As I drew my hand back I cursed myself for shaking. I pulled the string until it was taunt, firmly against my nose. I was trained for this, paint stained my face, tattoos symbolizing swift fortune snaked around my forearms, yet despite this, I was hesitating.

We used to be sisters. A tribe happily united. At least that’s what the elders told me. It wasn’t spoken about. I had to ask my questions carefully. What I did know is that many years before I was brought into the world a conflict broke out. In the aftermath my tribe stayed in the cover of our thick forest while traitorous Amazons left to venture in the mountains.

I didn’t know why we hated them so. However, whenever mentioned the very wind seemed to chill and the tribe’s demeanour along with it. I eventually gave up my questions. It was then that I was asked to join the older girls in the Hunt.

The mountain Amazons would come down into the forest, our territory. For what reason was unknown. I was curious of course but the words died on my tongue as soon as the solution to this was revealed to me. We were to kill them, notch our arrows and treat them as meat.

I was trained as an assassin. I was taught the ways of our enemy. I obeyed, a good solider, a loyal sister. Years passed and no one had come down from the mountains. We were left alone, until today. It was dawn, the soft glow of the sun had hardly been cast through the leaves when a scout was found dead. The message was clear.

In an instant I was awoken and shoved into position. I waited until, from my spot between the trees, I saw her. A woman draped in deer skin, a spear in hand. I raised my bow and took uneven breaths that swirled into cold fog. I didn’t want to let my arrow go flying into her pale skin. I didn’t want to imagine the splash of crimson. She wasn’t anything like I’d imagined. She looked curious, like me.

I squeezed my eyes shut and tried once again to steady myself. When I opened them I was met with a blur hurtling toward me.

I found myself pinned against a tree. The spear had caught my sleeve and nailed it precisely to the bark. It didn’t even graze my skin. I whipped my head up and was locked eyes with my curious rival. Green eyes intensely gazed into mine.

“You didn’t shoot.” She didn’t sound surprised. She said it plain, like a statement.

I was shocked silent. My mouth fell open in quiet wonder. Up close I got a better look at her carved features, her chiseled cheeks, her black hair that cascaded down her shoulders. She looked like a sculpture.

She raised an eybrow at my silence. I try and utter out words. “I was supposed to kill you.” I was surprised at what I admitted, she could tell.

“I know. I watched you for a while.” She looks up into the branches of the trees. My heart sank. I hadn’t checked above me for a stalker. Something somone with even a hint of intution would have done. “You weren’t any danger to me,” She adds.

If I were any type of warrior I would have ripped out the sprear and lunged at her in a rage, but I was no warraior and in my soul I could not argue.

“Do you think I’m a coward?”

She laughed gently, “Shouldn’t a poor doe be so lucky if her huntress were a coward?”

My face seemed twisted into a permanent state of confusion. Words dried out before I could say them, I was so struck by her.

She smiles, “ You spared me. In return I spared you. No blood need be spilt.”

“You aren’t like the told me you would be,” I whispered out. My mind started to clear and the curiosity I missed so much flowed in quick. “Why? Why did your tribe go to the mountains?” The look I gave her was eager, longing even. I needed to know everything.

Her eyes glimmered. “What great things we can talk about when me meet again.”

Her next movements were too quick to see. She pulled out a spear and in a swift move of her arm swung the shaft towards me. When I next oppened my eyes the world was cast in the orange of late afternoon and I was being dragged by my concerened sisters back into the saftey of our village.

Once I was more conscious I was promptly bomarded with questions. I didn’t tell them who I had met. They had withheld secrets of the tribe from me for so long, it was fitting I finally had a secret of my own.