8. Selis
Selis
She’s quiet. Just like I told her to be.
But it’s not the silence I’m used to—not the trembling, afraid-to-speak kind that makes most bounties go limp in the chain.
It’s sharper.
Heavier.
She’s still curled against the oak, face turned away, but eyes open. I can feel them. Not watching me, exactly. Just… there. Like she’s keeping count of my breathing.
She hasn’t said a word since I told her to shut up.
Since she said his name…
Lior.
When was the last time I thought of that night?
I drag the heel of my boot across the snow just to do something. My blade sits on my lap, cleaned, sharpened, sheathed. Everything useful is done. There’s nothing left to do but think; and that’s always when the worst parts creep in.
You don’t have to be this.
Her voice echoes in my skull, soft and certain like she meant it. Something twists and curdles in my gut.
No matter what she saw, she doesn't know anything. Doesn't know the screaming. The fire. The gods who turned their faces away. Doesn't know the way you become something else when every prayer you ever offered up gets burned down around you.
I should’ve hit her for that. Or gagged her. Something.
But I didn’t.
Because some stupid fucking part of me wants to hear her—even if it makes me want to rip my own skin off.
I reach into my pack, pull out the last half of a dried meat strip, and tear a bite off with my teeth. It’s tasteless. Too dry. But I chew.
That’s when I notice: she’s pale.
Paler than usual—and that’s saying something. Her skin already looks like it was spun from moonlight most nights, but now? There’s a hollowness to it. A grey-edged pallor beneath the glow. Her lips are chapped. Her movements dulled. Her breath is slower than it should be.
Because of what she saw in her dreams?
No. Something’s off.
And that’s when it hits me: She hasn’t eaten. Not since that mess back at the shrine. Since she drained that idiot bounty hunter.
What was his name again? Tiber? Tavian?
No, that’s not it. Doesn’t matter. He’s dead and she’s still glowing—barely.
I lean back on my heels and narrow my eyes at her. She’s curled tight under the blanket I gave her, as if that ragged square of cloth could hide the fact that she’s starving in plain sight.
Of course she wouldn’t say anything.
Of course she’d rather grit her teeth and pretend she’s fine until she collapses.
Fucking martyr complex, that one .
I bite down harder on the meat, jaw working like it can grind the problem out of me. I don’t want to deal with this. But she’s no good to me unconscious. And she’s even less good to me dead.
Even if I wanted to feed her, how can I?
She’s a vampire. She needs blood. Warm. Willing. Or at least fresh. Not whatever salted strip I have in my pack. But I’m not about to open my wrist and play nursemaid to some glowing cult-bred god-child just because she looks a little paler than usual.
If I can just get her back to The Garden... Hand her over. Take the coin. Leave.
That’s all this is.
A job.
A high-value target with a cursed birthright, a holy bounty, and a voice that keeps worming its way through every locked door I thought I sealed shut.
I lie back, staring at the leaves above until they blur.
She’s just a curse I have to carry a little longer.
***
We leave our makeshift camp as soon as night falls. The air is sharper, brittle. The kind of cold that gets into your joints and thinks about staying.
We keep moving anyway.
I roll my shoulders and set a brutal pace through the underbrush, chain looped tight in my grip. She’s quiet behind me—exhausted maybe. Or finally learning. Either way, I don’ t ask.
The light under her skin is dimming in slow, uneven pulses.
And I keep pretending it doesn’t bother me.
We pass a traveler near dusk—a lone man, cloaked, wide-eyed, clutching a satchel like it might stop a blade. His boots squelch in the half-frozen mud, hesitating when he sees us.
But it’s not me he stares at.
It’s her.
Naera walks behind me, pale and thin-limbed, the silver chain bright between us. She glows faintly in the failing light—like moonlight trapped in skin. Her cloak hangs in tatters. Her eyes don’t lift.
The man’s lips part. Just a little. Like he means to say something.
Instead, he mutters a prayer under his breath and presses two fingers to his brow, then his lips, then his heart—one of the old warding signs.
Something they used to do when they saw a corpse that hadn’t bled out properly. Or a miracle they didn’t trust.
“Gods have mercy,” he whispers, soft and shaken.
I meet his eyes, flat and unblinking. He blanches. Grips his satchel tighter. And veers off the path like it burns him.
Good.
I watch him vanish into the trees and don’t slow.
Behind me, Naera’s breathing quickens. But she doesn’t say a word. She doesn’t ask him for help or mercy.
She knows better now.
And the man?
He’ll tell stories. Mutter warnings over drinks. Spread rumors about the glowing girl on a chain and the mercenary with knives in her eyes.
Let him.
Fear keeps people far more obedient than faith ever did .
