Page 19 of Her Cruel Redemption

‘Does it matter who? Someone who has staked enough of a claim to carve numbers in all the surrounding trees. Some of the gangs of Snatchers who come to the Yawn hunting swoon aren’t worth interfering with.’

She rose to her feet, dusting her hands on her pants. ‘Or it could have been Binders.’

‘It could be Binders,’ I agreed quickly. Binders hunted her kind and sold them into the blood trade. If that would make them more likely to agree to leave, then I’d lean into that theory. ‘Let’s try and avoid that sort of encounter if we can help it.’ I caught the sceptical looks Gwin and Daethie exchanged.

‘Alright,’ Mae said, eyes darting towards the doorway, where the others were still scouting the clearing outside. ‘But you‘ll have to convince Goras. He’ll hate switching plans last minute.’

‘I’ll handle him.’

Once outside, I caught sight of Goras near the treeline, his arms crossed as he scanned the perimeter. His expression darkened when he saw me approaching, clearly sensing I had news he wouldn’t like.

‘We’re not staying here,’ I said, meeting his gaze directly. ‘I don’t like the markers on the trees. Anyone bold enough to mark their land like that is serious about keeping strangers out. It’s too risky.’

Goras narrowed his eyes, glancing back at the cottage and then at me. ‘We cannot risk open ground overnight in this part of the mountains.’

‘We won’t. I know of somewhere else we can go. It’s still a long walk, but it’s riskier to stay here.’

A tense silence settled between us, and then, with a reluctant grunt, Goras nodded. We quickly gathered anything we’d salvaged and regrouped, walking back down the path out of the clearing when the sun was beginning to dip into afternoon.

As we passed the tree with the number nineteen carved into it, I was suddenly gripped with a fierce, burning rage. He wanted to scareme?How dare he think I would scare so easily. I stopped, turned back to the cottage: empty, careworn, the number twenty only barely visible from here, and magic burned in my blood, the feeling a soothing outlet for the fury. I remembered the sound of his smooth voice counting out the numbers, remembered the thrill of running from him.

Not fast enough, my dear. It’s like you wanted to be caught.

I drew the magic, drew therage, into my palms and threw my hands before me. Lighting slashed through the clearing, searing-bright and landing with a deafeningcrack!My eardrums shuddered, my legs gave out as the ground shook, and I dropped heavily to one knee, hands clasping my head as pain tore through it. I groaned through gritted teeth, my vision swimming into darkness for a moment before there were hands on my shoulders and voices all around me. Angry voices. Shocked voices. Gwinellyn’s voice, right beside my ear.

‘Are you alright?’

‘Yes,’ I said, though I wasn’t. I felt like I was going to be sick. But with some difficulty, I blinked my vision clear to look up and see what damage I’d wrought. There was a huge crater off to the right of the cottage, where dirt had been kicked up in every direction and the ground had been torn away. But Baba Yaga’s cottage was on fire, the hungry flames making quick work of the thatched roof, licking enthusiastically around the edges of a great, gaping hole in the corner of the house where the bolt had struck. The windows I’d once cleaned for her had shattered, part of the wall reduced to rubble.

‘What have you done?!’ Goras was demanding as he appeared before me. ‘Andwhy?’

But I didn’t answer. Just stared over his shoulder, feeling an immense sense of satisfaction at the destruction I’d wrought. So much more striking than some paltry numbers carved into trees. He was ranting and raving about my instability or what have you, and Elias was yelling back at him, and I had the sense that Mae was trying to rein them both in, but none of it appeared to touch me because I was so light-headed and dizzy as I seemed to drift just beyond my body, not quite connected to my surroundings. Whenever I blinked, the moment my eyes were shut stretched impossibly long as a dark threatened to overwhelm me, but I managed to surface at the last moment each time. Perhaps it was the strength of the bolt that affected me this way. Perhaps it was how little thought I’d put into the amount of magic I was going to use. It had just erupted out of me, unrestrained, bloated on rage. I’d have to be more careful.

But oh, it had feltgoodin the moment. It had feltgoodto destroy something, to see my power at work.

I hoped Draven would return here. I hoped he would see the destruction and tremble for what it meant.

Come and get me.

‘Rhi, we have to go.’

I blinked Mae into focus. She was crouched before me, my hand in hers. I was on the ground, I realised. I didn’t know when I’d sat down.

‘Leozaurs live in these parts. They’re curious. They’ll be attracted to the noise and the smoke,’ she continued. ‘We need to go now.’

‘What’s a leozaur?’ I asked as she helped me to my feet.

‘Not something we want following us. A sort of winged feline even a wyvern will think twice about crossing paths with.’

A memory gripped me, of a winged creature with a spine-studded ruff leaping over me, wings snapping out to catch the air. Of one slinking across a cage in a menagerie, tearing Lord Boccius to shreds. It cleared my head enough for me to pick up my pace in following Mae and the others, leaving the burning hut behind us. We strung out in a line, winding through the narrow gorge Baba Yaga had called home, and there was none of the chatter now that had marked the beginning of the day. Tension rode the whole group, and it felt like a silence loaded with judgement. Judgement of me.

After one too many sidelong glances in my direction, I finally said, ‘It seems you were all worried for nothing. I’ve never seen quieter woods than this.’

‘That’s not a good thing,’ Mae said in a low voice, turning back to me to speak. ‘It shouldn’t be this quiet.’

‘The birds are smarter than we are,’ Kelvhan growled behind me.

‘What do you mean?’ I flashed a glance around me, all the thrill of destroying the cottage draining away. The trees were still and silent, the gloom between them deep. Would they reach out to grasp us the way they had when I’d gone looking for Baba Yaga? Surely not when I was travelling with people the plant life seemed to adore so ardently. ‘Is there something out there?’

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