Chapter 1
In hindsight, today was probably not the best day for Seph to break the law. Not that there was ever a good day to break the law, but some days were superior because they lowered the risk of being caught. The mists had been the perfect shroud for Seph’s crimes, so when they’d rolled in last week, she hadn’t hesitated. And though it seemed the saints had heard her prayers by aiding her with cover, she soon discovered it also made her objective more difficult.
It was hard to hunt when one couldn’t see.
Maybe the saints were punishing her instead. But why didn’t they punish the dignitaries who’d forced her into this rebellion – people like the baron? If he hadn’t bargained their rights and resources away to the abominable kith, Seph wouldn’t need to break the law to feed her family.
She glanced down at the sack on the ground beside her, its cloth stained crimson from the contraband stuffed within: a dead jackrabbit.
One.
And she’d been lucky for that.
Curse this unyielding mist.
Dawn matured right alongside her mounting frustration, and she hurled an unspent arrow at the trees.
It hadn’t always been this way. Seph remembered a time, only three years past, before the veil between the kith and mortal realms had opened, when Harran’s woods had been bright and colorful and teeming with life, when her family had warred with the deer over the fruits of their munificent garden. Now they had neither deer nor fruit, the kith war raged a fortnight’s ride away, and all profit was beholden to a baron who gave nothing but took everything.
Except for this rabbit.
The thought made her feel marginally lighter, and with solemn resignation, Seph slung her bow over her shoulder, picked up her bloodied plunder, and started after the arrow she’d discarded. Dead leaves pillowed her tread, the ground soft and supple with morning dew as a pale sun flickered faintly through the mist. The seasons were shifting; Seph could feel it, could see it in every cloud of breath that rose from her chapped lips. Poplars quivered in the autumnal air, their little leaves tarnished like old medallions, and though the sun touched, it could not penetrate, could not warm. Winter waited just beyond Harran’s gate, and Seph did not know if they’d survive another visit.
Which was why she had to break the law. Hunger was louder than any voice or reason; it would not quiet until it was satisfied or its host dead.
Seph found her arrow atop a tangle of rotting tree roots. It looked so melancholy lying there, alone and forgotten in the mist. She crouched and picked up the little weapon with her dirty, frozen fingers, examining it from chiseled arrowhead to raven-fletched toes. So much discipline had gone into its crafting, so much time and too many resources.
Too much hope.
Hope, that abominable thing, always clinging to her soul like a disease. Persuading her to fight, as if there could be more, as if anything would change. For three years, she’d hoped while the world devolved into nightmare, leaving her family alone and forgotten.
Left for dead.
No, hope was a liar and a distraction. Just like the kith and the baron, it smiled and taunted with pretty words and brilliant dreams, and mortal kind had been fools to believe it.
Because hope had handed their power away.
“Would that you take my hope as you have taken everything else,” Seph grumbled to the saints, though she didn’t expect them to listen. They hadn’t listened to her prayers in three years. She snapped the arrow in two, dropped the fragments, and left them to the elements, then stood and turned around.
Only to find herself face-to-face with an enormous stag, not ten paces away.
Seph stopped short, bewildered and staring, while the stag glared back. How had she not heard its approach? The creature was a behemoth, larger than any horse she’d ever seen, with a coat as dark as a raven’s and a crown of magnificent antlers. The mist curled around its massive, muscular frame – the beast could feed a village – though its unusual slate-gray eyes stayed her archer’s hand.
She’d seen those eyes before, in her dreams.
Only glimpses, but never belonging to a body. It was always just a flash of color, followed by a swell of warmth and comfort amidst so much turmoil and death.
Those eyes did not bring comfort now. Only…confusion.
“Where on the saints’ cursed earth did you come from?” Seph whispered and tipped her head, curious. “And why are you not afraid of me?”
The stag’s ears twitched, but it stood firm, watching her with an almost… human awareness. Strange.
She should shoot it. A beast this size would feed her family for seasons. Had the saints provided after all? The thought alone made her stomach grumble afresh, not to mention the stag’s exquisite coat would provide ample material to fit her family with new gloves, maybe even boots, and yet…
Seph’s fingertips hesitated at her quiver. He was beautiful. Never in all her life had she seen the like, but sentimentality wasn’t a luxury for the starved.
Sorry.
A breath later, she had an arrow set and bow drawn.
The stag was faster, charging before she’d fully pulled back the string.
Surprised, Seph gasped and loosed her arrow.
It wasn’t a good shot. Shock had made her hasty, and desperation had stolen her focus. The arrow wobbled, and the stag swung his massive antlers, knocking her arrow aside.
How––
The stag rushed toward her, and Seph bolted.
She tore through the woods, leaping over fallen limbs and uneven terrain, but the beast was closing in fast. Too fast. She’d never outrun him. No, she needed height, if only she could find a low branch to climb—
A superficial tree root caught her foot and she toppled forward with a yelp. Her bow and arrow slipped from her hands as she tumbled down, down, and down, grappling for something to hold on to, to stop her fall—
She slammed into a boulder.
