Giulia turned at the sound of his voice.
As she did, Rykr swung—the heavy irons on his wrists slamming into the side of her skull.
She snarled, rabid and furious, teeth bared as she lunged at him. The shift in her focus gave me an opening. I couldn’t retrieve my sword from her body, and my daggers were useless.
I spread my fingers, summoning jagged ice. A sharp, crystalline blade formed in my grasp and with a swift stroke, I cleaved through her neck.
Giulia’s head hit the ground.
I stared at it in horror, half-expecting it to keep moving. Then the body disintegrated into black, hissing vapor, stretching out and enveloping us in a cloud of shadow.
Then it vanished.
Chapter 16
Rykr
The gruesome head of a woman stared at me with lifeless eyes, but the body had disappeared.
For a moment, I didn’t see a woman’s head there, but Dalric’s.
My empty stomach lurched, then I blinked, and cleared my vision. Not Dalric. Just a girl. Just a corpse, face twisted, eyes vacant. Tearing my gaze away, I bent and grabbed Seren’s fallen sword.
She gasped in pain.
“Are you all right?” I didn’t dare let the sword go, in case there were more of those things out there. If I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes, I wouldn’t have believed it.
“I’m not sure.” Seren’s hands trembled as she backed away from the gruesome head. “How in Nyxva did you get here? How did you know where I was? Where did you go?”
She leaned against me as we crossed the stream, moving as quickly as possible. But between her injuries and my irons, we were too slow.
Explaining what I’d seen felt absurd, but Seren—maybe her mother, too—might be the only ones who’d understand it.
“I heard you.” I surveyed behind me. We were alone. For now.
“You heard me scream?”
“Yes, but also …”
“But also, what?” She eyed me suspiciously. “How is it you just so happened to be here, Rykr? You were trying to escape, weren’t you? And that-that … thing’s eyes glowed. Just like the vuk’s. It wasn’t Giulia it was a?—”
“A skinwraith?”
“The living undead. That’s why I had to chop its head off.”
My skin prickled. Skinwraiths were myths—stories whispered to keep young children in line. I’d heard rumors of a Regulation unit encountering one in the mountains of Pendara, but I’d always assumed it was a cautionary tale.
“And you say ice powers aren’t useful.”
“I’ve never made a weapon like that before—it was instinct.” Terror shone in her eyes. “How did you know where to find me?”
“I was …” How to explain this? “I was washing myself. And then … I was in your head. I saw the forest ahead of me, the stream, the stump …”
She stared at me, open-mouthed.
“The bond, Seren. Somehow, I can see and hear things in your mind.”
Her grip tightened on my forearm. “What?”
