Page 1 of We Hunt the Night

Chapter 1

Some people are dreamers. Others are thinkers, and people like me are the type that don’t stop. Ever. I shouldn’t be here this close to sunset, and the tall trees creaking in the wind almost sound like they are screaming for me to get back behind the gates, back to the safety of my town. But if I do, he will die, and I can’t stomach that. Few people would come into the forest and risk their lives for a small creature. In fact, this wasn’t my plan when I came into the forest an hour ago, but once I heard his small little cries, I knew I couldn’t leave him here. It’s taken me too long to locate him in the dense foliage, and every minute I spend here is a risk. The trap is awful and if I don’t get him out, he will die in here within a few days.

My knees sink into the muddy ground as I tug at the metal bars that look like a hand grasped around his small body. There was no magic in the trap; otherwise, this creature would have sensed it, and at least I didn’t have to spend time undoing magic to get him out. The small creature’s eyes are the brightest blue and tear-filled as he looks up at me from underneath a veil that falls to his little feet. The creature almost looks like a jellyfish that has legs and a tiny body within the shell, but the veil shimmers like sunlight shining through a blue lens. This isn’ta brainless jellyfish—he’s a small creature, and he’s intelligent. Unfortunately, the veil that’s hanging over him is really great for many healing potions, so his kind have been hunted for years. This one is just a child.

“You shouldn’t be this far out in the forest before nightfall. You must know witches’ leave traps all around by the gates. Where are your parents?” I mutter, pulling the bars. The friction hurts my fingers, but I don’t stop yanking at it until two of the pieces fall down and snap. Good, it’s broken, and no other creature is going to suffer in there. The witches don’t care about small creatures; they call them pests with brains. I disagree.

Reaching in, I gently grab the tiny creature in my hand. He is shaking hard from fear, most likely because he thinks I’m the witch who put this trap here and I’m going to cut him to pieces and use him for potions. “I’m not going to throw you into my cauldron. You’re safe.” Softly, I put him on a nearby log. I expect him to float away, up high into the thick, dark green leaves of the trees above where his family might be. There aren’t many of them around anymore, and I wonder if he has a family at all. Is he like me, an orphan? Does he have a foster family looking after him? I hope not. That didn’t work out well for me. Maybe this one is broken…he keeps staring at me. The sun shines through the trees behind it—too low. I need to get moving.

“Shoo!” I whisper. “Go! Before we both get in trouble.” I rise up, picking up my draw bag of small herbs, pressed flowers and mushrooms I’ve gathered for a spell. Things that didn’t cost me any poor innocent creature’s life. He still hasn’t moved. I put my hands on my hips. “You know what lurks in the forest at night, and we both can’t be here. Please go.”

He bows his head at me. A strange custom that the small creatures tend to do, and I bow back on instinct. He floats up, the sunlight shining through his tiny body to cast rainbow dropseverywhere around me, before disappearing into the dark forest leaves. My shoulders drop. He’s safe now.

I shiver as I look at the descending sun, knowing that the minute the light disappears behind the horizon, outside the gates is pure death. No one survives out here in these forests at night, or you go missing. Death is better than going missing out here. The ruins of old human civilization are only a mile away, but I’ve never dared to go that far—and yet I’m curious what it looks like now. One day.

I turn around, carefully jogging back through the forest, my cloak flowing in the breeze behind me. It takes roughly ten minutes to get back to the tall black gates that stretch into the sky. This part is meant to be guarded by the watchtower, but it’s a blind spot in the day near sunset, and there’s a small gap big enough for me to squeeze through. I run my hand over the magic of the gate, the shimmering wall of magic is made of black swirls and looks like ink in a pool of water. I whisper a small spell under my breath to break it for a second. Just a second is all I need to get back.

