Yet the lips of that broken body curve upward. She is smiling at me, eyes wide and calm as if the pain belongs to someone else.
Her eyes bore into mine.
My own eyes.
My own mouth, slick with blood.
My teeth sink deeper. The taste grows richer, thicker, unbearable in its sweetness. My hands clutch at my own shoulders, holding myself closer as the feeding continues.
The warmth between my teeth.
The slow pulse beneath the skin.
The body bending willingly toward the bite.
A harsh croak slices the air.
I lift my head.
A raven sits on a branch above me, black wings folded tight against the stormy sky. Its head tilts. Its eye shines like wet stone. Watching.
Waiting.
The smile beneath me grows wider. Another croak tears through the night—
And a crack splits the air.
The woods vanish as I tear awake.
I am upright in my bed, breath ragged, skin damp. Darkness presses close. A gust of wind sweeps through the house and the fire collapses into ash. Cold rushes over me.
Outside, the storm rages. Rain lashes the roof in hard sheets. The shutters rattle like bones. A candle flickers on the table, its small flame bending and trembling, throwing shadows that lunge and recoil across the walls.
Elena’s breath warms the hollow of my throat. She lies on her side, one hand fisted in the wool between us, lashes resting heavy against her cheeks. Her hair has come loose in the night. It spills across my arm, across the pillow, dark against the pale linen. There is dried salt at the corner of her mouth where tears dried and were never wiped away.
I watch her chest rise. Fall. Rise again. A strand of her hair has slipped across her cheek. I reach and move it away with the back of my finger. She does not stir.
She would not leave her mother’s body. She clung to it until her fingers had to be pried loose. When they pulled her away, her voice broke into something I had never heard before.
She sleeps now because she must.
Cold creeps through the blankets, climbing my legs. The fire has sunk into itself. Only a dull glow pulses beneath the ash, faint and stubborn. The air bites at my throat when I inhale.
I ease myself from the bed, lifting the blanket slowly so the air does not rush in. Elena shifts once, a small sound escaping her throat, then settles. I wait until her breathing deepens again. The ladder creaks once beneath my weight. I pause, listening. Elena’s breathing remains steady above.
The floor is cold.
At the hearth, I kneel. The ashes are pale and fine, soft as flour when I push them aside. Beneath them, a thread of red waits, buried but alive.
I gather splinters from the basket and lay them carefully across the embers. A twist of dry straw. A breath. I lean close and blow. The ash stirs. A thread of orange pushes through the grey, then withdraws. I breathe again, slower this time, feeding it air.
The thread thickens. It spreads along the wood, catches, climbs.
Flame unfurls.
It licks upward, thin at first, then steadier, casting light across the beams and the hanging herbs, across the door, across my hands.
Warmth settles low in my chest as I rise and watch the flames take hold. They rise and fold into one another, steady and alive. Light gathers along the stones, softening their edges. I breathe with it. The storm recedes to a distant roar. For a moment, there is only the fire and the quiet pulse ofheat against my skin. My shoulders loosen. Breath leaves me in a slow stream.
