"Find them. Before they come back."
I watch it happen before me.
The square fills with motion, with firelight and raised voices, as the ravens cry again, closer now. Orders are shouted. Doors are barred. Paths are named. Men surge past me, torches bobbing, voices rising, the road calling them forward while, where I stand, the barn seems to tilt.
The dead sheep linger at the edge of my sight, their wounds drinking the light. Everything happens too fast. The torches are already heading away, fire bobbing toward the road. A string of insults follows them, hurled after shadows that are no longer there.
They’re mistaken.
It pulls in my chest, chilling in its certainty.
Radu is already stepping away, a torch thrust into his hand, the flame guttering as he turns. I push forward, heart hammering, skirts catching at my knees. My fingers close around his arm when I reach him.
"Radu—"
He looks down at me, startled. Smoke curls between us, but it doesn't dull the flush in his face, bright with purpose.
"Please don't go," I breathe. "I don’t think it was them. I think it’s—"
The forest presses into my mind. Wet leaves. Dark water. That breath at my ear.
"—something else," I manage. "Something in the woo—"
A small laugh cuts me off.
"Raveena," his free hand closes over mine. "You’re frightened. Anyone would be."
"I’m not." The words come out thin.
His grip firms, final. "Go home. Lock the door. Stay with your mama."
The torchlight jumps between us, carving his face in hard planes. He looks past me, toward the others, toward the road.
"The men will handle this. That’s what we’re here for."
My mouth opens again, but nothing comes. He is already turning away regardless.
His flame lifts as he blends into the movement, into the press of bodies and weapons and shouted names, until firelight swallows him whole.
I stand there, my hand still raised, fingers empty.
Around me, women gather the children, ushering them toward doors. Bars slide into place, curtains are drawn. Someone grips my elbow and steers me back, toward the houses, toward safety.
Torches bob and vanish into the dark. The ravens wheel overhead, their cries threading through the smoke. I want to run after them. I want to shout until my throat splits. Instead, I am carried with the others, swept backward, the village folding in on itself.
My head turns all the same, drawn to the barn.
Some birds have already descended. They crowd the slack bodies, charred wings folding and unfolding, beaks tearing at wool and flesh. One hops onto a sheep’s chest, its head jerking as it pulls. Another lifts with a wet scrap and settles again. Their eyes shine, their cries satisfied.
And while the night closes around the roaring men and their fire, the feeling in my chest does not ease.
Something else is out there, and they are not looking for it.
Chapter Three
Witch.
The sound drags me out of sleep.
