Page 52

Everly

T he ground was drenched in blood that rained down from a crimson sky, each drop landing like acid that ate away at the grass, the trees, the people… Wynnie was running toward me, a child in her arms. They were screaming at me to help them.

I stretched out a hand, not caring that the acid burned my skin, but my legs were stuck. The ground split open, ice cold water flooding around my feet before freezing me in place.

No. No. No.

The child cried out, her screaming slicing all the way through me as a Wretch bounded toward them. Too fast. It was too fast. Wynnie fell to the ground, dropping the child to lay next to Yorrick. She gestured for the Tharnok feasting on him to take her next.

My lips parted, but no sound came out. I clawed at the ground, my nails turning to blades as they hacked at the ice. The child was still crying. I could still save them. I could still ? —

I woke up gasping for air.

The nightmare still clung to me, sinking its phantom claws into my chest as I jerked upright in bed. Everything hurt. From my head all the way down to my toes. I took a slow breath in, trying to calm myself from the nightmare, but even that was painful.

My back was damp with sweat that felt too much like the blood I had scrubbed from my skin. My heart pounded behind my ribs, like it was desperate to break free.

The room was still dark, quiet but for the steady rhythm of my sister’s breathing. Alive . She was alive.

I swallowed and pressed a hand over my chest, trying to slow the frantic rhythm. Just a dream.

Slowly, I untangled my legs from the sheets, and the pain in my head only worsened with the movement. The tonics had bled from my system, leaving blinding agony in their wake.

I took a moment to orient myself, searching the dark room for any signs of Wynnie’s vials, but there were none. They were all downstairs in the kitchen.

I glanced up at the door, nausea rolling through me as I imagined stepping back into a blood-soaked hallway, but another searing agony lanced through my head.

So, instead, I slipped my feet into the fuzzy slippers and threw a blanket over my shoulders to venture back to the kitchen.

Moonlight glinted off my dagger, and even though I knew Draven had activated the ward stones and knew he’d secured the manor, there was still a part of me that couldn’t face the blood and memories on the other side of this door without it.

Gripping it in my fist, I twisted the handle and headed back out into the hallway.

I kept my eyes up, away from the stained floors, and ignored the soft squish of untold substances that stuck to my slippers all the way to the kitchen.

When I reached the kitchen, I went straight for the apothecary. The door opened with a creaking of hinges that sounded too similar to the cry in my dreams.

A shiver raced down my spine as I pulled out two vials from the pain tonic shelf. I stepped closer to the window, using the moonlight to confirm it was the red liquid, not yellow, just as the cry sounded again.

I nearly dropped the vial.

My pulse picked up speed as I strained to listen over the pounding in my head, but there was nothing. No one.

Was it the maid again? Had she awoken to her own nightmares as well?

Uncorking the vial, I drained the tonic in a single gulp, choking down the taste of wyrmroot sap, before I heard it again.

A cry.

Not the maid. But a voice that belonged to someone so much smaller, so much more vulnerable… It was coming from outside.

I stilled, wiping the sleep from my eyes as I strained to listen again. It was hard to hear past the pounding in my skull, but steadily, the headache subsided.

And I heard it again. Soft and fractured, the high-pitched wailing of a child.

My skin turned to ice.

I dropped the vials onto the counter, then padded over to the window and brushed aside the gauzy curtains. My gaze flitted frantically over the crimson-stained snow, searching for the source of the cries.

There. Just past the ravaged stables, right before the treeline. My breath caught in my throat. A little boy was wandering barefoot through the snow. Trembling. Crying.

My pulse raced. I scanned the trees, the sky, the shadows, everywhere, for a sign of who he belonged to. But there was nothing. No one but him, and no sign of parents, or monsters that might have chased him from his home.

I thought of the villagers at the palace. Had the monsters who attacked Wynnie’s estate gone somewhere else, first? Had any stragglers gotten away to prey on another village?

