Untethering Dark

Chapter Forty-Nine

Red hair, minimally dressed, and stolen, bloody stag antlers atop her head. That was the description Gudarīks gave her—brief but distinct. Heldin would be hard to miss.

Crouching to the ground, Astrid sifted snow through her fingers, scanning the ground for traces of the rival witch’s magic. It was blanketed by red—both from spilled blood and the skirmish’s muddled heat signatures.

A flash of violet caught the corner of her eye. Violet like the smoke that exited Cigarette Man’s nostrils when he died.

Amongst the trees, opposite those the Wiederg?nger tried to burn, a set of violet tracks led away from the campsite, the stride getting longer and longer. “She’s running,” Astrid announced, pointing in the right direction.

“Not for long,” Gudarīks growled, sprinting off.

Schei?e! He was running on adrenaline alone. While Heldin’s energy levels probably weren’t top-notch either—not after juggling possession and resurrection spells—like a cornered animal, she had everything to lose. She would not go down without a fight.

Astrid ran after him. He’d not face the Otherworld-sprung necromancer alone.

Gudarīks tore through the forest at breakneck speeds, his quarry’s scent lodged deep in his senses, fueling him onward, even though his legs felt wobbly and weak. Sulfur and ash and something floral—a flower that had been extinct for thousands of years.

That, and the fiery glint of red hair betrayed her in the moonlight.

Heldin was breathing hard, fear and panic leaching a sour scent into the air, but she was clever, too. She ran where the trees were densest, places he could not go without bumping and scraping his shoulders and antlers. It slowed him down, but he wasn’t giving up the chase, and she was tiring fast.

Humans were pack animals. They relied on numbers to survive, and Heldin was fresh out of allies.

The distance between them narrowed.

Glancing over her shoulder, Heldin lifted a hand, smoke and fire spiraling around her palm. She let loose a sphere of flames.

He leaped out of the way, losing his balance as he crashed into a tree, shaking snow from its boughs. The second one clipped him in the shoulder, the stench of burning fur and flesh searing both nose and throat.

A shard of ice zipped by him, lodging itself into a tree Heldin just ducked behind.

“Schei?e! Not again.”

Astrid .

He’d been too preoccupied by hunting to notice that she followed him. Sneaky little rabbit.

Astrid drew up beside him and sucked air through her teeth as she examined the raw, scorched flesh. “Oh, Liebling. I should’ve brought my healing kit.”

“It’s all right.” He straightened. “It will heal soon enough.” Albeit slower than his usual, as the knife marks on his chest had only just started scabbing over, but he wasn’t going to share that little detail.

Another fiery sphere hurtled their way.

With a flick of the wrist, Astrid flung a shield of ice in front of them, just in time to block it.

“Nice work.”

“Thanks.”

They moved forward together silently across the snow, edging closer and closer to the tree Heldin hid behind. The third sphere she threw went wide; they didn’t even have to move to avoid it. Fear was making her sloppy.

“Don’t come any closer!” she shouted.

Astrid pointed herself to the left and him to the right. Gudarīks nodded. They were going to flank her.

“I’m warning you!” Several more flaming spheres shot around the tree. Astrid ducked one, sidestepped another. The one closest to him went wide again.

“Your aim’s not very good,” Astrid taunted.

“Oh, no?” Heldin sprang from her hiding place, grabbing Astrid by the neck and shoving her into the nearest tree. Violet flames curled around her fingers, licking at tender flesh. “How do you like it now?”

Astrid began to scream.

Gudarīks saw red and nothing else.