Chapter 2 Lena
TWO
LENA
Her footsteps slammed against the frozen earth as Lena made her way back through the village, frosted huts and darkened windows flying by in a blur.
Even though the scream had stopped almost as suddenly as it had started, the echo of it vibrated through Lena’s bones.
Please, she thought, gripping the hilt of her dagger until her knuckles burned. Let me get there in time.
The village, which had been crowded with a dozen of her people just hours earlier, was now empty.
No candles flared to life beyond the darkened windows.
No doors creaked open. And even though Lena knew hiding was the smartest choice in a place as unforgivable as the Wilds, she couldn’t ignore the rush of anger that went through her at the sight.
It stayed with her as she reached the far end of the village, where skeletal branches reached toward her like claws, and the familiar form of Maia AEspen lay crumpled in the snow.
No.
Lena kept running, even when the world swayed dangerously beneath her feet. Even when the panic threatened to swallow her whole. She was three feet away from her friend when she finally saw the creature in the shadows.
At first she thought it was just a wolf. It had the same lupine body. The same thick fur.
But as her eyes adjusted to the darkness, Lena froze.
It wasn’t a wolf at all. Its snout was too long, with fangs that protruded over an almost skeletal-like jaw, and eyes the pure white of freshly fallen snow. And its fingers, like the branches behind it, were twisted, skeletal things.
An awful, ancient truth tugged at Lena’s brain as she stared at those claws, her legs locked beneath her, her hand clutching the hilt of her dagger hard enough to hurt.
It wasn’t any animal Lena had ever seen, but she recognized it all the same.
Wylfen. The wolf-like korupted from her mother’s stories.
Flakes of snow hovered in the air before Lena’s eyes, and there was a roaring in her ears that sounded almost like the whispering crescendo of a dozen different people all at once.
She was hallucinating. Months on the road with little food had muddled her brain, conjuring visions from her imagination.
The wylfen weren’t real. They were just metaphors for the corruption the Fateweaver’s creation had brought to their world. They were—
From her place on the ground, Maia let out a small, barely perceptible whimper.
The sound brought Lena back to herself. She drew her bow, ignoring the twinge her wrist gave in response. She had to get to Maia before—
“Maia!”
The wylfen’s pointed ears twitched at the sound of Finaen’s voice. In the space of a heartbeat, Finaen was between her and the creature, his axe raised.
“Wait!”
Her shout pierced the air. The creature crashed into Finaen, tumbling him to the half-frozen ground. Finaen’s axe flew from his grip.
Lena notched an arrow and found her mark. But the creature …
She froze, the howling wind stealing her breath.
The wylfen’s fangs were inches from Finaen’s throat, saliva dripping from them in thick, disgusting strings. Its white eyes were fixed on Lena, every muscle in its twisted body pulled taut as it stopped itself from dealing the killing blow.
Was it … hesitating?
A sharp pain erupted from her wrist. The air around the wylfen shimmered, and a sickening dread began to fill Lena’s veins as she saw the faintest glow of threads in the air.
Dozens of them, hovering around the creature like a tapestry waiting to be unraveled.
They were faint. Faint enough that Lena could almost convince herself she was imagining them as well as the shadows surrounding them.
But then there was a voice in her mind, a whisper, telling her to reach out and—
Finaen’s axe flew through the air and embedded itself into the korupted’s side with a sickening thud.
“Lena, shoot it now!”
She’d taken a few steps closer to the creature without realizing it. The hand holding her bow had lowered to her side, and the other one—the one she’d felt that spark of pain in—was rising to reach out toward the creature.
The creature hesitated long enough to blink at her, as if acknowledging her mercy, before bolting into the darkness of the trees.
Finaen was already moving toward his sister, his breath coming in short, heavy gasps. He cradled Maia’s head in his lap, stroking her damp hair with shaking hands. “Maia, Maia, can you hear me?”
At the sight of Maia, whatever force had been keeping Lena at bay loosened its grip.
She was at Finaen’s side before she even realized she was moving.
Maia lay still, her skin as pale as the frosted ground beneath her.
Lena’s gaze swept over her. There was no blood that she could see, but there was a faint, plum-colored bruise forming at her temple that made Lena feel sick.
Lena was no healer, yet she’d heard tales of people bleeding from the inside, their life fading away without anyone even knowing.
If the wound to her head was a bad one, then they’d need to move fast.
