Page 29 of Shadows of Winter

Not of bones, she thought but didn’t say.

As they passed more closed doors, Kaylina left them alone, not wanting to see if more skeletons lurked in the rooms. Maybe by day she would investigate more thoroughly.

There was a final door at the end of the hallway by the window, a tower carved into the wood. Maybe they’d found the entrance to the stairs leading up to the red glow.

When she glanced out the dark window, Kaylina didn’t expect to see anything but the rubble-strewn courtyard. Instead, an ancient forest rose from loamy earth, the trees so tall and thick that the area couldn’t ever have been logged.

“That… is not out there.” She’d chased Vlerion around that side of the castle when he’d gone after her brother.

“Nope,” Frayvar said.

“You can see it?” That surprised her. She’d thought the hallucination had been hers alone.

“A forest with a hunter? Yes.”

Kaylina started to say that she didn’t see a hunter, but movement behind a tree drew her eye. A gaunt man in surprisingly lush silks and a cloak trimmed with ermine fur crept through the forest with a bow in hand, a quiver of arrows on his back. He knelt to check for sign in the pine needles at his feet. A thick vine snaked down from a branch above.

“Look out,” Kaylina blurted, as if she could warn him.

As with the ranger, he didn’t glance toward her or seem aware of her. When he started to rise, the vine struck like a cobra and wrapped around his neck. He dropped his bow and tried to lunge away as he grasped it, but it wouldn’t release him. When his fingers dug into it, the vine tightened with the strength of steel.

Kaylina turned away from the window, not wanting to witness another death.

Grim-faced, her brother watched another minute. “This place is eerie.”

“Yeah.”

“A bunch of clanks came from underneath the kitchen, and then I saw something similar happen.” Frayvar waved toward the window.

“A man getting killed by a vine?”

“It was a woman. She was serving rangers—I think they were rangers, but the uniforms were different from now—and a wind blew open shutters and blasted her into the hearth, forcing her to stay there until she burned alive.”

“Gods of the moons, that’s even worse than the vines.” Before she could catch herself, Kaylina glanced out the window.

The man lay dead, strangled by the vine. It had gone slack and now hung limply from the branch, as if it had never stirred.

“There were bones in the back of the hearth,” Frayvar whispered. “Her bones. I mean, I don’t know that, but…”

“I think these things really happened.”

He nodded. “Yeah.”

“Is the castle showing us these visions of the past to threaten us? To let us know vines will come attack us if we stay?”

Frayvar spread his arms. “Tomorrow, I can find the city library and see if there’s information on this place.”

“If we survive that long,” she muttered.

He frowned.

“I’m joking.” She hoped. “We’re not rangers, so maybe the castle won’t find us offensive.”

If criminals used this place to hide out, the curse couldn’t kill everyone. Of course, she didn’t know if they hid inside the castle or only lurked in the catacombs underneath it.

“The woman wasn’t a ranger. He doesn’t look like a ranger.” Frayvar pointed at the dead man in his ermine cloak. “Didn’t,” he corrected.

“But you said she was feeding them? Maybe these were allies of theirs.” Kaylina tried the door, wondering if they would find answers in the room with the red glow.

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