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The stag was faster, charging before she’d fully pulled back the string.

Surprised, Seph gasped and loosed her arrow.

It wasn’t a good shot. Shock had made her hasty, and desperation had stolen her focus. The arrow wobbled and the stag swung his massive antlers, knocking her arrow aside.

How––

The stag rushed toward her, and Seph bolted.

She tore through the woods, leaping over fallen limbs and uneven terrain, but the beast was closing in fast. Too fast. She’d never outrun him. No, she needed height, if only she could find a low branch to climb?—

A superficial tree root caught her foot and she toppled forward with a yelp. Her bow and arrow slipped from her hands as she tumbled down, down, and down, grappling for something to hold on to, to stop her fall?—

She slammed into a boulder.

Wincing and gasping for breath, Seph glanced up to see the stag tilt his nose to the sky and bellow his outrage before charging down the embankment after her. Seph attempted to stand, to flee, but she wasn’t fast enough. The beast arrived in a breath, so she lay flat on her back and crossed her arms over her face, waiting to be gored.

The antlers never came. The stag snorted instead, and Seph peered up through her trembling arms to see the animal’s face hovering directly over hers.

His antlers reached to the edges of her periphery, his nostrils flared as his breath clouded between them. Those large and glassy gray eyes fixed on her face, studying her with that same unsettling awareness. Up close, the color reminded her of folded steel, like churning vats of molten ore before it was cooled and forged into swords.

How dare you,those too-human eyes seemed to say.

Seph stared back, carefully inching her hand toward the paring knife strapped to her belt, when the stag went rigid. At first, she thought he’d realized what she was doing, but then his head lifted and he turned his attention to the woods.

The silence breathed.

Seph was staring up at the animal’s coat, at the rich swirls of velvety black hair, when the stag bolted. She turned onto her side and followed him with her gaze until the mist swallowed him whole.

What in the world––

Thunder rumbled through the wood.

Riders.

Were the baron’s guards in the forest?

Had Linnea ratted her out?

Seph’s blood pumped as she shoved herself to her feet, looking around for a place to hide. She decided on a tree, and only managed to climb the trunk and duck into its branches when riders appeared.

Her breath quickened, and she reminded herself that she hadn’t known anyone to be put to death over one rabbit.

They might take her hand, however.

The riders stopped atop the small embankment she’d just tumbled down, and the mist thinned, giving her an unimpeded view. These werenotthe baron’s guard. She didn’t recognize these figures at all.

Seph counted seven, all heavily armed and veiled in black, with faces hidden behind masks of bleached bone.Skulls, though she couldn’t name the creature they belonged to. They were human in shape, but flat at the nose with a grossly elongated jaw. A pair of long horns rose from the temples of one.

That one dismounted.

Boots landed on the earth with a commanding thud. The forest fell still, quiet, and an unnatural chill settled in the air, raising the hairs on Seph’s skin.

“Wait here,” commanded the one with the horned mask—a man, judging by the depth in his voice. He had a harsh tone. One that was used to giving orders and having them obeyed.

He took a slow step, then another, light upon his feet as though he did not wish to accidentally crush whatever evidence he felt so certain lay upon the earth. He crouched—his back to Seph—and lifted the arrow that’d slipped from Seph’s hands when she’d fallen.

Seph swallowed hard, silently praying to the saints that this man would not find her bloodied contraband.