Page 16 of Bride of Mist
This close to the river, the mud was damp and yielding. She could easily discern the tracks of his crack-heeled boot. The food must have invigorated him, for his stride had lengthened. She had to take three steps for his two.
A few times she hesitated, startled by the scuffling of mice or the chirring of a nightjar. But the rising fog muffled her steps as she crept through the woods in the hours after midnight.
Indeed, she was so focused on stealth and speed, intent on closing the distance between her and her prey, when she finally spotted him, she almost sailed past.
Her heart leaped into her throat when she suddenly glimpsed a dark shape in the gray mist, several yards off the path, beneath an enormous tree. For an instant, she thought it was a wolf or a boar, and she clapped a hand to hershoudao.
Then she heard a loud, ragged snore, and she soundlessly drew her blade.
It was him. The monster. She had him now. He was utterly helpless.
As silent as a spider, she approached.
With her sharp blade of folded steel, she could slash his throat. Stab him through the heart. Chop off his head.
But as she came closer—five yards away, four, three—doubt began to filter through her thoughts.
What if this was the wrong man?
She’d never actually seen his face or even gotten a good look at his armor. This man didn’t have a shield or a helm. All she recalled about the brute at Creagor was that he was large and dark and menacing.
What if she’d followed the wrong set of tracks into the wood?
What if the man she sought had abandoned his horse at the croft and then climbed onto the back of a hay cart and gone back the way he’d come?
What if he’d given away his crack-heeled boots, as he had his charger, as a “gift”?
She hesitated, gazing down at the slumbering bulk.
Once she saw his face, she’d know. She’d recognize the manic violence in his cold eyes. The dead and ruthless twist to his mouth. His empty, insatiable hunger. There was no hiding the disturbed countenance of a man capable of thoughtless savagery.
She’d wake him. Poke him with the slanted point of her sword, keeping it at the ready. If he lunged toward her, she’d stop him swiftly. Do what must be done.
She edged closer, wary of triggering any small animal snares he might have set in the night.
His snores were even now. Peaceful. Almost soothing. They didn’t seem like the snores of a demon.
She halfway hoped she was wrong. That this wasn’t the right man.
Hearing the soft sawing of his breath, she knew it would be no simple feat to extinguish it. Taking a life wasn’t easy.
It wasn’t that killing was physically difficult. Even at her young age, she’d been forced to take a handful of lives in wartime. With her skill and fine weaponry, all it required was will, good aim, and opportunity. In the heat of battle, killing was a necessary evil, a matter of slaying or being slain.
But the thought of ending the life of a defenseless man, a man who was the son of a mother, who might well be the sweetheart of a maid, the father of children…slaying someone outside the chaos of war… That was not so easy.
And no matter how much this devil deserved to be dispatched back to hell, Feiyan couldn’t send him there without being absolutely certain he was the demon she believed him to be.
In her moment of hesitation, the man stirred and rolled from his side onto his back. She froze as his features were revealed in the milky blue moonlight.
And then her heart tripped.
He was more eye-catching than she’d expected. Surprisingly handsome. Curiously captivating. As magnificent, wild, and noble as his destrier.
Locks of black hair tumbled across his troubled brow. His cheek was swarthy with several days’ growth of beard. His face was lean and angular, with a straight, elegant nose. His mouth was soft with slumber.
And he was young. Much younger than she’d imagined. Probably not much older than her.
She gulped. Was she making a mistake? Surely this dark Adonis wasn’t the savage who’d ravaged the knights at Creagor.
