered.
    “If I were hunting, we would continue into the forest, watching, waiting, and listening. We would track them. Sometimes they track us.”
    “Do they ever attack?”
    I waited. He was already frightened. I didn’t want to terrify him.
    “Eris?”
    “All the time.”
    His breath caught, and then he shifted from one foot to the other. “I can learn, right? You did.”
    “I’ve been training since I could walk.”
    “It would take time, I know. But I could one day. It would be an embarrassment for us both if I were stationed in your father’s basement mixing chemicals and stale blood.”
    “Not really.”
    William began to speak again, but I held up a finger. He froze, even holding his breath. That was good. At least he followed direction.
    A branch snapped and echoed, bouncing off the trees and disappearing somewhere beyond the mist.
    William stood and took a step back.
    “We…we should go,” he whispered.
    I held up a hand, trying to listen. I kept my voice low and even. “Calm down. We’ll go when I’m sure it’s safe.”
    “This was a bad idea. We should leave. Now.”
    “We’ll go. But we have to wait first.”
    William took a step back, and leaves crunched beneath his boots. Another branch cracked, this time loud, like a bolt of lightning. It was close.
    William bolted in a full sprint in the wrong direction.
    “William!” I whispered as loud as I could. He didn’t stop. I gripped my dress and took off after him, my heart pounding against my chest. Something was jumping from one branch of one tree to the next, chasing him. If I came back without William, Father would blame me. I wasn’t sure what my punishment would be.
    William turned a hard left and