The boy was so close to the wards. Just a few more steps, and he would be safe. He stumbled and fell on unsteady legs, legs likely frozen over with cold.

My stomach twisted.

I couldn’t see any monsters, but that didn’t mean there were none nearby or that they wouldn’t be drawn soon by his cries.

If I took the time to get Draven, would I come back to another corpse?

The wing we were sleeping in was on the other side of the vast estate. No one would hear me if I yelled, except, of course, any monster that might be stalking the trees on the other side of the child.

Shards .

I was already moving toward the door. If I was quick, I could pull him inside the wards. Keep him safe and warm and alive .

I grabbed a cloak from the hook on my way out the door, throwing it over my shoulders before stepping out into the snow. My gaze flitted between him and the trees, searching the shadows for any sign of danger while I quickly crept toward the boy.

"Hey, hey,” I called quietly, in what I hoped was a soothing tone. “It’s okay. Come here. You’re safe."

He didn’t respond. Instead, he kept crying, his face crumpling when he couldn’t find what he was looking for, like he was lost in a nightmare of his own. My heart twisted. I called to him again.

He lost his footing again and fell onto his bottom, crying even harder than before. He couldn’t be more than a few years old, younger even than Serelith.

I hesitated, my heartbeat thundering in my ears, before stepping past the threshold of the wards that shimmered faintly in the moonlight.

I kept an eye on the trees for shadows that shouldn’t be there. But there was nothing. No movement, or reaction. No monsters. No sound.

And then I crossed the distance between us in a few more steps, reaching out for his hand to get his attention. He wasn’t as cold as I had expected, thank the Shard Mother, but he was trembling so hard it made my bones hurt.

My heart pounded with every step away from the wards, and I counted the seconds in my mind. It would be fast. I could grab him and get us both to safety.

His wide eyes landed on my dagger, and he took a step away. The snow crunched, and I held my breath, praying that nothing had heard.

“It won’t hurt you,” I whispered. “I promise, but we have to go now.”

He shook his head, taking another step. This time he stepped on a branch.

Frosted hells.

I set the dagger down, darting out to throw the blanket around the child and scoop him up in one go. The blanket settled over his shoulders and I tightened my grasp, preparing to lift him into my arms.

But a deep voice sliced through the night.

“That won’t be necessary.” The words came with the telltale whisper of an arrow slicing through the air. It landed in the ground at my feet right next to my dagger, familiar purple fletching stuck up proudly like a victory flag.

My heartbeat thundered through my veins, but the child didn’t react at all to the arrow embedded in the earth the way he had to my dagger. Because he was traumatized? Or because the voice was familiar to him?

No.

I shook my head back and forth, trying to deny the sinking feeling taking root inside me. My fingers inched closer to the dagger when another arrow landed right between my fingers and the hilt.

“I really wouldn’t do that,” the voice said again. “Nyxa only has so much patience, and a fondness for using cold-iron and rowanwood to make her arrows.”

I jerked my hand away, pulling the boy back with me. Both of those things were deadly to fae, Unseelie or otherwise.

A shadow stepped forward from the treeline, several feet away from where the arrow would have come from.

It was a male with massive leathery wings that were torn at the edges.

A deadly claw punctuated the tips, matching the shorter talons that grew from each of his fingertips.

And a blackened steel sword rested loosely in his grip.

Skaldwing . Unseelie.

Every molecule in my body froze, my feet rooted to the spot. Even my lungs refused to draw air.

The Unseelie drew closer, his wings casting ominous shadows on the blood-strewn snow. His mouth split into a wicked grin, like he had already won whatever game he was playing.

Run.

I wasn’t sure if it was my own thought or the echo of my mother’s plea from the day she had pressed a dagger in my hand and told me to flee. A decade ago.

The last time I had seen a Skaldwing.

It didn’t matter, though. No sooner had the thought crossed my mind than the rustling reached my ears. Skaldwing shifters were warriors, by birth and by training. They knew when to be silent, so they wanted me to know they were here.

They wanted me to know that I was surrounded.