He goes still.
For one wild, breathless moment, triumph flares in my chest. Then I look up.
Shapes emerge from the darkness, forming a loose circle around me. One by one, men step into the faint spill of moonlight, faces rough and scarred, eyes gleaming, daggers glinting in their hands.
At least a dozen of them.
Hands seize me.
They hook under my arms, wrenching me upright before I can even draw breath. I kick and thrash, screaming until my throat burns, but they are too many, too strong. They drag me through the snow and dirt, over roots and frozen ground.
Then they throw me.
My back slams into a tree hard enough to drive the air from my lungs. My head snaps back and cracks against the bark, and the world explodes into white.
I gasp, a thin, broken sound, as everything blurs and spins. The forest tilts. Shapes smear into one another. For a moment I cannot tell which way is up.
Through the haze, I see the sprites.
Their small bodies are tangled in nets near the wheels of the carriage, wings pinned, limbs twisted at terrible angles. They lie unnaturally still, and panic claws up my chest so violently I nearly retch.
“This is the winter bastard’s carriage,” a voice says somewhere to my left.
Another laughs. “Look at it. Furs. Velvet. Silver worked into the frame. Even the wood paneling will fetch a pretty coin once we break it down.”
“Then get to it,” someone snaps. “Before he shows up.”
A colder voice cuts in. “What do we do with her?”
“She’s human.”
“Look at what she’s wearing,” another sneers. “Not like us. He dressed her up pretty.” A pause. A cruel chuckle. “Probably one of his little playthings.”
My stomach drops.
“That makes her just as bad as them,” someone says. “Gut her and toss her in the bushes.”
Hands grab at me again. Rough. Careless. They pull at my coat, my sleeves, fingers roaming where they have no right to be. I try to fight, try to scream, but my body refuses to obey. The world won’t steady.
Something warm trickles down the side of my face.
I lift my hand clumsily, my vision swimming, and touch my cheek. When I look down, my fingers are slick with blood in the dim light.
It pools in my palm, black against my skin.
“She’s wearing fine furs herself,” someone says. “And that wool. Looks expensive.”A laugh follows. “It’d be a shame to ruin it. Strip her first.”
My eyes flutter shut as hands tear my coat from my shoulders, rough laughter and the rank stench of them pressing in until it fills my head, until there is nothing else.
Then a howl rips through the forest.
It is deep and vast, a sound that feels as though it splits the night open. The ground trembles beneath it. Snow shudders loose from the branches above, cascading down around us in a white rush.
Every man freezes.
Hands drop me carelessly. My coat falls beside me. I lie where I am, dazed, half-conscious, gasping in the dirt.
Then they scream.
