Then he laughs.
It is soft at first, barely more than breath. It rolls through the clearing like distant thunder, not loud but deep enough to be felt in the bones. Not mockery alone—something else, almost amused by the shape of my thought.
"You think this a bargain?" he asks, stepping around me in a slow circle. His voice brushes my ear as he passes behind me. "That I hunger for your trembling shepherds?"
He comes to stand before me once more, eyes glinting.
"I have no interest in feeding upon your precious people. Their blood is sour with fear and rot. It clings to the tongue like decay."
A faint curl of disdain touches his mouth.
"As foul as their souls."
The words tremble in my throat before I can still them.
"Why slay Doamna Irina, then?"
Her name sounds strange here, fragile in the mouth of the night.
He studies me for a long moment, his expression unreadable. The moon catches the defined line of his cheekbone, the faint hollow beneath it. When he speaks, his voice is softer, almost weary, as though I have finally asked the question he expected.
"Open your eyes, witch."
The word does not wound me the way it once did.
"She sought to bind you," he continues, stepping closer until I feel the brush of cold at my wrist. "To twist your path so you would not wed that pliant little rooster they call Radu."
Disdain twists the name.
"She would have seen you cast aside so that her own tender blossom might claim him in your stead."
My stomach tightens.
"No," I breathe.
"Yes."
His voice lowers further, almost intimate.
"She wove her wish into thread and bone. Tied it in linen and buried it where it might cling to your threshold. Words soaked in envy. Wishes rotted by longing."
My brows furrow in refusal, unable to stop what comes next.
"That is why I stopped her mouth with earth," he says, voice darkening. "Words soiled with such spite deserve no better grave."
A chill ripples through me.
"Ask your dear companion," he murmurs. "Sweet little Elena."
Her name settles between us like frost.
"Why does she avert her gaze when you speak of the bundle? Why did she urge you to silence? She knows what was done. She has known since the moment she saw the thread missing from her mother’s stores. Blue, was it not?"
His eyes gleam once again.
"She cannot bear it."
I shake my head, the motion instinctive.
