Damn the bloody gods. This would slow me down.
My thoughts, honed by pain, turned toward practicality. I couldn’t bandage myself properly while atop a horse, but there was a stream not too many miles away. I could make it there without falling out of the saddle.
Probably.
I urged the stallion toward it. I lost consciousness more than once. The passage of time and the scenery appeared to skip ahead in erratic, sudden bursts.
Somehow, I reached the stream in one piece. The water’s glimmer in the fading light held a sense of purity following the bloodshed. It called to me like a siren’s song.
The horse drank immediately. I slid from the saddle, collapsed, and then staggered to my feet. Not caring about the blood streaming in rivulets down my side, I followed the horse into the water fully armored. The cold struck me like a blade, but I was already half numb from blood loss and using so much magic that it hardly mattered.
I didn’t know what the limits of the curse’s magic were, but with how much I’d used and how much damage I’d taken, I feared I was close to one.
I kneeled in the water for far too long, water swirling crimson with the remnants of lives I’d destroyed. I would never be clean of what I’d done, but I let the water take every reminder it could from my body.
I wanted to press on. Isca was ahead, and every heartbeat wasted was a risk to her. But another fight in this state…and I might lose more than blood.
I dragged my walking carcass onto the bank, untying my breastplate and jerkin. After tossing them onto the rocks lining the shore, I ripped a strip from my under-tunic. The fabric clung where it brushed the flap of skin, and when I pulled it away, the sudden air felt like being stabbed all over again.
Each heave of fabric tugged at the wound, sending a fresh line of fire through my chest. I pressed the bloody cloth into the gash and wrapped the remainder around my torso, yanking it tight until black dots dancedin my vision. The pain was almost welcome. It reminded me that this was something that would get me moving toward her.
There was a rocky slope not far from the bank. It looked like a defensible place to rest—ideal for a brief respite while the curse mended my body. I tied the horse downriver to a tree surrounded by grass and soft vegetation so it could graze.
It was hard to pull full breaths into my lungs with the bandage pulled so tight, but I managed the walk back to the rocky slope without passing out—barely. I shifted the boulders with heavy-handed use of magic, all brute strength and no finesse. One-by-one, they ground aside, and finally, an alcove opened, offering a burrow just big enough for me.
My vision blurred, and the effort it took to drag the stones back into place took its toll as I struggled to remain conscious. I crawled inside and let my body collapse.
Sleep swallowed me whole.
When I woke, it was with the taste of smoke in my mouth and nostrils. My joints ached as I pushed upright in my self-made cage of boulders, head throbbing. My hand flew to my side. The wound had knitted together under the bandage during my short rest, but the cloth was stuck to my skin with dried blood. I’d bear another curse-born scar.
It was deep night. No sunlight poured in through the gaps left by the boulders. Only smoke, that was thickening by the second, and flickers of firelight.
Someone had followed me, like one of those crows I’d warned Cadoc about. And they were trying to burn me alive.
Still half in a daze of sleep, the image that first came to mind was not the blaze around me, but Isca in the library, slipping a folded letter into the flames. At first, she hadn’t known I was there, watching her. But then she turned, and a soft smile had blossomed on her face.
Even then, when I’d done everything I could to avoid her, to push her away, she’d welcomed me.
A smile found its way to my lips too. But mine wasn’t soft. It was the beast’s bloodthirsty grin.
I pulled the surrounding air to me. The bubble of air would allow me to breathe while suffocating the now-roaring flames beyond. Startled shouts rose at once from a dozen mouths.
I almost laughed, overcome by the malicious joy that bloomed in my chest like a poison flower. They thought I was so easily beaten.
Nothing would keep me from her.Nothing.
I flung the stones aside in one massive burst of dark power. They screamed through the air, slamming into trees, smashing whatever they struck.
Dust and smoke curled around me as I stepped into the clearing. Like a lion emerging from the shadows, knowing it had already caught the scent of its prey’s blood, I moved with slow, deliberate steps.
Two men were still on their feet, fleeing. I let them run until the one ahead reached a tall tree. With a flick of my wrist, I tore its roots from the earth. It toppled sideways with a groan of splintering wood.
The men didn’t have time to scream before it struck. One was crushed instantly. The other writhed, pinned but still breathing.
The curse roared in delight.
Mercy was not in me, but exhaustion was. I lifted the tree. Then pulled the only survivor out from under it by one protesting hand. I dragged him, kicking and screaming, across the clearing to the line of horses left behind by the dead.
