My lungs ache. My limbs tremble. My breath comes in shuddering gasps. The air behind me grows hot.
My scream is a choked whimper, and I force myself to run faster, still. Where am I going? Which direction did I run? I should be home by now. Where am I?
The trees break, and I find myself in an unfamiliar clearing. I don’t allow my steps to slow and hurtle across it. Looking down, I wish I hadn’t.
The clearing is filled with rotting vegetation, the dull gleam of bones sticking out of the damp soil.
Stars.
I slip and fall, a terrified squeal erupting from me. I scramble back onto my feet and spin around to face the creature.
It glides closer, bone hands reaching. Its cloak is rough, like bleached burlap. The cloak’s hem and sleeves are covered in dried blood.
Its hood still conceals its face, but I know it’s looking at me.
I send my fear through the rotting soil. Help me!
Eema responds immediately. Beware the reapers. They crave the flesh of my children. It will destroy you, Sophia, given a chance. But he comes. He will protect you.
“Who?” I cry out, terror gripping me.
The figure pauses, its hooded head tilted to the side as if listening.
The lost child. Eema’s voice sounds satisfied now, the urgency gone. He is here.
With a tremendous crash of bracken, Bren leaps into the clearing. His hair is disheveled, and dirt streaks his clothing. When his gaze locks on me, his face pales. “Get away!” he shouts, and he dives between me and the reaper.
The reaper pauses, and ribbons of shadow gather around it. I swallow, unable to decide if I should run.
No. I can’t leave Bren. I can’t.
Bren steps forward, head held high. “Fancy seeing you here, reaper.” His voice is cold, arrogant. “I would have thought our last meeting would have taught you to leave the Shore Watch alone.”
The reaper speaks. Its voice grates and splinters, at first one voice and then many. “My hunger grows,” it says. “No humans have entered my domain for many years. This one was foolish enough to come. I hunt.” The darkness about it thickens. I step back.
“This girl is a gaia,” Bren snarls. “She is bonded to the Earth itself. How dare you threaten her.” His hands are clenched, his back ramrod straight. Squinching my eyes, I study him closely, but I don’t see any magic.
The reaper hesitates. “You cannot stop me, lost one,” it says, the cackling laughter sending chills down my spine. “My hunger is too great. But perhaps you’d rather die in her place.” It lunges forward with blinding speed.
Magic surges from Bren.
His enchantment is silver and green. It erupts like shards of living emeralds and threads of silver, and the force of it makes the reaper stagger and fall back.
The light snakes back to Bren, forming into a spear, the tip a blinding silver. Bren laughs. “Then we shall fight,” he says, his voice turning eager.
The shadows around the reaper form into a scythe, the edge smoking with tendrils of darkness. It advances, the weapon whirling to meet Bren’s spear.
They battle, both silver light and black nothingness scattering like sparks and ashes every time their weapons clash.
I send my voice down through the soil like roots, searching for Eema. What can I do? Bren’s in danger.
Her voice sounds distracted. He is fine, she says. Bren is a lost child. He cannot be killed. Not by the reaper, anyway.
“What?” I say it aloud, thinking I must have misunderstood her.
She continues talking, but her voice grows distant. He has come here. The prince of stars is here. He thinks he can help. Is he a fool, or does he hold hidden power I cannot see?
The reaper’s blade arcs downward, and I scream when it tears Bren’s arm. Blood flows. “Bren!” I shriek.
My friend’s face contorts, anger and pain sparking in his gaze. With a twist, he brings his spear up, plunging it through the reaper’s middle.
The creature howls in pain, and its hood slides back, revealing a face with gold, glowing eyes. Its face is bloodied and scarred, pieces of skin stitched crudely over a skull, white glimmering where the skin doesn’t quite reach. Its teeth are blackened points, and its tongue is a lump of moistened gray.
I cry out and cover my eyes. I can’t look.
Even through my eyelids, I become aware of a brilliant light swelling to pain, then gone, almost as soon as it came.
All grows quiet.
6
Wilder
I open my eyes.
I’m under the bed, a place that is very familiar to me.
There’s a foreign scent in the house.
I pull my threadbare blanket away—its purpose is for comfort, though I’ll never admit that to my comrades—and crawl out. A growl rumbles in my chest.
Someone is here.
I open the bedroom door and step into the hallway.
“There’s an intruder in here,” I say. I don’t speak loudly, but vampire hearing is such that I know both Cecil and Javelin will hear me.
There’s a frantic scuffle in Cecil’s room, and then the young vampire is in the hall, his hair ruffled, and his eyes bleary. “Elves?” he says, his voice slurred from sleep.
“Nah, we’re good.” Javelin calls from the front room. He’s the only one of us who refuses to sleep under a bed. He’s boarded up the windows so no daylight can get through and sleeps in the front room, on the only sofa we have.
He’s there now, tangled up with a woman.
I stop short, staring, heat flushing my face. “I, uh, didn’t know you brought someone here.”
Javelin sits up and straightens his shirt. At least they’re both decent, though stars know if it would have stayed that way if I hadn’t come when I did.
“This is Vivienne,” Javelin
