She wipes her face on the edge of her cloak. “It’s not my blood.” She sounds calm, but she’s holding her left arm gingerly.
“Did it bite you?”
She goes still, and horror tears through me. Then, she turns and jabsher dagger forward, right as a Drained one springs from the bushes beside us. The blade plunges into its throat and she drags it across its neck until it crumbles to ash.
“How did you?—”
“They have an aura,” she says. “Or, rather, they have the absence of an aura.” She closes her eyes and tips her face toward me. “Over your left shoulder.”
I turn and slash to my left as a beast leaps from the mist. Its skin hisses where my blade struck, and it bellows a blood-curdling screech.
“What is that?” She darts to my left, bringing a knee up into the stomach of one of the Drained as it bursts from the mist. It grunts and tumbles to the side, and she buries her dagger in its eye.
“It’s the well water that hurts them.”
She turns toward me with wide eyes. “How do you have well water, and how do you know that and we don’t?”
She looks remarkably calm, but her heart is pounding. I’m sure the Drained can smell her adrenaline. I need to get her the fuck out of these woods.
She waits a beat for me to answer, then closes her eyes. “Two coming from your left.”
“You can see auras with your eyes closed.”
“Yes, and I’m less distracted by the mist when I do.” Her eyes snap open as a beast leaps from the mist with blackened claws swiping through the air. I swing my sword, slicing through its throat. I can barely hear the dull thud of its head hitting the forest floor over the swirling blood storm.
It’s getting louder as the mist gets thicker. I whistle, praying Nightsong hasn’t run off. The sound of hooves grows louder as the horse appears through the mist. He’s been treated by those with a special healing gift to be steadier in stressful situations and to recover faster. It’s why he can carry the two of us across the forest so quickly with so few breaks.
I pat his side, happy to see him in one piece. “Good boy, Nightsong.”
Behind me, Harlow gasps. I turn to watch as she’s tackled to the ground by an enormous, ghastly-looking Drained. I can tell that it’s new by the fact that it still has most of its hair, and its skin is only mildly gray. Its hands still vaguely resemble human fingers, unlike the moreadvanced Drained, whose claws extend all the way to their palms. Its posture is more upright, unlike the more advanced, hunched stature of long-turned creatures, and its body is more filled out and less gaunt.
I grab it by the shoulder and yank it off of Harlow. She grunts as its claws come free bloody. It flails, trying to reach her, shoving its bloodied claws into its mouth.
I plunge my sword into its heart, and it keeps up its frenzied thrashing another moment before turning to dust. Harlow leaps to her feet.
“They’re too frenzied. We have to get out of here now,” I say.
I can hear her bodyguard fighting nearby, and someone else struggling a little farther away, but we have to go or we’re going to be completely overwhelmed.
I whistle loudly three times: the signal to scatter. Everyone who can will race on to the fort. We aren’t too far now, and this is a last resort—but I need to get Harlow there safely or all of our plans will be for nothing.
Pulling out my dagger with one hand, I reach for her with the other. “Do you trust me?”
“No.”
I choke on a startled laugh. “After all the lying, your honesty is refreshing, lovely. We have to go now, and I am your only way out of this mess.” I grip her wrist, flipping her hand palm-up. “If I can spray some of your fresh blood here, they will surge here and not after us.”
“Why not use your own blood?” she asks.
“Because you’re so frightened. Yours smells better to them.”
Her face slides into a furious scowl, but she opens her fingers wide, waiting for me. I slide my dagger along her palm, holding her gaze, waiting for her to flinch.
She doesn’t. She closes her eyes, scanning the surroundings for more Drained.
As I watch, blood pools in her palm in a dark line. I flip her hand over and let it pour onto the dried leaf detritus of the forest floor. The coppery scent of it mixes with the smell of moss and the ripe scent of decay coming off of the Drained that were not cut with well-blessed blades. They’ll rot slowly instead of turning to ash.
My focus is so intent on her hand that I swear I can hear the firstdrops of her blood hitting the ground over the roar of the mist. Most colors are murky in my mind, but I can still remember blood-red, even if I haven’t seen it in ten years. Maybe it’s because the night of the attack is imprinted in my brain forever. Maybe it’s because of the way the streets of Mountain Haven were practically painted in the blood of my people.
