Page 17 of A Reign of Roses
Snap.Another.
Whatever was hunting me was heavy-footed.
Exhausted irritation—not fear—fogged my gaze as I squinted into the moonlit tree line. I’d been without my lighte for less than four days and already it was more infuriating than anything else. Had I known I’d be stripped of my power, I’d have taken a horse or sled through Vorst. But I’d relied on my dragon’s wings to carry me through the region’s skies and now…now as I slept in ditches and trekked on foot through miles and miles of silent, blustering ice, it seemed the only real gift the Fae God had bestowed upon me was a near-constant urge to jerk my chin over my shoulder.
On my way from bleak, gray Vorst to Pearl’s capital, Carrus, I’d narrowly avoided snarling white leopards and lumbering grizzly bears.Animals I wouldn’t have batted an eye at a week ago. I’d taken a mixed approach of hiding, distraction, and the occasional hunter’s trap, but this thing…whatever snapped that branch, it had been tracking me.
I’d heard the sounds a few miles back, but kept moving until night sunk the temperature so low my breath crystalized in the air before it was halfway out my nose. As the daylight withered away, this decaying wheelbarrow had beckoned to me like a mirage in a desert of ice. Now, as I crouched behind it, its termite-laden wood was all that stood between me and whatever was out there.
Another branch snapped, followed by the rustle of scarce pines. Wind howled at my neck and I pulled my hood up in protection from the sting. Every layer of snow between my thick winter leathers and fur-lined cloak nudged me that much closer to frostbite.
Without making a sound, I stood and unsheathed my sword. Moonlight glinted off its shining surface. A bright harvest moon. For some inexplicable reason the otherworldly glow reflected in my steel made my chest tighten.
A bleak moan as something broke through the tree line was my only hint.
And then, she was shuffling toward me through the snow, her hobbling, disfigured feet facing backward. Matted white hair hung around her ghoulish face, lit by heavy moonlight.
A snow wraith.
I scrambled back on rocky ice, heart in my throat.
My skin was far too thin over my muscles. My breath too shallow sawing in and out of my lungs.
I’d never felt much empathy for mortals—not out of malice, I’d just never had the errant thought. But now…I’d never look at a mortal man the same. Each new day they woke up alive was nothing short of a miracle.
Fishing for the dagger in my boot, I careened over the wheelbarrow I’d thought might serve as my roof. The wraith moaned, unhinged jaw creaking with the force of her fury. My hands tightened on the hilt. Perhaps a straight shot through the head—
Before she could draw any closer I hurled the weapon at her skull.
And missed by a mile, my dagger landing in a mountain of fresh snow. The skeletal undead woman didn’t even flinch.
Fuck.No Fae strength. No Fae aim. I’d been reliant on my abilities my whole life—I wasn’t sure who I was without them.
I tightened my grip on my longsword. The frosty blade didn’t waver, even as my mortality became weighty in my grasp. This simple sword—carved of plain steel and brandished now by human arms—was all that stood between me and an undead witch hungering for my soul.
That was what they’d always assumed wraiths were. Witches who had died in tragic, inhumane ways. Who had screamed so loudly in their final minutes that the raw, broken moan carried over to their afterlife.
The wraith before me released another guttural howl, those twisted feet shuffling her forward, and I decided the folklore was true. Ancient, rageful, and wretched. Lolling tongue and gray flaking skin. Her weather-scarred belt and necklace threaded with human bones. A barbaric practice—the jewels of her kill.
When she charged me, I drove my sword clean through her heart. Sure, and straight. Not a quiver in my form, despite the way the ice-cold air funneled through my aching lungs.
The wraith howled. Her inky-black mouth wrenched open, that long gray tongue twitching. I twisted the blade and shoved it farther, cutting through brittle bone and old, leathery tissue.
She moaned again, and a sick foreboding curled low in my gut.
She was…not dying.
Not weakened in the slightest.
In fact, as my heartbeat rattled my ribs, and true, punishing fear wormed through my clenched jaw, the snow wraith wrapped her hands, both missing more than half their fingers, around the blade andpulled it deeper.
Dragging herself closer to me, reaching that venomous, lethal tongue toward me again.
If it reached my face—my mouth—
I wasn’t sure how much of a soul I had left after losing Arwen, but whatever scraps were buried inside my heart this wraith would surely unearth and devour with her kiss.
I yanked the sword back, trying to extricate it, and was reminded once more how little power I held as a mortal.