I glance behind me to see Naera watching the spot he disappeared. Her throat flexes. I hear the dry swallow even over the wind.
Yeah, she’s hungry.
And I’ve killed for less. But I don’t stop. Because if I do, I might offer him up like an apology.
And I’m not doing that. Not tonight. Not when Lior’s face keeps flickering through my mind like a flame refusing to go out. His voice, high and breaking, calling for me through the fire.
Selis. Selis, help me.
I clench my jaw, squeeze the chain tighter. Focus.
It’s her fault I’m thinking like this. That dream. That name on her lips. Lior. She shouldn’t know it. She shouldn’t see him.
We walk for another mile or two in silence before it’s broken once more.
“Selis,” she says behind me.
Sharp. Alert.
I snap over my shoulder. “What did I tell you about talking?”
“But—”
“You want your tongue cut out?” I threaten, low and idle. “Don’t tempt me, sweetheart.”
“We’re being watched.”
I don’t turn. Don’t even glance back. But something in her voice—that frayed edge of certainty—sticks in my ear like a thorn.
I pause mid-step. The hair on the back of my neck lifts. I don’t hear anything. Don’t see anything. Not yet. But there’s a shift. A weight. A pressure I can’t explain. Not a sound, exactly—more like the absence of one. No wind. Not even the soft murmur of the trees.
Just silence. Cold and complete .
The kind of silence that falls right before an ambush. Right before someone dies.
“I noticed it a while back, but—”
“Shh, quiet.” My hand slips to my blade.
The air tastes wrong. Too still. Too stale. She's right. We’re not alone. The woods are holding their breath.
And I hate that I didn’t notice it first.
Fuck.
I stop walking, but Naera steps closer, instinct or fear or both, and her shoulder brushes mine. She’s trembling. The chain between us glints like it knows something’s coming.
I don’t look at her. I scan the trees. Too dark between them. Too many places for something big to hide.
“Unchain me,” she whispers.
“No.”
“I can help—”
“I said no. Whatever's coming, I don’t need your help.”
If she wants to run, she can run with the cuffs still on. But despite everything, I find myself stepping in front of her.
And whatever’s in the trees?
It steps too.
Branches snap. Low. Heavy.
Then—
The trees scream.
Something slams through the brush on our left, fast. I shove her backward hard, chain and all, just as the thing bursts from the trees like a curse given flesh.
Too many teeth. Wrong number of eyes—black and glinting, crowding its skull like fungus on rot. Its skin gleams like wet bark stretched over broken stone, slick with sap or saliva or something worse. Fungal blooms pulse across its shoulders, blooming then retracting, as if tasting the air.
It's huge—larger than a horse—but low to the ground, moving with a sick, spidering gait on too many limbs. Eight? Ten? The movement’s all wrong. Too fast. Too quiet for something that size.
Forest-born.
Feral.
This isn’t a beast. It’s a hunger with claws. One of the old things. A half-myth that makes corpses of hunters who don’t believe in fairy tales.
Its jaw unhinges with a wet crack, revealing row after row of splintered teeth, yellow-white and steaming. A low, rhythmic chuff echoes from its chest—somewhere between a growl and a laugh.
I’ve seen something like it once after coming across half-eaten corpses left in a ravine back in South Velmora. People called it wolves. They were wrong.
Naera gasps behind me. I don't look at her.
I plant my feet and draw my second blade. Because that thing’s eyes— all of them —lock onto us with the slow certainty of something intelligent.
It’s not hunting. It’s claiming, and I’m not letting it take what’s mine.
It lunges straight for her— of course it does —drawn to the glow, the softness, the stubborn heartbeat.
“Fuck no,” I snarl, and meet it halfway, blades out.
The impact rattles my teeth. It’s like hitting a wall made of meat and moss and ancient, hate-fueled rage. My first swing opens its throat halfway—black blood sprays, thick as pitch—but the second misses, glancing off something hard just beneath the skin. Bone? Bark? Doesn’t matter.
It shrieks, high and sharp, like metal twisting in fire. Claws flash. One rakes across my ribs. Hot pain flares, and I hiss through my teeth, stumbling.
I twist low, driving my boot into its sternum with everything I’ve got. The thing stutters, off balance, and I don’t waste it—I throw my weight forward and slam it to the ground, the earth shaking under the bulk of it.
“ Stay down, ” I snarl, but it doesn’t listen.
None of them ever fucking listen.
It flails, one claw catching my thigh. Blood follows. I don't stop. I don't slow. I straddle the monster, one boot braced on its chest, and raise my knife.
“Ugly bastard,” I mutter and drive the blade down through the largest eye, straight to the hilt.