Page 1 of Wraithwound

Chapter

One

Lena woke to find that she was one body amongst many. In the stillness of the gray-tinged dawn, she knew she was the only living thing in this field of corpses. She stared up at the cloudy sky for a long moment, assessing the severity of the pain in her chest and dull aches that covered her body. Having grown up after the healing spring dried up and taken the oath of a healer, she thought she knew pain. But she was wrong.

Lena took a deep breath and gathered the courage to sit up. The sky careened back and forth in her vision, and she threw her arms out to steady herself. Lena regretted it immediately, wincing at the effort. When the world straightened, she looked around.

She had been right; the field was littered with mutilated bodies. The bodies of her neighbors and former patients, young and old. The funeral intended for one had become the final resting place for everyone.

They’re.

All.

Dead.

The words struck her like stones, the realization of what happened turning her stomach. Lena gagged and brought her hand to her face, fighting the urge to vomit. The skin of her chest pulled painfully, and she peered down, moving slowly, to find four large gashes across her chest and left shoulder. The skin was peeled back from her body at each laceration like a can forced open with a dull knife. She shut her eyes against the gore but opened them in surprise when she realized the wounds weren’t bleeding. Instead, they oozed slightly, the insides a sickly gray with faint black veins spiderwebbing out just below the surface. Lena had no idea how she was still alive with wounds so deep and close to her heart⁠—

The next thought flooded her with terror.

Where is Henry?

Her younger brother had been traveling, tending to some of the elderly patients in a few of the neighboring villages outside of Virdeen. It was possible he hadn’t been in the field when the attack occurred.

Placing her trembling hands onto the damp brown earth, patchy with withering grass, Lena pushed herself to stand. Pain speared through her so swiftly she had to bend over and brace her hands on her knees to stay upright. Lena focused on taking short, stilted breaths and stared at the pearlescent thread stitched into her skirt, willing her body to cooperate. The opalsilk glimmered in the low light, as if unaware of the death that surrounded it.

When she was able to stand without fear of collapsing, she set her sights on the village in the distance. Lena sent a silent prayer to the Goddess Quintessa that Henry had been delayed and started walking. When the stiffness in her muscles eased, she set off at a run, ignoring the burst of pain that radiated from her chest.

Lena ran up the main road, dodging cracked stones and splintered wood from neighboring homes. There were no bodies in the streets. It was possible they’d all been in the field for Neema’s funeral, but she knew Henry hadn’t been there. Hope sparked in her chest, but then her quaint house came into view, and her heart stopped. The door had been ripped from the hinges and lay scattered among the debris in the street. She spotted the purple God’s Eye flower that had lain on her windowsill just the day before, now wilted and dull.

Lena stepped past the threshold to find the furniture had been wrecked. Shattered glass glittered on the floor, mixed with potting soil from the herbs her mother had planted long ago. The familiar scent of her house, crushed herbs used for healing tonics, and the sterile scent of disinfectant enveloped her, but there was another strange scent that hung in the air. Something putrid and rotten.

She made her way towards the back, tripping over a broken chair from the dining room. The worn wooden table had been overturned, and behind it lay a hand. Every part of her stilled as she struggled to breathe. She rounded the table to find Henry lying on the floor. His once white shirt was stained crimson from the gashes all over his body and smeared with black grime. Lena collapsed onto the floor beside him and shook him gently, grateful to see that his chest was still rising and falling.

“Henry?” she said softly, voice shaking. His eyes fluttered open at the sound of her voice, and his gaze met hers. A smile grew on his face to reveal blood-stained teeth. He coughed, his breaths shallow and strained.

No, no, no.

“I knew you’d come.”

“Henry, where is it? Where is our last crystal?” she urged.

Henry shook his head.

“I know we have one—we have one left! Where is it?” she asked, the words spilling out of her.

“I gave it away, used it—” he said.

“You gave it—” Lena’s heart sank. It was just like Henry to do something like that, gift the incredibly rare healing crystal to someone else who needed it.

“Then we can try something else. Let me see,” she said. Lena looked around at the shattered pots, the oils, and salves now staining the wooden floors.

EverGods, she couldn’t remember what to do, where to start. It had been months since she’d seen any patients, longer still since she worked on an open wound and torn flesh. She moved to stand, to reach for bandages, a salve, anything, when Henry put his hand on her shoulder, halting her movement.

“Lena,” Henry breathed.

She looked down at him, his gaze intent on hers willing her to see the importance of what he was about to say.

“Mom’s journal . . . in there,” Henry said, dragging his hand over the floorboards and patting one of them. Her gaze lingered on the smear of blood marking the wood.