Horse-shaped but wrong. The neck too long. The legs bending at angles that make my stomach lurch. Jet-black coat that drinks the forest light whole. And its eyes, luminescent gold, burning with something that has no business being in an animal’s face.
It looks at me like it knows exactly who I am.
Not the size. Not the needle-sharp teeth.
That’s what sends ice down my spine.
I grab Kieran’s blade from my hip and get my body between the creature and the entrance.
It shifts.
One breath it’s a horse and the next it’s something between, half-standing, wrong-jointed, those gold eyes in a face that almost passes if you don’t look directly at it. It reaches for me with fingers too long for any hand.
I drop under the grab. Come up with the blade across its forearm.
Black blood. It screams, not animal, not human, something that splits the difference.
“ASH. DOWN.”
I drop.
Kestra’s magic hits first, a sharp crack, like winter seizing a river all at once. Then the light. Blue-white and sudden, condensing in her outstretched hand the same way I’ve seen Kieran pull shadow into solid form. Unseelie ice magic. She’s been hiding how much of it she has.
The blade hums at a frequency my back teeth feel.
She drives it into the creature’s shoulder.
The thing screams again. Staggers. The ice magic bites somewhere deep and the creature knows it, those gold eyes flare, recalculate.
It turns from her to me.
One more look. That recognition still burning in it.
Then it rakes my arm on its way out.
Pain detonates shoulder to wrist. Not a cut. A tear. Like something dipped in fire.
I clench my jaw and don’t make a sound.
The creature dissolves into the forest dark between one breath and the next.
Gone.
The hollow sounds obscene in the silence after.
My body hasn’t gotten the message. Heart slamming. Hands up. Eyes still tracking the entrance for a second wave because there’s always a second wave, that’s what they taught me, never assume the threat is over just because you can’t see it.
“Did it get you?” Kestra’s ice blade melts as she moves to my side.
“Yeah.” The word comes out steadier than I feel. I’m still scanning the entrance. Still counting exits. My arm is on fire and I haven’t looked at it yet because looking at it means stopping and I’m not ready to stop.
Finnian’s hand on my shoulder. “Ash. Let me see.”
The touch gets through where the voice didn’t.
I look down at my arm.
“What was that thing?”
