Page 114 of The Mirror of Beasts

I took off like I was on fire, searching the horizon for anything, anywhere, to hide. The misty snow swallowed me, soaking through my coat and boots until both felt like they weighed a hundred pounds. My workbag clattered at my side until I pressed it to my chest.

My skin crawled, prickling as Cath Palug answered back with a loud noise like chortling—like all I’d done was amuse it.

Shit, shit, shit—!

Of all the creatures I had to come across, it just had to be the one that could outrun, outlast, and outsmart me.

The sound of its claws ripping into the ice as it ran made me look back. Cath Palug galloped toward me, its fanged mouth stretched into a hideous grin.

I pushed harder, fighting through the gathering snow until another shadow appeared ahead. A curse aimed at every god that was listening leapt to the tip of my tongue—but it wasn’t another beast. It was a large formation of rocks protruding from the snow. If there were more of them, I might be able to lose Cath Palug amid them, or at least find some crevice to hide in until the creature grew bored and abandoned the hunt.

Yeah, I thought. Good luck with that, Lark.

Because, of course, there were no other boulders aside from the two standing upright and the third one, which lay flat. There was nothing but the unending blizzard.

I looked over my shoulder again, and Cath Palug had drifted farther back into the storm. The relief that washed through me was short-lived.

Only a few moments later, when some potent combination of hope and fear made me check again, it had regained lost ground and was running even faster, screeching with that same gleeful, monstrous laughter, “Ha! Ha! Ha!”

It was playing with its food.

That peculiar, horrible calm found me again as my death mark pulsed. This was my curse, wearing fur and fang.

The thought of the others coming across whatever remained of my body sickened me. I could only hope the snow would pile high enough to hide it.

No, the wind seemed to urge, easing into a soft whisper. I heard it as clearly as I had the voice that stopped the White Lady. It was the very same. Fight. The sword.

Dyrnwyn’s hilt dug into my shoulder, the metal giving the exposed skin on my neck an icy kiss.

But I don’t know how, I thought back, my muscles throbbing. Why hadn’t I ever asked Caitriona to teach me even the most basic stances? How to hold the stupid thing—

I knew Cath Palug had gained on me when I heard its huffing breaths again. It had survived in this desolate Otherland for centuries against all odds. There was absolutely no doubt in my mind that my body would give out long before its did, succumbing to exhaustion, or the brutal cold.

With no other choice, I ran toward the rocks, knowing I could at least keep my back to them and stand my ground there. Reaching back to grip Dyrnwyn’s hilt, I jumped toward the flat rock—

Only to miss, and crash down through the snow and a brittle patch of ice.

The impact on the ground below jarred every bone in my body, blanking my vision. Mounds of snow fell in from above, filling the gap my fall had created until the way out was completely blocked.

Or hidden, my mind corrected.

I threw a desperate look around me, confused. I wasn’t in water—I seemed to have found the true ground, and it was muddy and scattered with stones and dead grass and moss. Above me, like a ceiling, a thick shelf of ice groaned and crackled, shifting with each insistent gale.

There was just enough room to crawl, so I did, scrambling forward in the direction I’d been headed in before. Ignoring the scattered bones that lay around me, ignoring the thorned brush that tore into my clothing and skin. It was a few minutes, maybe more, when I heard the ice above me start to crack.

What began as a web of thin lines turned into longer white seams as weight was added to it. I could track each of Cath Palug’s steps, even before I heard its shuddering breaths. The sniffing.

I stilled, trying to stop the tremors punishing my body and rattling the blade and the contents of my bag. My blood boiled in my veins, my pulse pounding in every muscle of my body.

And I forced myself to remember.

I wasn’t who I’d been before. The Tamsin who had prized a quiet security over all else—the Tamsin who’d never been touched by magic, let alone fought for it. Who had never clawed back against death when it tried to claim her.

I remembered who I’d let myself become in that dark world. I remembered the friends who were somewhere out there in the whirling snow, just as lost.

I remembered.

Thin cracks spread over the ice as the cat came toward me. Cath Palug’s enormous paws were just visible through the clouded ice and the powdery snow above it. I bit my lip, fighting my mind’s desperation to run.

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