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I must nod off at some point, because I wake with a start to the rumble of hooves. A lone rider, moving through the trees with speed.

The commander has finally arrived.

The ground beneath my bare feet shakes as the newcomer thunders into the encampment. Chain mail clanks, boots thud as he dismounts. I can see nothing with the damned blindfold over my eyes, darkening an already black night to pure pitch. Straining my ears, I struggle to pick up snippets of conversation.

“Commander Scythe. It’s an honor to have you here, sir. An honor.”

“Burrows.” The response is curt.

“Sir, if I may say, your tactics at the Battle of Ygri last spring were simply inspired. Those Nythian scum fell like stalks of corn at harvest! I’ve never seen anything like it in all my years as—”

“Captain, if I wanted my ass kissed I’d be in a brothel. Take me to the prisoner. Now.”

“Y-yes, sir,” Burrows stammers. “Right away.”

The footsteps grow louder as they approach. I take a deep breath, bracing myself. Still, my heart gives a great lurch when a hand snakes out and rips the covering from my face.

Torchlight flares, searing after so many hours spent in darkness. I blink to clear the bright spots, but it does little good. Stars are bursting inside my eyes. Strong fingers fist in my dirty hair, dragging my lolling head upright with one rough jerk. His other hand curls around the noose and pulls tight, compressing my windpipe. Breath becomes an impossibility.

I thought I was past this—past the fear.

I was wrong.

The face that slowly swims into view makes my heart fail. What I can see of it, anyway, under the heavy black helmet. A metal nose bridge bisects his features into two unforgiving halves. On either side, the thick slashes of his brows are furrowed inward and, just beneath them, a set of eyes so dark, they seem two bottomless pits glaring out at me. In the flickering torchlight, he appears more daemon than man.

“Where did you find this one, a graveyard?” His grip tightens in my hair until my scalp burns. “She reeks like a week-old carcass.”

“Frogmyre Bog,” the heavily bearded man standing to the commander’s left offers. Captain Burrows. I recognize him instantly—he’s the one who put the rope around my neck when they caught me on the cliff side. He tied the other end to his saddle as they led me back to their camp, forcing me to run behind him or else be dragged. When, after almost an hour, my bleeding feet finally failed and I collapsed into the dirt, he’d rubbed my face in his horse’s shit, laughing with unbridled glee.

My hair is still clumped with it, the pale strands stained the dull brown shade of dry manure. The odor is enough to make a steel-clad stomach curdle. Beneath his nose guard, the commander’s nostrils flare. Lips pressed into a stern line, his dark gaze sweeps from my face to my feet, seeming to commit every detail to memory—skin caked in bog, skirts stiff with filth, eyes wide with terror.

“In rather rough shape, isn’t she?”

“Point bitch kept us in pursuit for three days,” Burrows hisses, glaring at me with unleashed disdain. “She’s lucky we didn’t do worse.”

Several of the gathered soldiers make sounds of agreement. Their resentment is tangible—as is their impatience. They’re eager to see me swing.

Scythe does not comment. Nor does his attention shift to his subordinates. Instead, it seems fixed on my wrists, where the irons have reduced my skin to a raw, unrecognizable mess of charred flesh. The agony of it is making me lightheaded. Or perhaps it’s the lack of air; his hold on the noose does not relent for even an instant.

Burrows grins, a flash of stubby teeth stained brown from chewing tybeae leaf. “Iron is a beautiful thing, isn’t it?”

“In the future, keep in mind, Burrows…executions are my jurisdiction, not yours. You bring me a halfling in this condition again, I’ll make certain you can’t sit properly in your saddle for a fortnight.”

A hush falls over the men. It is no idle threat, made all the more menacing by the tone in which it’s delivered: so carefully bland, he might be discussing seasonal weather patterns. His expression—what little I can see of it beneath the helm—is as empty as his tone and equally chilling.

The soldiers are scarcely able to look in the commander’s direction without cowering. Only my binds keep me from doing likewise. With the rope held so tight around my neck, I can’t move—not even when he brings his face a hairsbreadth from mine, regarding me as a wolf would its supper.

If I had the strength, I might head-butt him. Spit at him. Even summon a glare. As it is, just remaining conscious is becoming difficult. My lungs scream for breath. The starbursts have returned to my eyes, fragmenting the world around me into air-starved delirium.

If Scythe notices my discomfort, he doesn’t much care. “You said there was something…” he murmurs, “ odd …about this one.”

“Yes, sir.” Burrows swallows nervously, sidling closer. “There’s some unnatural symbol inked into her skin. A mark of evil, you ask me. Never seen anything like it in all my time hunting points.”

