Branwen dug her nails into her palms. She did not have magic.
She had something far more dangerous—knowledge.
She yanked away the cloth that covered her right eye. And Branwen saw the woman for what she was.
The creature was thin. Her stomach was hollow—not as onewho was starving, but the flesh was simply not there. Her torso was all ribs and tattered cloth.
A cyhyraeth. A maiden of bracken, bone, and driftwood. It was whispered that they foretold death with a wailing song.
She was a nightmare. And yet somehow, when Branwen saw the truth of her nature, her song became all the more beautiful.
The creature approached on bare, skeletal feet. Branwen saw something glittering through her torso. A gleam of silver—no, not silver.
Iron.
An iron-tipped arrow had pierced the maiden’s chest and lodged there.
The cold weight of fear dropped into Branwen’s belly. She swallowed instinctively, and a few drops of the spirits slipped down her throat.
Iron was poison to the otherlands and to all those who dwelled within them. It smothered magic, like dirt poured on flames. It could drive monsters to madness. Iron sickness, the folk called it.
And this maiden of death had an arrowhead buried in her chest.
“Sweetling,” whispered the cyhyraeth. The melody was so lovely that it hurt. The song held all the ache of lost loves and faded flowers.
“What is your name, sweetling?” asked the cyhyraeth. Her voice was soothing as the touch of cool fingers against a fevered forehead. It made Branwen yearn to answer, to give this monster the power it needed to destroy her.
There was a cold touch at Branwen’s throat. Fingers that were half-bone and half-branch stroked her skin with such tenderness that a shiver of pleasure ripped through her.
“Tell me your name,” the cyhyraeth crooned. She had hold of Branwen, fingers curled around the young huntress’s throat.
It would have been so simple to tell her. To whisper the word that Branwen had forbidden herself to say. It was a name Branwen had tried to bury, to leave behind with the failings that accompanied it.
The cyhyraeth was so close, and she smelled of oceans and misty nights. It was intoxicating, as easy to slip into as a warm bath.
She opened her mouth—
The cyhyraeth’s song grew sharper, higher,hungrier.
—and Branwen spat her mouthful of spirits into the monster’s face.
The creature recoiled, its jaw gaping wide in a wordless scream.
Branwen’s left hand reached for her lantern, and she swung it upward, catching the cyhyraeth on the edge of her jaw. And this was why Branwen never stilled her tongue with mouthfuls of bread or iron.
Alcoholburned.
The moment the flames touched the strong drink, the cyhyraeth ignited. Fire caught in the wisps of her cobweb hair and the threadbare clothes dragging from her skeletal frame.
Her song sharpened into a screech. The cyhyraeth’s hand flashed toward Branwen’s stomach. Her long nails were jagged as broken barnacles. Branwen leapt back, but those nails sliced through the loose fabric of her tunic. It parted, a few threads fluttering through the air.
The cyhyraeth shrieked again, pressing her advantage. Branwen stumbled. Her feet were on damp, uneven ground, and this creaturewas swift as a fish in water. The fire guttered in the cyhyraeth’s damp hair.
Fighting back a surge of fear, Branwen ducked and rolled away, reaching into her pocket. When she came up, she threw another handful of gorse leaves into the cyhyraeth’s face.
But the cyhyraeth was too swift. She ducked beneath the flutter of leaves, her mouth pulled back into a snarl. Her teeth were jagged chips of river rocks and a terrible light burned in her eyes. Before Branwen could swing her knife, the creature had her by the throat again. She felt the wind gusting out of her as she slammed into the hard ground. Creek pebbles dug into her back. Her hand was pinned beneath her, knife sinking into the ground. She dared not thrash, not with her own blade pressed flat against her back.
The cyhyraeth hissed, her slender fingers tight around Branwen’s throat. “What are you? A mortal with a fang in her hand and fire in her mouth?” Even those hissing words had the cadence of a song. “The iron-blooded should know better than to touch our lands, our streams.”
