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Likely, Gheroghe would not survive the bloodletting.
“We could not track Gesalac beyond your realm.”
Which meant he had likely taken refuge in a village, but where? More importantly, who was protecting him? One misguided Revekkian? Or a whole town?
“Dracul, take your men. Hunt for Julian. You are to kill anyone he turns.”
The noblesse bowed in acceptance of his charge.
“And Julian? How do you wish for this traitor to be returned to you?”
I considered his question, though I knew the answer. I wanted him alive. I wanted him to die by my hand, but that did not mean he should not suffer until his fate.
“Flayed,” I replied.
None in my company balked at the request, but I wondered what Isolde would have said had she heard my command. She knew my reputation and was not averse to violence, unflinching as she watched the impalement of our prisoners. But was there a limit to her ruthlessness?
“As you command, my king,” Dracul said, and in a blur of black wings, he was gone. A few others from our company followed, transforming into similar animals—bats, crows, even owls, whose presence had taken on a different meaning since Isolde’s attack in the woods during the Great Hunt.
Owls are an omen of death, she’d said, and death had followed those words.
Still, I let them go despite the dread.
I turned my attention to Sorin. “You saw no trace of Gesalac?”
“None, my king,” he replied.
“Then we will search the whole of Revekka until he is found,” I said and paused, gaze sliding over each expressionless face of my remaining noblesse. “And when we find him, none who have harbored him will be spared.”
My noblesse dispersed to call their men to arms and search their respective territories. Razan and Iosif went north, Vlad and Iker to the west, Sorin and Daroc to the south, and I would take the east. Mostly forest and mountains, there were few villages, and those who inhabited the eastern cradle were hardened. It was a haunted land, born from the blood and turmoil of its ancestors.
I knew this because I was one of them.
Now alone, I closed my eyes and focused on the way the earth moved and breathed.
If you are quiet, she will speak, Yesenia had said.
The earth had a heartbeat, a steady thrum, disturbed only by the thundering of hooves, the burning of fires, and…the screams of a dying woman.
Strange, I thought. Monsters did not usually attack in the daylight, even beneath the red sky.
I opened my eyes.
“Shadow,” I commanded, spurring him on toward the violent attack. By the time I arrived, the woman would likely be dead, but it was better to lose one mortal than a village.
Shadow’s feet hit the earth hard, jarring my body as I sat forward in my seat, the fingers of my left hand tangled in his mane. The wind was deafening as he raced around trees, heedless as lower branches whipped my face, stinging like small blades. The cuts healed quickly, even before the blood could dry on my face, but I did not ease our pace until we were within view of the monster and its victim.
Through a line of naked trees, I could see the creature—large, black, with fur standing on end down its back. It growled as it looked up from its prey, a woman with a swath of dark hair spread out over the leafy ground and skin so pale, the blood that stained it shone like the sun behind the red sky.
The creature was an aufhocker. Once a dog, it had likely been bitten or killed by another of its kind. Normally, they hunted at night, but this one bared bloody, razor teeth, its eyes aglow as it watched me approach.
Shadow snorted, shifting on his feet. He was not fond of dogs, least of all ones willing to rip out his throat.
“It’s all right,” I said, smoothing a hand over his mane before dismounting. As my feet thudded against the ground, the aufhocker growled and crouched, prepared for attack.
It knew, despite presenting as mortal, I was no such thing. In the aftermath of my creation, the goddess Asha sought to make something as powerful. The results were monsters with a thirst for blood that, while never obtaining my strength, were still deadly to humans.
I drew my blade.
