Elena is running toward me, skirts gathered in her fists. Her braid has come loose. Her cheeks are flushed deep, eyes wide in a way that makes my stomach drop before she even speaks.
"Raveena," she gasps. "Come. Quick."
"What is it?" I ask, though my feet are already moving.
She grabs my wrist and pulls, her fingers cold. "It's the sheep."
My heart gives a violent, hollow thud.
No.It rises in me like a plea.Please no.
But beneath it, something colder settles.
I let him live.
Gravel bites through my thin soles. The village is already stirring toward the pasture, doors opening, voices rising. Men stride past us with ropes and knives at their belts. Someone is shouting toward the fields, and I smell it before I see it. Iron. Wet grass. A sweetness that turns my tongue thick.
When we reach the fence, I stop short.
They lie scattered across the slope—a dozen of them. White wool dulled with mud, legs twisted where they fell. Eyes open. No frenzy. No scattered flesh.
Only absence.
Flies gather in a humming veil over the bodies. The grass beneath them is dark, soaked.
My breath leaves me in a thin sound as my fingers rise toward my neck. The skin there burns as if touched by a coal. I let my hand fall before it reaches the mark.
Behind me, someone crosses himself. The men kneel beside the carcasses, turning them over, searching for tracks. One lifts his hands, slick with what little remains, and curses aloud. Another one spits into the dirt.
"This is no wolf. No beast does this."
The word hangs unspoken, but I hear it all the same.
Strigoi.
My stomach twists.
I should speak. I should tell them what I saw in the clearing. Tell them about the red eyes. About the deer. About the way my blade burned him.
The travellers knew. Tata did too. Silver. Fire. Words older than these walls.
Prayer and traps will not stop this.
But when I open my mouth, nothing comes. If I speak, I will have to explain how I know.
How I lowered the blade. How I let him—
And what if I am wrong? What if it is my own mind unraveling?
What if I brought this upon us?
My neck throbs again, intimate. My eyes land on the sheep. On the clean lines of the wounds. The hollowness.
This is real.
And yet everything inside me feels unsteady, as though the ground itself has shifted and I am the only one who can feel it.
My gaze drifts across the flock, counting without meaning to.
