Toward herself.
And she drove it into her throat.
Once.
Then again.
And again.
The blade sank deep each time, fast and smooth, slicing through flesh like it was nothing. Blood erupted from the wound in hot, gushing waves, pouring down her chest, soaking her robe. Her body tipped forward and crumpled. The black bled from her eyes like smoke peeling off a dying fire.
Her real eyes flickered back.
Blue. Wide. Terrified.
They locked on mine.
“Run.”
She rasped it through a throat full of blood.
But I didn’t just hear it in her voice. I heard it in my father’s. In Einar’s. They’d all told me to run—and I couldn’t. Couldn’t even move. How could I ever hope to control whatever lived inside me, if I couldn’t even control my own limbs?
The seer’s mouth went slack along with her body, and somethingmovedbehind her. A shadow that wasn’t hers. A shape that had no body.
And finally—finally—my legs moved.
I ran.
Will’s voice hit me like a splash of cold water, sharp, jarring, exactly what I needed. But it wasn’t enough.
“Kera?”
I couldn’t think.
That tea hadn’t helped. Nothing could’ve helped me understand what I’d just seen.
She was dead.
The seer wasdead.I didn’t even know her name, and she was gone. Did she do it to protect me? Was her life on me too? The gods wanted medead?
I ran through the Murkwoods, feet tearing through the underbrush, heading toward the river, toward the hut.
I just wanted to go home. And that was the closest thing I had to home.
I had to get away. From the house. From that room. Fromher—From the voice that wasn’t hers. From the blood. From what she said.
Will caught up first.
I tore away from him and kept running, faster, harder, my lungs burning.
“KERA, STOP!” Aran shouted from behind.
“What happened?” Will shouted, breathless.
I couldn’t answer.
Couldn’t stop.