At this, Scythe, already immobile, seems to still down to his soul. “What mark?”

“We thought it was a slave brand at first. It’s raised like scar tissue, but blacker than the devil’s cock.” Some of the men chuckle, but there’s a nervous edge to their amusement. “Could be a tattoo, I suppose,” Burrows continues. “But even the best ink-mavens in Carvage don’t have that sort of skill. See for yourself. There, beneath her dress, right between her—” Burrows chokes into silence when the commander’s head swivels in his direction.

“ Beneath her dress?” He pauses and the very air holds its breath, as in the moment before a guillotine blade plummets. “I had no idea your prisoner inspection process was so thorough, Captain.”

“It wasn’t— We weren’t—” Burrows’s shoulders stiffen at the implication. He’s gone pale under the force of Scythe’s stare. “Saw it while we were putting the noose around her neck, that’s all. But when one of my men made the mistake of touching it…”

Burrows shakes his head, as if he still cannot quite fathom what happened when his second-in-command ripped open the front of my dress at the edge of that cliff and shoved down the thin shift beneath it, leaving me perilously exposed for the viewing pleasure of an entire company of soldiers.

Whatever that man intended to do to me—and I could plainly guess, from the leering gleam in his eyes—was rendered impossible as soon as his fingers grazed my strange birthmark.

“What’s this?” he muttered, his foul breath fanning over my face as he leaned in and ran two fingertips down my breastbone, which rose and fell rapidly beneath gulps of panicked breath. Before I could so much as flinch away, something within me—I don’t know what , only that it is there, and has been there for a very long time, waiting like a snake poised to strike for just such an opportunity—uncoiled itself from the center of my chest and lashed outward. The soldier reeled back as if scalded, clutching his hand with a moan that echoed through the Red Chasm, rebounding back in a sickening chorus of agony.

I was so stunned, watching him writhe in the dirt before me, it took a moment to tug my shift back into place, covering the whorled design once more. I touched it gingerly as I refastened the front laces of my dress with shaking fingers, half-afraid I’d find it white-hot. And yet, it was cool as ever to the touch—a shade colder than the rest of my flesh, just like always, no matter how feverish I become or how I exert myself.

The party of soldiers had stared from me to their injured comrade and back again, their eyes brimming with apprehension. As though I’d attacked the man on purpose. As if I might turn on them next.

If only.

Such power would come in especially handy at a time like the present. Yet, in truth, I’d done nothing to sear the skin from the man’s fingertips. Not intentionally, anyway. Nor could I seem to replicate such an effect after his comrades clapped me in irons—albeit with considerably more wariness about their hand placement—and led me back to this camp.

“Here,” Burrows says abruptly, reaching a hand toward my bodice. “I’ll show you.”

Scythe’s formidable frame shifts directly into the captain’s path, blocking him before so much as a finger grazes me. “You will not touch her.”

“I’m just trying to help! If you’d seen what it did to my second-in-command—”

“ You will not touch her. ”

Surprise blooms on Burrows’s face, then quickly sours into seething resentment. He does not enjoy being scolded. He even less enjoys being outranked in his own camp. But he’d be a fool to question Scythe’s authority. Clenching his stubby teeth, he swallows his objections and steps back a pace.

Still held painfully tight by my bindings, I cannot shy away as Scythe tugs one-handed at the neckline of my dress, undoing the laces with methodical movements. The weight of many eyes from the gathered crowd presses in, though his mammoth form shields me mostly from view. My heart hammers so loud against my rib cage, he must be able to hear it.

Cold air brushes the top swell of my breasts as the commander pulls my shift down—no more than strictly necessary, merely an inch or so—to expose the top half of the triangular birthmark. Mortification and terror mingle within me. I’d gasp if I were able to summon enough breath, but the noose is still held tight by the hand that remains above my head, preventing all but the most narrow slivers of air from entering my lungs.

I watch his face as he examines the strange design, trying to read his expression. There is no expression to read. He is blank, his intentions as inscrutable as the interlocking whorls and spirals he stares at with such intent focus.

I will the mark to strike out at him, as it did the man on the cliff side; wish for that snake of unpredictable power to come uncoiled once more and maim this new enemy standing before me. It does not comply. It sits cold and still within my breast, its fangs sheathed and silent, its existence as much a mystery as its origin.

According to Eli, I’ve had it since the day he first found me—a newborn babe with a crop of white hair, strange eyes, and a mysterious brand on her breast of such dark tint, it seemed infused with night itself.

Best keep it covered, Rhya , he told me again and again, so many times I grew weary of hearing it before my fifth naming day. There are those who might think it a cursed mark, child.

