Year 13-1

Tucker didn’t understand. Or maybe he wanted me to see something I was blind to. Before our life together in The Enchanted Forest, before the night we first met, I lived a different life. I had to. After losing my mother, my father, and most of my village, I was alone. Life was nothing but battles. A battle to survive and a struggle to become a man my father might have found pride in calling his blood.

I might have lost that battle had it not been for a woman, Loreal Dane. She could never replace my mother, but I grew to love her. As for her husband, Michael Dane, he was tolerable.

When they found me, I was a day away from starving to death. How they told the story made me sound like a gift from the Gods only because they often omitted the part where I tried to cut Michael’s eye out. They were good people despite their loyalty to the king, which took much getting used to. Unable to bear children, they fostered many girls and boys. Loreal taught me the basics of life, gave me a place to sleep, and food to eat. She allowed me the grace to survive, but her husband offered me the strength to do more.

Michael would never have approved my war against the crown, but he saw my rage and knew it had worth.

“A hunter?” I questioned.

It was a fine day. It was a light day. Kind-natured or not, to live with the Danes was to work with the Danes. With four younglings under their roof, we divided the work among us, and that day I drew the lighter load. After helping Loreal run errands, selling her quilts at the market, we returned to the cottage to find Michael waiting for me out in the fields.

“We’ve all heard you hacking away at the scarecrows when you think you’re alone at night,” Michael confessed.

At least I didn’t wake everyone with the rustling of my sheets, as Scott did nightly.

“It’s time you learn to use the metal on your hip, or for crow’s sake, sell it,” he said.

Michael was blunt with me while Loreal stood in the doorway, perhaps ready to step in if needed.

“Don’t you go hurting one of our boys,” she called out.

The mountain of a man we called Michael was more of a child than any he fostered.

“He’ll be fine,” he answered, waving Loreal away.

My two adopted brothers, Scott and Harris, were still working the surrounding fields, picking cotton. Their days must have been longer than mine. My adopted sister, Farrah, the only of us not made to work when Loreal was absent, sat on a stump, watching.

“None of your brothers have it in em to fight. They came from more than enough war to last a lifetime, but you, you hunger for it, don’t you, boy?” Michael continued while I held the hilt of my sword.

“Teach me,” Farrah whined, but she was hardly old enough to use a kitchen knife on her own.

My father’s sword was the only thing I had left of him. I had often told myself he left it with me to cut the men responsible for destroying our home.

“But why a hunter? Why not become a knight?” I asked.

“You think we have the coin for that?” Michael said, with laughter jiggling his big belly.

“But I don’t want to be a hunter,” I complained.

“You want to fight, don’t you?”

He pushed my chest almost hard enough to knock me over.

I hesitated but answered, “Yes.”

“Then I’ll make you the best Nestle has ever seen, second only to myself, of course,” he boasted.

Before Michael married Loreal, he had been a hunter for several years. He liked to tell us tales of his old adventures, but my adopted siblings and I rarely believed them. Regardless, I never doubted Michael knew how to fight. He wasn’t a small man, nor was he modest. Michael was loud and tough, but kind to those on his right side. Could I believe he slew a dragon with a butter knife? No. But I could easily see him crushing a man stupid enough to wish harm to his home.

“You’ll show me how to use a sword?”

“I’ll teach you everything I know, boy,” he said with his hands on his hips.

I was 13. My brothers were older and likely knew how to use weapons already, but I was the first and only Michael trained.

Could I call it training?

Hunters differed from knights. Hunters fought monsters and magical creatures, not people. Swords, shields, and armor were not commonly employed by monsters, if at all. Dealing with flame spirits required different tactics than defeating human soldiers. My training covered the fundamentals of swordsmanship and different weapons, but it didn't touch upon the chivalric principles of knighthood. Regardless, Michael never sought to end my war. He never ended my battle; he gave it fire and told me never to quit.

Had he understood why I burned, I might have been cast out before he turned me into a weapon.