It’s not night, but I still look behind me and check the forest for Mindless, our enemies. But the forest is silent of anything but birds singing their song. I squeeze through the gap, thinking about the first time I went through over five years ago. One of my classmates showed me this gap and the spell ages ago in exchange for doing his coursework. It was a fair trade. He passed the test with flying colors, and I got a way to escape my home town for a moment, to get herbs that I need for the more complicated spells that I should not be doing but I do anyway. I can’t ask my foster mother for the money, or she would demand to know what I’m doing. I don’t think she would understand for even a second that I want to learn every spell there is in existence, and that includes some of the spells we are told not to do.

My long braid almost gets caught in the bars of the gates as I fall out of the other side. A few strands get stuck. I pull them off, not wanting to leave any evidence behind that I was here, before repeating the spell, hiding the gap. Lights are beginning to burst to life around Saturn town as I stare down at it, at the rows of wooden cabins and the glittering yellow stone pathways everywhere. I rush straight through to the edge of town where the homes turn from small to large, to homes with lawns and pretty fences.

Most of the trees have been felled in the town, but there are two outside my home, great big, towering trees that cast a permanent shadow over our home. It helps with the heat sometimes, and other times it makes the place look haunted. I wonder what the humans wanted this town to be when they built it…because I doubt a witch town was their plan. This quiet town in the middle of Montana is haunted by the mountains that tower over us in the distance, and outside of that is endless forests and old human towns swallowed by the war.

My home isn’t far from the mortal camps, and my gaze drifts down the road, down the hill to the camps below. Mortals are humans to us, but they don’t like to be called that. They like to be called humans. Once, the humans ran this world, and now, they serve witches—or they die outside our towns. They clean our houses, they cook our food, they do everything for us, and in exchange, we fight the war, keeping them safe within our towns. It’s strange to think that only fifty years ago, they had no idea that witches even existed, and they ruled—or at least they thought they did. They were going about their days, fighting their own wars between each other, and then everything changed.

The witches had no choice but to come out to the world to save them from extinction, and ourselves too at that point. When the war began, we all lost. There were no winners between ourraces—the only difference is that we stand a chance in a fight against the enchantress and her army because of our magic.

“Juniper Daygan!” I hear my foster mother’s shrill voice shout inside the house, and I wince. What have I done now? Not that I have to have done anything to begin with. She is always on my case. It doesn’t matter that I’m twenty-one in a few days. I will always be a silly little girl to Melody, and I’ve accepted that. I tend to hate celebrating my birthday because of the day after and the grief that swallows me.

I hide my bag at the side of the house before walking up the steps to the front door, which she flings open as I reach for the handle. “Get inside now! You know I do not like you out after dark!” Her eyes are the same shade as the creature I just saved, but the light has been faded out of them for a long time. I always thought it was the death of her oldest son and husband in the war that made her coldhearted, but people say she has always been this way. I’m not brave enough to ask who hurt her.

The second I walk through the door, she grabs my upper arm and tugs me over the last step, slamming the door shut with her other hand. Hurting me in public is not something that she would do, but behind closed doors, anything is fair when I’ve annoyed her. Not that anyone in town would give me a second glance if she did hurt me in front of them. Melody owns the biggest house, has the most money, and pays for enough crap around this town that they’ll always look the other way when it comes to her. That’s okay. I don’t need anyone to stand up for me. I’ve done it plenty enough for myself over the years. “Do you know what day it is?” She brushes a lock of her pin-straight black hair out of her face and waits.

Of course I know what day it is. I couldn’t sleep last night because of nerves. “Yes.”

She shakes me, and I let her. I know better than to fight back. I tried once, and it didn’t end well for me. “Well? Aren’tyou going to say sorry? I ordered you to stay in the house just last week, and I expect you to follow my orders while you live under my roof!” I wince as that conversation comes back to me. I completely forgot she told me that over dinner—two weeks ago, not last week like she thinks. “If you are lucky enough to get the marking for Bloodstone Academy, I would like to be here. Where have you been?” I open my mouth to lie, but she carries on. “I checked in at your silly friend’s house, and her father hasn’t seen you today like you told our cook. Where have you really been?”

