Hanne worked the dagger tip into the weathered fold of the pocket, stuck the paper, and—twisting her wrist—at last slid it free.
“All right.” She glanced at the paper long enough to confirm it held names, then stood and backed away quickly from the body, the blood, and the buzz of flies. Her skin itched with the memory of their tiny legs crawling across her face. “I’m coming, Nadine. Just stay there.”
But Nadine gave a startled cry, and Hanne spun just in time to see a gray figure darting between the trees, heading straight for her cousin.
It was humanoid, emaciated and hunched, with a barrel chest, too-long limbs, and awful spikes protruding from its back and shoulders. And the way it moved—somehow fluid and stuttering all at once, as if the world flickered in and out of existence around it. A howl poured out of the creature, entirely inhuman. All predator.
Hanne stumbled, certain her eyes were seeing this wrong. But the creature was closing in on Nadine, so Hanne scooped up a rock from the ground. “Nadine, run! Get help!” Then, with all her might, she hurled the stone at the beast.
The rancor—for it could only be a rancor, she was certain—twisted toward Hanne, opening its stretched-wide mouth to reveal two rows of barbed teeth. It lunged.
She ran.
She didn’t care where, as long as she led it away from Nadine. Somewhere in the distance, her cousin cried for help.
Branches lashed against Hanne’s chest and face as the rancor closed in. If her obsidian rings and bracelets were doing anything to repel this creature, it wasn’t obvious. The beast was so close.
Breath heaving, blood dripping down her face, Hanne threw herself deeper into the forest. Her vision tunneled, dim around the edges, so she saw only the trees and brush and trail directly in front of her, although she imagined she caught the outline of the rancor to her right—no, to her left.
It was everywhere. If it caught her, it would kill her. It would do to her what it had done to Devon Bearhaste.
She ran faster.
* * *
Hanne didn’t realize, because fear had her in its grip, but even when she ducked left or right, weaving what she thought was a random path through the woods, she was moving in one very clear direction. The rancor was herding her.
It was that fear, that narrow focus on surviving, that caused her to miss the ribbons tied around the trees—a warning yellow—with small bells fastened at the ends. They were on every tree, in fact, making a ring of bright, noisy caution around a specific place in the forest.
But Hanne didn’t see the ribbons, because her vision had grayed out.
And she didn’t hear the bells because she was out of breath; blood roared through her ears.
And then, a mere ten strides after she’d crossed the ribbon boundary, she crossed another barrier.
This one she felt. She met a pressure, a faint resistance, but she didn’t have time to stop herself.
Alarm flared up in her mind and panic spiked in her chest. But she was already through, and too late, the fact caught up with her.
A malsite.
The rancor had driven her into a malsite.
Immediately, Hanne turned and tried to run back the way she’d come, but the pressure from this side was too great. She couldn’t push through. The second boundary—invisible, silent—was firmer than stone.
She was trapped in a pocket of malice, a rancor nearby, with only a few pieces of jewelry and a dagger to defend herself.
With a dark clarity, she understood this:
She, Johanne Fortuin, crown princess of Embria, was about to die.
2.
RUNE
At the first scream, everyone scrambled for their weapons.
By the second scream, Rune and his personal guards were entering the Deepway Woods.
And with the third scream—high, feminine, moving closer—a young lady came crashing through the brush, twigs and leaves in her loose hair, tears streaming down her face. The sleeves and skirt of her dress were shredded, trailing after her like emerald smoke.
Rune caught her just as she tripped over an exposed root. She flailed in his arms, then pushed away from him only to trip over the same root again. She landed on the ground in a heap of torn silk.
“Lady Nadine?” Rune sheathed his sword and knelt in front of the girl, raising her face. She was, indeed, Princess Johanne’s cousin and closest friend. They were hardly ever apart. “What has happened?”
Her breath came in short, panicked gasps, and her eyes were glazed and unfocused. If she saw him, if she recognized him, she didn’t show it.
“She’s in shock.” Rune glanced up at the guards. “Where is Captain Oliver?”
“Here, Your Highness.” The Embrian man stepped forward.
“Please escort Lady Nadine back to the caravan. The rest of us will search for Princess Johanne.” Captain Oliver wasn’t Rune’s guard to order about, but the moment called for action, for someone to be in charge.
Captain Oliver bent beside Lady Nadine. “My lady.”
“Lord Bearhaste was out here, too,” said Daniel, one of Rune’s guards. “Perhaps he’s seen Princess Johanne.”
“All right. Let’s get moving. Whatever frightened Lady Nadine is likely still out there.” Rune started to stand, but Lady Nadine’s hand darted out and wrapped around his wrist.
Her eyes were wide and terrified but intensely focused. “It was a monster. A monster went after her.” With her sweat-dampened hair hanging in tendrils, jeweled pins trembling with her every shuddering breath, Lady Nadine looked like a madwoman.
“A monster?” One of the men snorted. “She’s hysterical, Your Highness. She probably saw a deer and fled for her life.”
“Embrians.” Lieutenant Swifthand laughed. “Oh, I bet it was a squirrel.”
“How terrifying,” said the first, pretending to shiver.
Captain Oliver stood, his hand flying to his sword. “How dare you? How dare you?”
“Stop.” All at once, Rune became aware of the silence around them, of the reek of ammonia and rotting flesh, of the clouds blanketing the sky as if the world were trying to smother these woods. Unease wormed into his stomach. “We must take her seriously. Captain Oliver, get her back to the caravan. The rest of you—you will cease your mocking.”
“I’m going with you.” Lady Nadine’s grip around Rune’s wrist tightened; her knuckles went bone white as her fingernails dug into his skin. “You need every man at your side, and I can show you where—” She twisted around and vomited suddenly onto the side of the tree.