Page 4 of Bone Year

Jace is on his feet instantly, offering me a hand and pulling me up beside him. The man stands at an odd angle, one shoulder slumped lower than the other, his head tilted sharply to the side.

Something about him prickles my skin.

“Do you think he’s hurt?” I ask.

At the sound of my voice, the man turns.

His head jerks first, snapping toward us, followed by his arm twitching as if his body can’t quite agree on how to move. He sways, unsteady, then stills.

“There’s blood on his shirt,” Jace says quietly.

We start toward him anyway, old instinct and training drilled into us since childhood, taking over.

“Hey,” Jace calls out as we near the edge of the clearing, “do you need help?”

The man’s head whips fully toward us, and now we’re close enough to see his face.

I suck in a sharp breath.

Something is very wrong.

His mouth hangs open at an unnatural angle, froth bubbling along his lips. The skin on one side of his face looks raw, slick, as if it’s been stripped away or burned clean off. His eyes are wide but unfocused, darting around.

“What’s wrong with him?” I whisper.

My pulse pounds in my ears. Gods, maybe he was burned or fell or is delirious.

I draw in a breath to speak, and the man explodes into motion.

One second he’s swaying in the brush, the next he’s sprinting straight at us, feet stomping into the earth. His movements are erratic, his limbs pumping hard like his body is being driven by something else entirely.

“Run!”

Chapter Two

“Not every wound bleeds. Some take the mind first and the body after.”

— Field Notes on the Cycle, Veilguard Archives

“Run,” Jace yells again.

The man lets out a guttural sound that isn’t quite a scream and isn’t quite human.

And he’s closing the distance quickly.

I turn and start running, my boots barely touching the ground, but then I realize Jace isn’t with me.

I whirl around.

He stands with his arms out in front of him, a dagger clenched in one hand.

“We can help you,” he says, but the man doesn’t slow.

My eyes widen. I slap a hand over my mouth to smother the scream building in my throat as the man barrels straight at him. At the last second, Jace’s wings burst outward in a flash of silver and light, lifting him clean off the ground and over the man’s head.

My relief fizzles when the man turns and starts coming straight for me.

I freeze.