“Agree to disagree, then.”
“This may sound rude, but I’ve never seen her punch anyone before. It was quite impressive how she managed to knock you on your feet,” Enid said with a hesitant giggle.
“I should consider myself lucky to be bestowed such an honor, then.”
“Hush now. We’re almost there,” Anelize hissed as they turned down another alley that would cut directly onto the street where the shop was.
“Stop,” he said as he dug his boots into the snow before she could step into the moonlight pouring over the cobblestones. Anelize and Enid were suddenly jostled, his arms tensing around their shoulders as he quickly pulled them back and away from the street. Enid stumbled back, losing her grip on him with a barely contained yelp as she slipped on a patch of ice and fell. Anelize gritted her teeth as the man then lost his footing without their support and they both slammed into the wall behind.
She released an annoyed grunt, shooting a glare up at him. “What are you?—”
His hand curled over her mouth, silencing her. He lifted a long finger up to his lips before glancing toward the street. Reluctantly, she did as he demanded. Seconds later, as if he’d conjured them, the sound of several footsteps running onto the street filled their anticipatingsilence.
“Where did they go? Did you see them?” a man asked tersely, sounding out of breath.
Another answered, equally winded with a hint of fear in his words, “No. But they’re all dead. Tomas, I think the captain too?—”
“You thinkitgot him? Dragged him into the forest?” Several more voices echoed from the street, all speaking with the same level of vexation.
“Find it! I want it and those damn Vedrans dead by morning!”
Footsteps grew closer to the alleyway, and Anelize tensed.
She tried to look toward Enid to see if she was nearby, to tell her to run as the Watchmen grew closer. If one of them so much as glanced into the alley, she knew they’d be discovered. The three of them were too close to the end of the alley, too easy to spot. Seeming to have sensed her panic, the man shifted closer, pressing his hand a little harder against her lips where she could feel the callouses along his palm.
No, not callouses.Scars.
The breath in her lungs caught as he bent his head just enough to murmur into her ear, his words pointed and entirely too calm to reassure her. “Stay very still for me.”
The way he spoke made her pause. It had been as if the Watchmen approaching where they were hiding in the shadows caused him no worry at all, despite being as injured as he was. She noticed the way a muscle feathered along his jaw as he tilted his head toward the street once again.
They all heard it then. The unmistakable sound of feet dragging across stone and the heavy labored breathing that followed. A low, rumbling growl that sent the hairs on her arms to stand on end. The man shifted closer still until he waspractically covering her with his body, the heat emanating from him suffocating.
The Watchmen’s steps came to an abrupt halt just as they were about to walk past the alley, the warm glow of the torchlights painting them in golden light for a stalling heartbeat, before the men suddenly dropped them to the ground, the flames slowly dying against the snow. Their swords sang free from their sheaths as the Watchmen bellowed.“Moroi!”
A sudden shriek pierced the air, the sound grating like nails dragging across stone. From the corner of her eye, she spotted Enid shifting behind one of the crates lining the walls a few paces away from them. Clamping her hands over her ears she sank behind it, tucking herself close to the wall, her eyes wide with fear as she glanced toward the streets then to Anelize.
Frenzied screams and curses of the Watchmen on the street filled the night as five rushed forward. Charging after the creature that shrieked and shrieked until Anelize was sure her ears would burst. The sound of metal clashing on metal echoed. Pained screams and the tearing of flesh made a shudder roll through her body.
It went on and on for far longer than she thought it would. And then, it was done. The shrieks lessened, faded. Soft, dragging footsteps slowly padded against the snow, the dragging of something heavy following. As quickly as the chaos had unraveled, it was done. The sound of the guards screams silent, as if they had never been in the first place. Swallowed up by the night.
Still, the remnant of fear made her shiver as the sound of something heavy being dragged through snow continued until a shadow came to a stop some mere feet away from the mouth of the alley. A dark figure dressed in tattered robes stood beforethem, slowly craning its neck in their direction. As if it had known they’d been there all along. Hunched over, the curve of its spine unnatural, painful even, as it tilted its head at them curiously. The pale moonlight illuminating its grotesque face that stole the breath from her, just enough to reveal the gaping holes where eyes should have been. Decaying, sallow flesh around its face stretched grotesquely as it parted its cracked lips and revealed jagged blackened teeth. Releasing a sound that was both man and animal. A shiver ran down her spine as it lowered itself onto its long spindly arms. The tips of its fingers blackened, nails jagged as its hands dug into the snow.
She wanted to run. To turn away from its hideous face before it feasted upon her. The creature that remained when the malady finally claimed the soul within the body. When the seeking of a Vedrans power turned against them, like a bacterium eating away at their flesh.
The man before her, however, didn’t shy away from the Moroi. Instead, he stepped away and raised the dagger at his side to the palm of his hand. His words were soft, almost lamenting as he said, “Forgive me.”
The Moroi hissed and growled at his words before it lunged, moving faster than her eyes could track, shrieking as it aimed its opened maw at the man.
Blood spilled over the snow as he sliced into his palm unflinchingly, and he held it out to the monster. Anelize slammed her eyes shut. Waiting for the sound of flesh tearing and more screams to fill the night.
Instead, a faint glow of light coaxed her into opening them. Noticing the fading light of a Watchman’s torch on the ground as it flickered and grew brighter. It swirled and rushed toward them over the ground and up into the air, painting the wallsbright shades of blue. Until the flame stopped a breath away from the man’s palm. Swirling around and around him as if it were a living entity.
A sudden gust of howling wind pushing the hood of his cloak off his head, revealing raven strands of his hair which fell around his shoulders. His eyes, much like the flames circling him, were the same shade of cerulean. As bright and as fleeting as stars shooting across the night skies. Sharp with a wicked ravenous gleam, his lips curling at the corner into a crooked grin as the Moroi jumped into the air, its claws stretched out toward him.
Then the flames burst into a blazing roar, creating a wall between them and the creature. The heat was unbearable, burning her skin even as it didn’t touch her, remaining fixated solely on the Moroi and the man who stood tall before it as it shrieked endlessly.
Her breath caught in her throat as the flames consumed it, burning through its tattered rags and flesh, eating away at its decaying skin and blood, down to the marrow of its bones. The same way she’d seen so many perish upon the pyres. Sparking a memory of her own that came so suddenly it felt as though she’d been struck. Anelize sank to the ground, watching in horror as the Moroi did not shy away from the terrifying power being unleashed upon it, not as it pressed forward until its bones charred and the rest of it turned to ash.
