“No.” I stepped forward, the desperation cracking through me like lightning. “You don’t get to look at me like that and then say nothing!”
She moved for the door, and I grabbed her arm.
“What did you see?! What’s wrong with me?!” I screamed. Loud enough that the boys outside must have heard. “TELL ME!”
She spun around. Her hand moved faster than thought, the dagger flashing in the candlelight—pointed straight at my chest.
Her grip trembled. Her face was bloodless. Lips parted. Eyes wide with something that wasn’t just fear—something deeper.
“You’re not human.” The words tore out of her as she pulled her arm back.
“What…?” I stumbled back a step. “What does that mean?”
Her eyes didn’t blink. Didn’t soften.
“There areoldthings in this world. Things I don’t speak of. Things I don’t touch.” she breathed, hollow and shaking. ”And what is in you... does not belong in this world.”
She looked at me. But it was clear that she didn’t see a girl anymore.
She saw a monster.
“You said the gods told you to help me,” I pleaded. “You weren’t afraid of me before. Why now?”
“It’s not about what you’ve done,” she explained, her eyes glassy. “It’s about what youwilldo.”
Her words stopped me cold.What the fuck?
“The gods don’t agree what to do with you,” she went on, her voice starting to fray. “Some are begging me to protect you. Tosaveyou.”
She sucked in a breath.
“And others… are ordering me to kill you. To protecteveryone else.”
She staggered back a step, then doubled over, clutching her head with both hands. A scream of agony ripped out of her throat and she collapsed to her knees.
“I don’t understand.”
“You must leave,” she roared. “I don’t want to hurt you. Buttheywill.”
I took a step closer, and my voice cracked in my throat. “Please. I didn’t ask for this. I didn’tchoosethis. You have to help me.”
“I’m so sorry.”
She closed her eyes. Just for a second. Then her spine bent with a crack like splintering wood.Her body jerked back violently, like she’d been yanked by invisible chains, and crashed to the ground. Her limbs twisted as she hit, elbows slamming into the floor with a dull thud, and something shifted under her skin.
When her eyes rolled back into view, they weren’t hers anymore.
They were black. Ink, pouring into the whites. Pooling in her skull. Drowning what was left of her.
I wanted to run.
Ibeggedmy body to move.
But my feet stayed rooted as she stared at me with those eyes like bottomless pits. Red tears began to spill from them, thick and slow,trailing down her face in twin rivers. Then her arm jerked, stiff and unnatural, like a marionette pulled by invisible strings.
The dagger in her hand twisted.
Not toward me.