She was about to snap instructions to Finaen when Maia’s eyes fluttered open.
“Oh, thank the Sisters.” Finaen breathed out.
“What happened?” Maia asked.
A sob escaped Lena’s lips. She’s okay. She reached out to take Maia’s hand. “Are you alright?” she asked through the lump in her throat. It was only when Maia nodded that some of the tension in Lena’s shoulders released. “Can you stand?”
Maia gave another nod. “I think so.”
Together, Lena and Finaen helped Maia to her feet, their gazes drifting back to the tree line. There was no sign of movement. No indication the creature she’d allowed to escape was coming back to finish the job.
Still, Lena’s stomach twisted.
“What in fate’s name was that?” Finaen hissed at her under his breath. “Why did that thing—”
“Later.” Lena’s voice shook. “We need to get Maia to healer Estryd.”
But Maia shrugged out of her grip. “I’m not going anywhere until one of you tells me what in the name of the Lost Sisters that thing was!”
“It was just a wolf,” Lena said, before Finaen could speak.
She hated lying to Maia; even with her frail body, she was one of the strongest people Lena knew. If anyone would be able to handle the truth, it was her.
But telling her the truth meant admitting it to herself.
“Come on, let’s—ah!” Another wave of pain in her wrist cut off Lena’s words. She grasped her arm to her chest, eyes screwing shut against the pain. Ice burned through her veins, the cold creeping closer and closer to her heart.
“Are you alright?” Finaen’s voice was thick with worry.
She let out a breath as the chill began to pass and tenderly opened her eyes. Her skin tingled, as if someone had taken a hot blade and carved a circle into her flesh, and Finaen was looking at her in a way he never had before.
“Your eyes, they’re silver. And that creature …” He glanced down at the wrist she’d been cradling. “Lift up your sleeve.”
“What? No, I said it’s fine.” She made to move past him, but his fingers curled around her wrist. She gave a single tug, anger and panic flaring. “Finaen, let me go.”
But it was too late. He’d already turned her arm over and slid up her sleeve, revealing the pale flesh beneath.
And the faint outline of a familiar symbol etched into her skin.
Lena’s heart gave a single, nauseating thud.
Finaen opened his mouth to speak, but something over Lena’s shoulder must have caught his attention.
Lena followed his gaze, her heartbeat a wild, erratic thing in her chest. In the distance, the unmistakable flicker of torchlight cut through the dark, illuminating a half dozen silhouettes riding toward Forvyrg at an alarming speed.
Maia swore under her breath. “Is that—”
“The Fist,” Finaen cut Maia off, confirming Lena’s initial assumption. He turned to her, and the world shifted beneath her feet at the look in his eyes.
Don’t say it, she thought. Please.
But if Finaen could sense her need to pretend for just a while longer, he showed no sign of it. He knew the truth as surely as her own heart did.
She was the reason the Empire’s Fist was here.
“No.” She shook her head, taking an unsteady step back. Away from Finaen. Away from the truth.
“They’re here for you,” Finaen said, and Lena could see him putting the pieces together.
The raids on villages in the Wilds, as if the Fist were searching for something—someone.
The appearance of a creature that should have only existed in stories.
A creature that had listened to Lena when she’d begged it to stop.
She took another step back, inching toward the safety of the tree line. If the Fist found her here, she’d be trapped, forced to serve the son of the man who had left her people to rot.
As if sensing what she was about to do, Finaen’s eyes widened. He reached for her, hands that had once held her with such tenderness now wrapping around her wrist in an iron grip.
“Finaen,” Lena whispered, her voice steady despite the thundering of her heart. “Let me go.”
The moment stretched before her, and for a second Lena saw the flicker of silver threads, encasing her and Finaen in a web of glistening silver. Then he released her, his expression crumpling.
“Will someone tell me what in the Sisters’ name is going on?
” Maia snapped, fierce even with her chattering teeth and blue-tinged lips.
Her golden curls were weighed down with frost, and a strand was stuck to her cheek.
Lena’s fingers twitched with the urge to brush it away.
To hold her close and tell her that everything was going to be alright.
“I—”
“She’s the next Fateweaver,” Finaen said before she could find the words. He cast a glance over his shoulder, to where the flickering light of the Fist’s torches moved at an alarmingly quick pace.
Lena was running out of time.
Maia blinked up at her with wide, glimmering eyes. “Is that true?”
“No,” Lena said, even as her heart whispered yes.