Page 95 of Ballad of Nightmares

A bat collided with her head.

Her face slammed into the iron bars, grip loosening. She stumbled but kept herself upright. Another blow—to her thigh this time—and Ana gathered all her strength as she kicked backward. Her foot met the groin of her attacker. He doubled over. She had just enough time to glimpse him in a black hooded raincoat before she staggered down the sidewalk. A red-gold light flickered from beneath his coat, but Ana didn’t stay to figure out what it was.

Blood ran down her head as she tried to run. Her leg throbbed from the bruise, but she kept going. She heard him curse. Heard him shout. And she knew she didn’t have long before he would catch up.

She bolted through the gates of the cemetery.

What felt like a wall of shadows hit her body. She stumbled over a root and grasped to a headstone to catch herself. Darkness swallowed her whole. As the pain in her head threatened to close her eyes, she blinked and pressed it out. Tried to keep herself above water and fight it.

There was a large oak tree not ten feet away. Behind it. She could get behind it. But—

She needed a weapon.

She had her claw in her hair, but that meant letting him get close to her. She needed something…something… this was a cemetery. There had to be—

The staff of something standing upright in the dirt caught her eye. Someone had left a shovel out.

“I know you’re in here, girl,” the man shouted from the gates.

Ana scraped her way across the dirt until her back hit the tree. She twisted her neck, craning to try and catch a glimpse of his shadow as he moved down the path.

He was at least another foot taller than her. A bulky man, gruff and hidden beneath that raincoat. She wracked her brain for any catch of a feature that she’d gotten when she’d turned to kick him… Nothing beneath his hood, but—

The red-golden glow she’d seen had been a Firemoor brand.

This was either a mercenary, a spy, or a soldier.

Every person in Firemoor’s employ had been branded with the name of their current king on their necks. It was a tool to find demons within their ranks. Ana had often laughed about it as demons could heal themselves.

Ana waited for the man to start sniffing around that tree, waited for him to take whatever bait she could find. She crouched down, going for a thick limb, and then she tossed the limb far to her left. It thumped to the ground, diverting the man’s attention. Each of his steps sounded over the mud, and Ana waited… And waited… and when he was nearly at the back of the tree, she bolted.

She ran. Ran across that path as fast as she could. Although, the man had spotted her. He lunged, fast, and grabbed her by her hair. Ana shrieked out, struggling, but the man pulled her into him.

“I’ve got you now,” he growled.

Ana shoved her elbow back, striking him, and jerked away as he stammered. She lunged for that shovel, and when it was in her grasp, she whirled around, daring him to come closer.

“Who sent you?” she demanded.

The man held up his hands like he was giving her a chance, but she knew better than to trust it. “Easy, girl.”

“You hit me over the head with a bat and have the nerve to tell me to take it easy?” Her arms flinched, stepping closer and daring him to move. “Who sent you?” she nearly shouted.

He eyed her, hesitating. “The General,” he answered.

“Why me?”

The man laughed. “I watched you leap out of that fucking castle with the king’s heart in your hand. You think I don’t know who you are?”

“Why didn’t you stop me then?”

“Bounty wasn’t enticing enough,” he admitted.

That laugh clawed its way out of her and surfaced in the still night. “Bounty… If I’d been paid to take those castles, you wouldn’t have any qualm with it. Yet because I paid myself in blood and revenge, you condemn me.”

“Condemning you is what I get paid to do,” he said.

“Tell me that you have children,” Ana said, and she watched the color fade from his face. “Tell me that when you don’t come home, that your partner and your child will be just like I was. Poor and broken and scared. Does that not make you reconsider?”