The full-bellied moon casts a silver sheen across Vateshram Forest, the shadows stark against their illuminated backdrop.
My horse gallops around the deeper pockets of black, weaving a path between ancient trees, breaths labored, ears pinned back. Every now and again, he tosses his head in defiance.
I steal a look behind, making sure I’m not being followed.
Seven years ago. That’s the last time I dared to make this trip.
I held off for as long as I could.
Wind whistles through the trees, an icy, Northern-borne breeze that carries a sharp scent and makes my hands tighten around the reins. Everything from the North comes with a taint these days: the wind, the food pulled off trade ships that have traveled down the River Norse, even the water that spills off its mountain border and fills our streams.
Eyzar slows, then stops of his own accord, snorting and pawing the ground.
“Steady, boy,” I soothe, running my hand along his thick, muscled neck.
A deathly hush blankets the forest, and I cast my gaze around, listening, watching ...
A gust of wind breaks the silence, wailing like an agonized beast, teasing an acrid stench past my nose.
My brow buckles, breath catching.
Death.Burningdeath—coming from the direction of the safe house.
Aravyn.
“Ya!” I growl, digging my heels in.
Eyzar squeals, then charges forward, and every galloping thud lands with a dire echo in my head.
Too late.
Too late.
Too late.
“Faster!”
The trees finally thin, revealing two jagged slopes framing the smoldering remains of a once-grand home.
Eyzar rears to a stop, turning on his haunches. It’s all I can do to keep him from bolting back the way he came as I stare at the devastating scene while ash rains from the sky.
Not fast enough ...
A roaring inferno engulfs the house that’s lost all its shape, now nothing but crumbled stone walls, piles of charred rocks, and flaming wooden beams scattered across the ground like matchsticks. Shaded creatures are collecting in pockets of shadow, maneuvering toward lumps of fried flesh strewn throughout the clearing.
Toomany bodies for a fucking safe house.
Someone screwed up. For their sake, I hope they’re already dead.
Rabid howls preface a strange, sickening sound not unlike the squeal of metal on metal, and a low rumble scours the back of my throat.
I leap off Eyzar, speaking to him in hushed tones as I tie him to a tree that’s lit by firelight. Approaching the ruin in slow strides, I grip the pommel poking over my shoulder, tugging my weapon free; a virulent black blade that blends with the gloom.
The advancing shadows rear back.
I step over a severed hand missing three fingers, the nub dribbling bold, red blood that shouldn’t bring me a sense of relief ... but does.
It’s not part ofher.
