Giulia Bernardi stepped from the shadows, the distinctive yellow dress she’d worn earlier still draped around her frame.
Relief surged through me and I gasped out a breath. “Oh gods, it’s just you, Giulia?—”
She turned toward me and I stepped back. A gaping hole yawned in the center of her chest. Her skin was blueish, and the reek of decay came from … her.
Run.
My feet stayed rooted in place, as though lead had wrapped around my ankles. A rush of nerves pierced my skin, but my mind didn’t seem to fully comprehend what I was seeing—Giulia had been turned into a skinwraith, a hideous monster of the living undead.
I’d never seen one before. Barely believed in them, despite the stories.
The sight of her—of what was left of her—made every inch of my skin pebble in gooseflesh. The Giulia I’d seen laughing just hours ago was gone, replaced by this twisted, decaying thing with lifeless eyes.
This can’t be real.
But she stepped toward me, and some primal instinct in me snapped. I grabbed a dagger and hurtled it toward her.
The blade sunk into the cavern of her chest, then thudded to the ground.
“Run, dammit!”
The deep voice in my head wasn’t my own, but it shattered my paralysis. I tumbled backward, my hand slamming into a thorn-covered bush. Pain pricked my palm, warm blood blooming over my skin. I spun and lunged for the stream.
Tales said fire could destroy them, but there was none close enough. My grip tightened on my sword. If brute force wouldn’t work, I needed another way.
My boots plunged into the water, slipping on algae-covered stones. Once on the other side, my knee slammed into the soft earth. Before I could stand again, a hand grasped my vest, yanking me.
I slashed my sword at Giulia, carving deep gashes into her thighs, but she barely reacted. An unearthly growl rumbled from her throat as her icy hands clamped around my forearm, pulling me into the water.
Fluid filled my nostrils. Gagging and choking, I thrashed. Kick. A coughing fit was coming on. Slash. The sword felt loose in my hand, my grip unsteady.
She’s going to kill me.
Cold air smacked my skin as Giulia lifted me as though I was weightless, then hurled me toward a tree.
The impact sent bright spots of light across my vision. A sickening crack splintered in my ribs, pain following a beat later, slow and searing, as I hit the ground.
Somehow I’d kept my sword, but with my side screaming in pain, it was useless in my hands.
Giulia stalked toward me, her face a mask of pure evil, her lifeless eyes glowing with an eerie yellow light, deep inside the pupils.
After an excruciating breath, I staggered to my feet, working through the searing pain that threatened to rip my senses apart. If I didn’t do something, she’d kill me. With every ounce of strength, I drove my sword deep into her gut.
She didn’t stop. Didn’t flinch.
A chill seeped through my skin where her decaying hand gripped me, the touch of death itself. My breath caught as her rotting flesh pressed into my arm, and nausea coiled within me. No matter how deep I cut, she kept coming, relentless, unstoppable.
A fragment of memory surfaced—a passage from a book.
The damn creature had to be decapitated.
“Seren!”
Rykr. He ran toward me as best he could with his irons still on.
Where in Nyxva did he come from?
And why is he soaking wet?