After the events on the cliff side, I fear they may be right.

Scythe doesn’t touch me, wise enough to heed Burrows’s warnings. But his gaze is so heavy, I can almost feel it scoring into my flesh as he slowly sets my dress to rights, his dexterous fingers making easy work of the ties. I’m not certain why he bothers—in a few moments, I’ll be a pile of embers—but I’m oddly relieved I’ll not spend my last moments on this earth with my body exposed for the amusement of strangers.

“The torch,” Scythe barks suddenly, his free hand extended blindly to his left. “Bring it here. I need the light.”

A young recruit steps forward, arm shaking as he extends the torch. I try to struggle as Scythe brings it close to my face, but my bindings hold fast. The flame is unbearably bright and scorching hot. My skin prickles with the promise of pain and, for a moment, my mind blanks with panic.

He’s going to set me aflame, right here, right now.

My eyes close involuntarily, shutting out my enemy’s face, my inescapable fate. Yet the torch never moves closer. Instead, there is a low growl of exasperation as Scythe finally releases the noose at my neck. Air floods down my throat, bursting into my screaming lungs. My ragged gasps are met with chuckles from the watching soldiers.

“Hardly worth hanging her,” Burrows remarks. “She’s half-dead already. Waste of perfectly good rope, in my opinion.” A gob of spit shoots in my direction. I do not bother to look and see where it lands. I’m too busy trying to catch my breath.

I’ve barely had time to pull in a full gulp of air before a large hand clamps down on my left shoulder and shakes. Scythe’s impatience is evident in every snap of his wrist. My bones rattle with the force of it.

“Your eyes. Open them.”

His command hardly registers over the roar of my pulse between my ears. The grip on my shoulder tightens to the point of pain. I’ll have more bruises by dawn—if I am still alive at dawn.

“ Open them. ”

I do as I’m told, peering at him through narrow slits. Torch held aloft, the commander glares down at me, frightening in his intensity. He’s massive—barrel-chested and so tall, he blocks my view of the rest of the world. A nightmarish figure. It takes every bit of my faltering courage to hold his gaze as it burns into mine.

Does he want to look me in the eyes as he strikes me down? Watch the light leave them as his blade slides between my ribs?

I refuse to blink. If this is my last moment, I should live it eyes wide open. I brace for the pain, but then—

Scythe’s stern-pressed mouth goes slack, just for a moment, a slip he covers so fast, I wouldn’t have seen it at all if he weren’t standing so near. However fleeting, I see…something that looks almost like shock.

Can it be shock?

“Impossible,” he whispers with a bleakness that sends a chill skittering down my spine.

“What was that, sir?” Burrows asks from a few paces back. “Couldn’t quite hear you.”

“Nothing.” Scythe’s voice is back to its normal brusqueness, but he does not turn to face the captain. He’s still looking into my eyes, searching for some hidden revelations encoded in their depths. His own eyes are unreadable. Two dark pools, reflecting nothing but flickers from the flaming torch in his hand. It would be easier to guess the thoughts of a statue.

Our gazes hold for a prolonged beat. His fingers, still gripping the torch, tighten infinitesimally. In the stillness, I feel rather than see him take a bracing breath.

“Shall we string her up, then?” Burrows asks tiredly. “It’s nearly midnight and we’re off to the southern front at first light. King Eld has called for reinforcements. Seems some Nythian rabble at the borderlands are making troub—”

The captain never finishes his sentence. The word trouble is halfway out his throat when the commander’s sword enters it, severing his windpipe in one clean stroke. I had not even seen Scythe reach for the weapon sheathed across his back. Nor, it seemed, had any of his comrades. The sheep are wholly unprepared for the wolf unleashed in their midst.

Burrows’s head has not yet hit the ground when Scythe whirls around—torch in one hand, sword in the other—and drives his blade through the two nearest soldiers with no more effort than a pair of shears snipping flower stalks in a garden. Another spin and two more men hit the dirt, their limbs crumpled petals.

Five dead in a single heartbeat.

By the time the remaining soldiers realize what is happening and begin to scramble for their own weaponry, it’s too late. Scythe is a blur, moving so fast it’s hard to track his movements, let alone block them.

One soldier takes the blazing torch to the face, his harrowing screams keening into the night. Six more take small, precisely thrown daggers to the neck, dropping like stones as their lifeblood pours into the earth. The others, who turn and flee into the cover of the dark wood as fast as their legs can carry them, he hunts down and eliminates with the practiced ease of a natural killer.

