Kestrel shook her head, mouth hanging limply. There were people inside. Survivors, just like she and Thom.
But that was impossible. Everyone was supposed to be dead.
Chapter 6
A Strange New World
KESTREL
Okay, maybe noteveryonewas supposed to be dead. But most of the population who hadn’t been wiped out by the curse had supposedly become monster food shortly thereafter. That’s what Thom had said. It’s what Kestrel had been led to believe.
Maybe Thom had been wrong.
Maybe, in all his travels and scouring of the lands, he had somehow missed this little corner of the realm, and so he hadn’t known that there were other survivors out there like them.
Or maybe these were the types of survivors he had warned her about. The kind of ruthless, horrible villains that she couldn’t even imagine in her worst nightmares. The kind who possessed even less humanity within them than the monsters themselves.
Kestrel staggered away from the wall. She clung her ringed hand close to her chest as if to protect her heart from the wickedness before her.
She considered running before anyone could notice she wasthere. But what if Thom really was inside? What if he had been captured and the only way he could get out was if Kestrel found a way to break him free?
Clearly, Kestrel needed a new plan.
The walls were short enough, the uneven stones providing ample handholds—she could easily climb her way inside. But then what? There was no way of knowing what was on the other side. She could wind up climbing right into a prison cell herself.
All Kestrel knew right now was that she couldn’t stay out here in the open while she sorted through all of her options. She needed to find cover before?—
“You there!”
Kestrel jolted. A voice—another person.
Footsteps thudded as someone marched toward her. Excitement had Kestrel spinning around on the heels of her feet, eager to meet the first person she had ever met out in the Wilds. Then she remembered Thom’s stories, the ones about how the people who remained out here were untrustworthy, bandits and vagrants who only wanted to hurt each other for their own gains.
All her excitement disappeared when she came face-to-face with the pointed tip of a spear.
Kestrel reached for the knife in her belt.
“Leave it, or die,” the feminine voice hissed.
Kestrel knew the spear would be through her throat before she could even swipe with her knife, so she did as she was commanded and left it in her belt.
Her empty hands drifted toward the sky as she took the woman in. Her armor and robes all but blended in with the desert behind her, but her skin? Every visible inch of the woman’s bronze skin shimmered with iridescent scales. Kestrel had never seen anything like it—never even heard Thom speakof such a thing. And her eyes? Two black slits amidst amber fillings. They reminded Kestrel more of the cobras that liked to hide around their tower.
The snakelike woman’s reptilian eyes looked down the length of her, snagging on Kestrel’s missing pant leg for only a moment.
“Ssstate your purpossse, girl.”
She didn’t quite jab her with the tip of her spear, but she did make sure to press it into Kestrel’s neck, indenting the skin in warning.
No, no, no. Kestrel didn’t know what to do. She searched her thoughts for Thom’s counsel, but he was silent as well. She was in this alone.
Kestrel could tell in one glance that this woman was easily double her size. All it would take was one tackle, or grasp, and the woman would have her. More than that, Kestrel couldn’t stop thinking about what her snakelike flesh and eyes meant. Thom never talked much about the Wilds and what was out here. Occasionally he’d let slip the name of a monster—like the cinders—or off-handedly mention a trade that had gone wrong with one of the few swindlers left roaming the lands. And when he did, Kestrel tucked that information away for safekeeping, clutching onto it as if it were the only lifeline she had.
Most of what she knew and understood about the Wilds, she had learned accidentally.
But in all those years, Thom had never once mentioned something like…like this.
Was it a side effect of the curse? That seemed to be the only thing that made sense. Maybe the curse changed people, turned them into the very monsters he had to fight.