Wincing and gasping for breath, Seph glanced up to see the stag tilt his nose to the sky and bellow his outrage before charging down the embankment after her. Seph attempted to stand, to flee, but she wasn’t fast enough. The beast arrived in a breath, so she lay flat on her back and crossed her arms over her face, waiting to be gored.
The antlers never came. The stag snorted instead, and Seph peered up through her trembling arms to see the animal’s face hovering directly over hers.
His antlers reached the edges of her periphery, his nostrils flared as his breath clouded between them. Those large and glassy gray eyes fixed on her face, studying her with that same unsettling awareness. Up close, the color reminded her of folded steel, like churning vats of molten ore before it was cooled and forged into swords.
How dare you, those too-human eyes seemed to say.
Seph stared back, carefully inching her hand toward the paring knife strapped to her belt, when the stag went rigid. At first, she thought he’d realized what she was doing, but then his head lifted and he turned his attention to the woods.
The silence breathed.
Seph was staring up at the animal’s coat, at the rich swirls of velvety black hair, when the stag bolted. She turned onto her side and followed him with her gaze until the mist swallowed him whole.
What in the world–
Thunder rumbled through the wood.
Riders.
Were the baron’s guards in the forest?
Had Linnea ratted her out?
Seph’s blood pumped as she shoved herself to her feet, looking around for a place to hide. She decided on a tree, and only managed to climb the trunk and duck into its branches when riders appeared.
Her breath quickened, and she reminded herself that she hadn’t known anyone to be put to death over one rabbit.
They might take her hand, however.
The riders stopped atop the small embankment she’d just tumbled down, and the mist thinned, giving her an unimpeded view. These were not the baron’s guard. She didn’t recognize these figures at all.
Seph counted seven, all heavily armed and veiled in black, with faces hidden behind masks of bleached bone. Skulls, though she couldn’t name the creature they belonged to. They were human in shape, but flat at the nose with a grossly elongated jaw. A pair of long horns rose from the temples of one.
That one dismounted.
Boots landed on the earth with a commanding thud. The forest fell still, quiet, and an unnatural chill settled in the air, raising the hairs on Seph’s skin.
“Wait here,” commanded the one with the horned mask—a man, judging by the depth in his voice. He had a harsh tone. One who was used to giving orders and having them obeyed.
He took a slow step, then another, light upon his feet as though he did not wish to accidentally crush whatever evidence he felt so certain lay upon the earth. He crouched—his back to Seph—and lifted the arrow that’d slipped from Seph’s hands when she’d fallen.
Seph swallowed hard, silently praying to the saints that this man would not find her bloodied contraband.
The man held the arrow before him and trailed long, slender fingers along the shaft. He then removed his horned mask of bone and set it down, revealing tapered ears.
Seph’s blood ran cold.
Kith.
What in the saints were kith doing here? Seph might’ve thought they’d ridden straight from the Rift to steal more of Harran’s poor citizens for their war, but then why not use the main roads? Why wander into a part of the woods that no one ventured to anymore?
No one, except for her.
“Is it Alder?” asked another rider. A woman, and something about the voice set Seph’s nerves on edge. She strained to see this woman through the cluster of riders, and thankfully one shifted, giving Seph a glimpse. Ribbons of long, silken black hair spilled out of her hood, and while the other riders wore masks of bleached bone, hers was smooth and featureless and black as a starless night. It covered most of her face, but left her lips free—lips that were also black, as if she’d painted them in ink.
Lips that had said a name: Alder.
The name was not unfamiliar, though Seph couldn’t place it. Her thoughts were cut short as the unmasked kith stood and turned around, giving her full sight of his face.
The kith man was beauty and nightmare wrapped into a canvas of contrast. Black hair and white skin. Smooth planes and jagged bones. A long, slender scar ran through his left brow and ended at his sharp, angular jaw, but his features were otherwise pristine. Calculated and unnatural. His lips were too red—too bright, like his eyes, which were a cold and icy blue.
The kith man closed his eyes and dragged the fletching along his crimson lips, and Seph was transfixed. Mesmerized and terrified, simultaneously drawn and repulsed. She had never seen a kith before, not in person, and looking at him now, she was glad that a war and a veil separated their realms. He was too much for the mortal world, and it felt as though all of creation might strain against the press of his power.
Those too-bright eyes snapped open and shot to the trees. To her tree.
Seph slunk back into the boughs, her heart pounding like a mallet in her ears.
“It’s difficult to say,” Seph heard the kith leader say. “It reeks too strongly of mortal.”
Seph broke out into a cold sweat.
“Shall I search the grounds, my lord?” asked one of the other riders.
Lord? A kith lord had come to Harran?
A horse whinnied softly, and a long, agonizing breath passed.
“No,” the kith lord said at last, resolved. “He’ll come out with the right lure. He always does.” Leaves crunched, leather creaked, and Seph imagined him climbing back into his saddle. A moment later, thunder erupted and faded away, and Seph found herself all alone and forgotten.
Left with her was one dead rabbit.
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