As Scythe stalks his doomed prey, for the first time since my capture, I find myself alone. Still lashed to the tree, the ground around me littered with the bodies of the men who made me their prisoner, I’m too terrified to be relieved. In the sudden quiet, I think my heart will beat right out of my chest, cracking through my ribs and falling to my feet.

My gaze sweeps the shadowy encampment, wide with horror. The corpse closest to me is barely more than a boy. His eyes are open, fixed sightlessly at a night sky he can no longer see. Was he the young recruit I overheard asking for advice, mere hours ago? I suppose it doesn’t matter, though I can’t help the pang of unwarranted sympathy that squeezes my heart.

He would’ve happily watched you hang, Rhya , I scold myself harshly. When did you become so weak?

I do not have time for foolish sympathies—even for the collateral damage of an innocent. Bigger problems are looming. For though Scythe has killed my captors, he is no savior. Of that, I’m certain.

I count less than five minutes before he stalks back into the clearing, his cloak billowing behind him like a reaper from the old tales, helmet gleaming dark silver in the midnight moon. With grim efficiency, he retrieves his daggers from the jugulars of the fallen soldiers, returning them one by one to their slots in the bandolier strapped across his chest.

He isn’t even winded.

The broadsword in his hand is stained black with blood. In the dim light of the dying fire, I watch him wipe it clean on Burrows’s decapitated body. When it once again shines, he rises to full height and takes a deep breath that broadens his whole frame.

Slowly, his head swings in my direction. The breath snags in my throat as his eyes lock on mine, pinning me in place more effectively than the binds around my waist. In two strides, he’s standing before me. I try not to scream as he raises his sword, but I cannot contain the faint bleat of terror that escapes my lips.

At the sound, he goes still. One eyebrow arches upward, as if in surprise, though his mouth remains a severe line. We regard each other for a moment, neither seeming to breathe in the quiet of the night.

Do it. I glare at him with what flimsy courage I can muster. Get it over with already.

As if hearing my challenge, his sword hand jerks and in one smooth stroke his blade makes its cut. Not across my neck, but through the noose that binds it. The rope falls to the ground as his sword flicks again, this time ridding me of the binds around my torso.

Free at last, I topple forward into the dirt. My deadened legs are incapable of supporting my weight, and my wrists, still clapped in irons, can do precious little to shield my fall. Pain explodes in my temple as my head cracks against the hard earth. The wind evacuates my lungs in a great whoosh, leaving me gasping in a heap.

When I manage to peel my eyes open, I find myself face-to-face with a familiar bushy beard and two pockmarked cheeks. Burrows’s severed head is close enough to kiss. I shriek and roll over, pushing up on my chained hands, my motions clumsy in my desperation. The earth beneath me is saturated with soldiers’ blood. I try not to notice as I drag myself along in jerky spurts, fingers clumping in dirt and fallen leaves, passing body parts and tree roots as I go. Each inch of progress is agony on my damaged wrists.

“Get up.”

The voice from above is cold. I decide to ignore it.

I think I hear a sigh, but I can’t be certain. I’m too focused on my rather pathetic escape attempt. I make it approximately two more handspans before Scythe reaches down, grabs me by the hair, and yanks me forcibly to my feet. I cry out in pain, but he does not yield—merely tows me along like a disobedient hound.

We cross the clearing in seconds, leaving behind the massacred men and their orderly camp. The fire has nearly gone out; there is no one left alive to tend it. At the edge of the clearing, a pack of horses graze beneath a tree. Amid the sea of dappled gray coats and soft white muzzles, one steed stands apart—a glossy black stallion, his color perfect camouflage for riding through the night without detection. He’s several hands taller than the others and wears an armored saddle fit for battlefields. A plate of chain mail covers his broad nose.

There is little doubt as to which rider he belongs.

Scythe releases my hair, but only so he can toss me roughly across the rump of the great horse—face down, my legs dangling over one side, my manacled hands on the other. Seconds later, a leather saddlebag strap cinches efficiently across my middle, holding me in place.

I’m too worn-out to protest the indignity of my position.

The commander’s menacing presence recedes momentarily as he sets loose the tethered horses. I hear the low cluck of his tongue, the firm slap of his palm against a series of rumps. Eager hoofbeats fade into the night as the cavalry leaves the camp—and their dead masters—behind. I hope they find peace in their early retirement, somewhere in the wild. No longer forced to ferry anyone into battle, no longer beholden to the whims of bloodthirsty kings. Just days full of sun and wind and endless grassy fields for grazing.

I fear my own fate will not be half so tranquil.

With a low grunt, the commander swings up into the saddle and, clicking his bootheels against his horse’s sides, spurs us off, into the dark.