The White Dread lived up to its name. Bone-pale, its body resembled an enormous warhorse built of ivory mist, a shattered horn jutting from its skull. Black rot crept from its cracked hooves, wilting grass and flowers wherever it stepped. Its mane flowed like smoke caught in an invisible current, and its eyes?Moon Mother save me.Its eyes were pits of icy hatred.
The first time I’d been alone with it, despair rolled off of it in waves. My knees had buckled, and I’d fallen to the ground, gasping like I was drowning. That’s when I’d known this wasn’t just some monster Arabesque had cobbled together from spare parts and Dark magic. No, this had once been something else. Somethinggood.
And she’d cursed it.
“A unicorn,” she’d admitted when I asked, citing training purposes. “He was beautiful when I found him.”
She’d said it so casually, too, as if she hadn’t desecrated a sacred creature, one who was purer than the full moon’s silver light.
Ashmouth was hardly better, a hulking tangle of rotted wood and fungus. It moved like a shambling mound, all grasping vines and choking spores. I once watched it engulf a rogue who got too close, the poor bastard’s screams muffled by mushrooms and moss as it absorbed him into itself.
“A forest spirit. A leshy,” Arabesque had said. “It protected an old-growth woodland outside Prague until a chort slew it during a card game.” Her lips had curved in amusement at my expression. “The faerie king gave it a burial, of course, but forests are so poorly guarded these days, aren’t they?”
But the worst monster, the one that haunted my nightmares and made even the cruelest rogue look over their shoulder, was Splitter. A hulking construct of bronze and bone, nothing but jagged edges and whirring gears. It had no face, just a blank mask of ivory inscribed with glowing runes that burned red like hellfire.
“A war machine.” Arabesque had looked almost gleeful. “Created by a long-dead mage-smith. The runes guide its movements, but it was never alive.”
I found out real quick that Splitter stored kinetic energy from attacks and could release it in shockwaves. Four rogues had foolishlytried to take it down together, and Splitter had absorbed their blows for nearly a minute before blasting them all. Two died instantly. One lost an arm. The fourth was still catatonic in the med tent.
And even worse than the monsters themselves?
Their hearts, or what passed for them, still beat.
Arabesque had shown them to me. Three glass display cases arranged on a shelf in her living room. Not stored in jars or hidden away, but exhibited with pride. Each one wrapped in black thorns, carved with ancient sigils, sealed with blood wax. The White Dread’s heart pulsed with faint silver light, Ashmouth’s was a knot of decaying mulch shot through with luminescent mushrooms, and Splitter’s… I couldn’t even look at Splitter’s heart without feeling tainted. Some obscene merger of gears, Dark magic, and glistening red flesh.
Arabesque had just smiled like a cat with a mouthful of bloody feathers and explained that the hearts tethered the monsters to her will.
And why did she so graciously share all this information with little ol’ me?
“You’ll train them to hunt as a pack, Foster.”
Not a request. An order. One more burden on my already breaking back, but I did it. I had no choice. Refusing her would mean a fate worse than death, so I ran them through drills and formations, all while every instinct screamed at me to run, to shift and disappear into the forest and never come back.
My role as both trainer and spy was a delicate balance. I needed to appear competent enough to maintain Arabesque’s trust, but not so effective that her monsters became any more dangerous than they already were. I sabotaged as much as I could without raising suspicion. A training regime here, a tactical suggestion there. Small things that might eventually add up to weaknesses to be exploited.
I took notes, every scrap of information I could glean. Strengths, habits, anything that might matter later, and the more I learned, the more sickened I became. Arabesque was beyond saving, beyond redemption. What she had done to the unicorn alone was enough to damn her for eternity.
Moon Mother, I hoped she’d burn. I hoped she’d howl and writhe and beg for mercy. And I wanted to be there to watch. To spit on her ashes and curse her name.
Because some things deserve nothing less than total destruction, and Arabesque Harrow was at the top of the list.
#
A twig snapped in the darkness beyond the barn door. I tensed, nostrils flaring to catch the scent. Four distinct forms bled from the treeline, moving in the staggered formation I’d taught them. Dominic in front, Elio and Cosmo flanking Devi in the center.
They paused at the edge of the clearing, scenting the air, checking for traps. A minute ticked by. Then another. Finally satisfied, they darted across the open space toward the barn.
My heart twisted at the sight of them, these lost souls, these cast-off pups, these children caught in a nightmare. They were risking everything, trusting me with their lives.
Moon Mother, don’t let me fail them.
I stepped out of the shadows, my truck keys glinting as I tossed them toward Dominic. He snatched them from the air, his eyes never leaving my face.
“No one followed you?” I kept my voice low.
“Clean.” Dominic’s fingers closed tight around the keys, knuckles white. “Took three different routes, doubled back twice.”
Cosmo hung back, white-blond hair glowing in the moonlight. Elio stood closest to Dominic, dark hair falling across his face. I could all but hear his mind working, calculating odds and exits. Devi was shaking with fear, but when her eyes met mine, they flashed the defiance that had kept her alive these past months.
