The door should have been open.
I counted the heartbeats slamming against my ribs. One. Two. Three. Each thud felt like a fist striking from inside my chest. Midday was the agreed time. Where was Anna? Was she captured? Did she betray us?
“Kal…” Greaves shifted closer to my side. We were trapped.
The door creaked open.
We waited a breath, expecting Anna to fling it wide. It only swayed, hesitant, then began to drift shut again.
The Threshers sprang forward, shoving it back with their shoulders. We poured through behind them.
Sun above.
I swallowed the curse clawing up my throat and dropped to my knees beside Anna’s crumpled body. She was slumped over a fallen guard, her dress soaked through, red spreading across the fabric in a dark bloom.
I rolled her to her back, seeing the weapon lodged in her belly. Her head lolled, and she drew in a rattling breath, wet and thin. I yanked the blade free and threw my weight onto her wound.
“Seliora, get over here!” Her blood pumped through my fingers, and icy terror spread through my veins. I couldn’t lose her.
She joined, hands over mine, braid tangled in the crimson gush. “I will care for her,” she said, urging me on.
I forced myself upright, dread pooling in my gut. “Don’t leave her.”
“You have my word,” the Harvester nodded, eyes firm.
Sword drawn, I advanced through the manor. Halls empty, rooms silent but for the roar of my blood in my ears. Each step echoed a ghostly warning: this was no safe home, no comforting quiet, only the oppressive hush of impending doom.
Then we found the staff. Their bodies were propped in chairs around the kitchen table. Necks and wrists torn, sinew shredded—but the floor was pristine, not a drop of blood staining the tiles. They had been drained.
Tipo slumped forward, the boy’s head dangling toward the ground, throat mangled. His bright red curls clashed with ashen gray skin. Unseeing eyes met mine, empty yet accusatory, condemning me with a gaze heavier than any sword.
My heart turned to stone, the ache of loss calcifying what remained.
We left their corpses, moving through the estate once again, our movements cold and systematic. Every turn formed a labyrinth of death as we searched for more bodies.
Entering the great hall, the stench hit me: urine, feces, blood—the scent of suffering and battle. Bile surged, caught in my throat as my eyes fell on the handprint smeared across the wall, crimson smeared over pale plaster. Horror rooted me to the spot.
Gayle was tied to a stake, her dress shredded to the waist. Clay lay splayed on a table, stripped and bound like livestock. Neither moved.
Elohios, give me strength. There was none left in me.
I couldn’t–
My friends—gods!
I shoved my boots forward, forcing myself to approach their mangled bodies; each step a rebellion against the bile, thenausea, the weight of despair. Blood coated them—proving Tallon had kept them alive while the Velli feasted. They’d been tortured because of me—my failures.
Clay’s body was a map of crescent-shaped wounds. Teeth marks dotted his skin—neck, arms, legs—some fresh, still bleeding, others scabbed.
Still bleeding.
I dropped beside him, pressing my ear to his chest.
…thump…thump…
“He’s alive!” A spark of hope flared. Could he survive this? Could I save him?
“She is too!” Greaves cut Gayle free, catching her as she sagged against him.
