☽♟☽
SERENYA
"Shoot the fucking deer!"
Multiple grating voices rose in agreement. It took more will than I'd ever admit to keep my hands folded—pristine—over my lilac clad lap, shaded beneath the matching umbrella as I sat beside my mother.
I still couldn't understand how the people of Oria looked at this 'sport' and called it fun. I still couldn't see how humans who had lives just as fragile as the animals they found pleasure in hunting down and killing in the forest beyond the clearing we were all sat in.
Despite the ridiculousness, my mother found a sort of pleasure in joining the bets being placed alongside the men. But as women, we weren't allowed to place any or join the Games ourselves. So she would send her son into the dangerous forest with other hunters and manage every bet placed on his kills. It was how we made enough to keep us afloat while taking care of the debt my father left behind.
A debt we hadn't known of until the debtors had heard of his death and came to collect their due.
"Where is our bloody money, crone?"
The first of the three men in our foyer spat as he stared my shock-stricken mother down where she'd been knocked on her ass not too long ago.
His voice was a painful contrast to the scars that marred his churlish face. And the poor lighting spilling through the windows only deepened the shadows that twisted his features.
My mother had tried to shove me behind herself as the three men had barged through our double doors into the foyer of our modest home in the middle of the night.
The night we'd laid him to rest.
We'd been on our way up the stairs from the funeral when they forced their way in. My brother—Corin—and our little sisters were not home, and I didn't know if I took more comfort in knowing my little sisters would be spared from being witnesses to whatever was to happen tonight—or more unsettled in how Corin was conveniently absent.
"Who are you and what are you doing in my home?" My mother's voice—strained but stable—broke the silence as the other two crooks with their leader were looking around our home with gazes I could only describe as leering as I watched them from behind my mother.
I knew much, yet I was too lost in my own mind to be a part of what was happening.
The first man that had spoken scoffed, a pitiful sound that seemed like a slap to my mother's face as she watched them closely. "Your husband was a spendthrift sot—died with the dice still in his hand and the gutter for his fuc'in pillow."
The silence that followed his sharp words was deafening. The rapid pounding of the constant thrum of my heart was the only thing I could hear in my ear even as I had vaguely seen my mother's lips move—
To say what we'd all known—
What we'd all believed—that my father was not such a man. He just could not be that sort of man—
The noise rose so high, I could barely hear the faint scream of my mother as she told the men to leave her home—as she failed to protect me from view as that man brought out a shotgun we hadn't seen—
I knew what was going to happen when the barrel of that gun became leveled with the ashen face of my mother.
The sound of the gun as it was fired—
Bang—
The smell of gunfire, followed by a sharp cry of pain—
Followed by a crowd's voice raising in diverse reactions.
I blinked. The Hunting Games returned—their bloodied chaos flooding my vision, the only thing my eyes could register as the scene shifted. The red that had been the focus of the previous scene remained burnt to my retinas as the Hunting Games began to round off.
I blinked again and forced my eyes to leave the projection of the games, thanks—or none—to the Seers. Some followed the players inside the forest, their sight tethered to the Hunters. Others sat in a circle, hands joined, projecting the gory scenes for us to watch in the comfort of our seats.
I let out a breath as I allowed my eyes to wander over the people here. The Blessed and the Cursed alike, sitting together in harmony for the few hours they could stand one another for the one sport that the people of Oria seemed to worship like a damned religion.
"Y'er think Corin'll make m're kills?" A male with a distinct Western Orian accent asks from a few seats ahead of me to the tan-skinned man beside him.
His companion scoffed, a sound that managed to be carried over the noise from the chaotic audience. "Corin Vale?" A snort this time. "We both know that croon couldn't get more than Zarian. And if he lost this round—which he would—his moa would have to find some 'ther way to save the family."
They laughed as the projection of the Hunting Games panned to the devil they'd mentioned—Zarian Dravan. A tyrant that had been after my brother's head since he'd joined the Games. His shiny blonde locs and disgustingly white teeth ticked me off more than the fact that he had once almost slaughtered my brother at one of these hideous things.
Zarian Dravan had also been awfully persistent on making me his bride, despite me being past the age people would consider 'worthy'. He'd said he loved me after our first encounter and claimed he would make me his bride. I simply believed it was one of his many ploys to hurt my brother.
He was also the leading champion, with five consecutive wins this year alone, and we'd only just reached the sixth. He was the sort of man the women—old and young—would kill to successfully seduce. And the only woman he'd pined over the past year had been I—Serenya Vale, of a lowly, debt-ridden, fatherless family in the west of Oria.
It was practically a death sentence when he'd laid his supposed 'claim' on me after he realized whom my brother was. The women of the town that knew him and of his interest, took it upon themselves to ensure I remained unwed so I would be undesirable. It was a ridiculous thought, if you asked me.
But those were common thoughts within the women of Oria for as long as I could remember. The women tended to base their trends and beliefs off of what a male had said.
Ridiculous.
I'm pulled from my thoughts when the crowd around me groans in displeasure—only a few cheers lightly—as the tally for the game fills the projected screen we'd been watching.
Kaylin - 6 - 19 kills.
Kaylith - 5 - 15 kills.
A few other names I made quick work of glancing over before the last two names on the list made me still.
Zarian - 2 - 45 kills.
And—
Corin - 1 - 47 kills.
How the hell?