Page 67

1

FREYDIS

I wish it were an exaggeration when I said I’d been running my entire life.

But I meant it in every sense of that phrase.

The world was nothing but scorched plains, jagged cliffs, and endless stretches of lands controlled by the feral beasts of this world known as men.

I ran. I survived. But most of all, I endured.

The stories of my world warned of creatures lurking deep in the woods—ones with glowing eyes, horrendous strength, and massive, inhuman bodies.

They called this world cursed, and it was. It was a place where life itself had fangs and claws and could tear you apart.

But I’d never feared the storybook monsters. It was the human men who hunted me, the ones with greedy eyes and cruel hands. They only saw me as a currency.

That’s what made me run. That’s what sent ice through my veins.

Tonight, they nearly caught me.

Raiders had ravaged the village I last settled in, destroying everything, killing anyone in their path, and taking women as breeding captives and men as workers. But I had been picking berries when I heard them.

I wanted to help my fellow villagers, but my fate would have been in the pillagers’ hands if I’d gone back. My only option had been to run to save my own skin.

Nevertheless, they were fast on my trail, coming out of nowhere, shadows cutting through the mist. I had managed to take out one. I’d fought him, clawed and bitten until I spilled his blood. But it hadn’t been enough.

I panted and ran harder, faster, yet I was suddenly sideswiped and tackled to the forest ground. I felt searing-hot pain and knew instantly that my attacker had plunged a blade into my side.

My survival instinct took over my body, and I kicked and fought for my life. He lost the grip on his knife, and I grabbed it. Without thinking, I plunged it into his eye. Shock and horror washed over his face before he grunted and howled, and then sagged forward onto me.

I pushed him off and was on my feet in seconds, slipping through the trees like an injured animal needing to find somewhere safe to lick my wounds. I’d never ventured this deep into the woods. While I was unafraid of the monsters, thriving away from civilization, that were ingrained in our folklore, the stories had done their job of keeping me close to other people and what I was familiar with.

But tonight, I never stopped, not even a hesitation, when I heard the men give chase.

The forest pressed in, the gnarled branches curling like fingers that were reaching for me. My breath came in ragged gasps as I stumbled forward, each step heavier than the last. My vision blurred, the darkness around me shifting, moving.

Watching.

I didn't know how long I ran, but when I couldn't any longer, I collapsed to my knees, my hands digging into the damp earth as I tried in vain to catch my breath.

The coldness seeped into my bones. I had nothing left. No fight. No strength. But if I didn’t keep moving, I’d become prey to those who chased me—or to whatever lived in these woods. I would succumb to the cold, and if not that, then later, starvation.

And as time moved slowly, as the shadows thickened and the air trembled with something unseen, it was then I realized I wasn’t alone.

I could feel it watching me. I swore I even heard it breathing.

Something inhuman was here.

And it was coming for me.