No, that note hadthought. It was a signal. A calling.
The wind altered, carrying whiffs of stale, rotted air whistling past. All at once, it was lost.
My throat hissed, a wicked, threatening sound as I spun, dagger raised, facing a man several feet from me.
Or what was left of one.
Raindrops threaded through the canopy as lightning tore the sky, and in its flash, I saw him clearly—
His skin was scorched, charred in ribbons, clinging to tendon and bone. The rotten stench hit me next, cloying in a sinful way.
I thought for a moment, wondering if this is who, or what, had watched us earlier. His scent quickly gave him away that this was unconnected.
Because I would know that tainted blood anywhere.
His voice cracked, his body starving for water as he said, “Hand over the weapon, girl... or I’ll tear it from your hands myself.”
The hand he offered was skeletal, bone protruding through mangled grey flesh as he gestured for me tohand it over. He leaned to rip it from my grasp as a rumble broke through the clouds.
I rose measured, clicking my tongue in irritation. “Touch me, and you’ll lose what little you’ve got left.”
My eyes dragged down his crumbling form.
How was he still moving? Still breathing? Perhaps the Bale had found a way to destroy us in our flesh after all.
He didn’t give me time to ponder—the sunken hollows of his eyes flared black and a low vibration shivered through the blade at my hip, dancing along the forest floor, until all the metal surrounding us answered him.
Oh, fuck. A ferrokind, here in Luamis?
“Don’t!”
He did it anyway.
He waved his hand, the weapons I’d collected earlier now hovering in an obedient ring around him: knives quivering, swords angling, daggers pointing with intent.
An eerie smile split his face. “Last chance to run. Or do you hear death calling?”
I almost reached through the bond to Callum. Almost reached for something deeper, into that buried place where true magic should have lived.
But eight years of an unspoken power had proven what I already knew—
Whatever gift the gods had withheld, the curse had claimed.
So, a curse was what I would wield.
My fists unfurled, fingers trembling as I called its name. “Eeva.”Live.
The word itself was haunted, born from a language long dead.
The serpent unlatched from my wrist, unraveling in shadow, climbing the air like smoke, like breath turned tangible, until it loomed above us, waiting.
The black in his eyes widened, some forgotten memory of fear flickering across his face.
The Viper purred in my skull and I tilted my head, words falling sweet as honey. “Last chance to drop my dagger, handsome.”
His stained teeth gritted together. “As you wish.”
The air split when he whistled. Every sword, every dagger I had gathered snapped straight, shivering with purpose, aimed directly at me.
