She bumps her head against me, as if to say, “Keep going.”
“Alrighty then,” I murmur as I continue on, but I move more slowly, filled with curiosity and a little trepidation.
We make our way deeper into the town until I finally spot people up ahead. The town square is unusually busy today, and I slow my steps, squinting to see what’s going on. There’s a commotion. People are gathered in a tight circle, eyes fixed on the stage in the center of the square. I’m confused, until I see them. A dozen young women stand on the stage, looking terrified, with guards I don’t recognize stationed at the end of the stage, and others roaming around the crowd.
What in the world…?
Inching closer, keeping Goose at my side as I make my way through the crowd, I recognize a few faces—my old friends, the baker’s kids, Mr. Smith’s wife—and they all turn to look at me as I draw closer. Their faces light up with recognition for a brief second before their expressions are replaced with looks ofhorror, and before I can even say a word, some of them rush toward me.
“Alette!” one of the children cries, wrapping her arms around my back. I bite down on a cry of pain at my still raw flesh, but I’ll never turn down a hug from one of the villagers.
The tension in the air is thick, and the smiles on their faces don’t reach their eyes.
“Is everything okay?” I ask, my voice low as I scan the stage of young women again.
Marta, an older woman I play cards with on warm summer nights when I’m in town, looks at me with fear unlike anything I’ve seen before. “You need to leave, Alette. It’s not safe.”
I frown, confused. “What’s going on? What’s not safe?”
Marta grabs my shoulders and starts pushing me back through the crowd.
“What are you doing? You know how hard it is to make it to town,” I tell her, exhausted but trying to make sense of what’s happening around me.
“You. Have. To. Go,” she tells me, looking nervously over her shoulder.
“I just got here,” I say.Has she lost her mind?I’d spent days traveling to come trade for everything I need. To come see my friends in the village. It’d be crazy to leave now.
Whatever it is, it has to be better than going back home.
“Alette…” she says my name through gritted teeth.
“Just tell me what’s going on?” I beg, Goose stamping nearby, seeming to sense my nervousness.
Before she can answer, a guard, who was standing to the side of the stage, points directly at me. “There’s one who’s of age!” he bellows.
I freeze, heart pounding.Of age? What does that mean?I glance around, and suddenly, everyone is staring at me. No onespeaks, but the looks on their faces are enough to make my adrenaline spike.
This is bad. Really bad. I should’ve run when Marta warned me, but I never could’ve expected danger to exist in our little town.
I take a hesitant step back. “What’s going on?”
Elrick, a terrified guy who looks barely older than I am, leans toward me, whispering urgently. “It’s... it’s the sacrifice. They take one young woman every month. You didn’t know? You’ve been in the mountains too long.”
The words hit me like a slap.Sacrifice?
“They sacrifice the girl to the fae,” Marta says softly. “It’s been going on for months, at least in our town. The altar was in Dewyvale for five months before that, Askinlily for several months before that, and, well… it’s been moving around the country for a really long time before that.”
They’re sacrificing people to the fae?A shiver rolls through me. The fae are bloodthirsty monsters. There could be no worse death than one delivered by them. I’m just shocked my village is participating in this. People used to regularly sacrifice others to the fae, but I’d thought those violent practices were a thing of the past, at least on our side of the country.
Bram speaks up, not meeting my eye. “We’ve already sacrificed four women.”
I can’t believe it. This has been happening for months, and I never knew. Instead of staying at my cabin, I’d come here, delivering myself right into their hands.How in the world did my cabin become the safe place to be?
“No, this can’t be happening,” I whisper as guards suddenly begin to circle around me.
“The fae need their sacrifice,” a guard says, and the crowd seems to shrink away from him.
I shudder at the flash of a memory, though it’s fuzzy, not quite real. A nightmare that claws at me from the shadows of my mind. A figure in the darkness, a scream, blood everywhere. My life, changed forever. Panic threatens to sweep me under. My breath catches in my throat.No. I can’t remember that. Not now. Not when I’m standing here, in real danger.