“Just for a walk. I’ve been nervous. Today is important for me.” Today is everything to me. She digs her nails into my arm, leaving marks on me, but I barely feel pain anymore thanks to her.

“Do not lie to me! I won’t have you off with boys, like that dark-haired friend of yours, being a slut under my roof.” I almost want to tell her my best friend, Parker, is gay and has a boyfriend, but she wouldn’t take that well. Witches are not meant to be gay, and they pretend people aren’t. It’s horrid and unaccepting. They only care about breeding and the war. Anything else is an issue. “If you do not get into the academy, we will be having a serious talk about your future. The only merits you have are that pretty face of yours and that you’re the last of the Daygan clan, with the namesake, too.” My heart slams against my ribcage. I know I’m the last of the Daygan clan, and that pressure is always there. If I fail at anything, I let my entire family down. My mother named me after Juniper Daygan, the first witch ancestor of my clan. No pressure considering she was a saint and a very powerful witch. “At least I will be able to marry you to a good, respectful family.”

She lets me go as my fast-beating heart feels like it plummets into my stomach. I do not want to marry, have kids, and make them grow up in fear of the war. I want to help win thewar the only way I can—with knowledge and spells. Bloodstone Academy is my only hope, and it has been for a long time.

“Well, has a mark appeared?” she asks. “Show me your neck and move that horrid braid.”

I touch my neck on instinct, pushing the braid back, and it hits my lower back. Braiding my wild, dark brown hair is the only acceptable way I’m allowed to have it outside the house. I can’t get my unruly locks to behave, and they will never be dead straight like Melody’s hair. Even though I’m foolishly hoping, there is nothing on my neck. I’d feel it if the mark appeared. Magic can always be felt on your skin. This day, the ninth day of the ninth month, is the only day that you get an invitation to Bloodstone Academy.

“Shame, but not unexpected. If you got in, you’d be just like your foster sister, and we both know she is far too exceptional for you to compare.”

“I can only hope and pray.” I smile through the lie, biting down on my inner cheek. I do not want to be anything like my foster sister, who is a third-year at Bloodstone Academy, but she isn’t half as bad as Melody.

Melody doesn’t call me out on my sarcasm, on how she knows I don’t mean it, and instead walks to the stairs. She brushes her finger over the top of the banister to check for dust, and if she finds some, she has a reason to shout at our human housemaid Diamond. “Today I woke up happy that you seemed smart enough to be considered at Bloodstone Academy. I’d finally, finally get some praise for taking you in when your silly parents died.”

“May the three-faced goddess protect their souls in her afterlife,” I snap. They weren’t silly. They are dead, though.

Melody ignores me, pacing up and down in front of the long wooden staircase that winds up into the house. “Everybody else in this town didn’t want anything to do with you and your cursedfamily. All dead, the scandal! The Daygan clan was strong and formidable, even as much as the dragons! You might have had a nice inheritance to come with you, but that was all you had. No other relatives, no one to take you in, no family friends. Everyone was dead that ever knew you, except for me. I knew your father in Bloodstone Academy as he helped my mother with library keeping and I was allowed to visit. That was the only reason that I took in his daughter after all was said and done.”

I want to add that she had a crush on my father in school, according to people I’ve spoken to, and that’s likely the reason she took me in. But the problem is I don’t look like my father. I have my mother’s face, my mother’s hair, my mother’s eyes, and I’m every bit the image of her. I look at a photo of them in my room and wonder why the goddess didn’t give me a bit of my father’s looks when it would have made Melody like me more. I only got worse as I got older, more like my rebellious mother. Not that I remember them much anymore, but Melody said she was rebellious. They both died when I was a kid, and all I have now are photos and paintings. The house we lived in is burnt down. The money that we had was given to my foster mother and is likely invested into this house or Melodies every want and desire. I know I won’t see the money and I don’t care.

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