Page 90 of On Wings of Blood

As we neared one another, her pale face came into view. A thin trail of blood trickled down her chin, dark in the moonlight.

“Are you...hurt?” I asked, my voice laced with unease. But I already knew the answer.

She didn’t reply. Instead, she raised a small hand to her face, wiping at the blood. Then she brought it to her mouth, licking her fingers with a practiced motion. Just like Kiernan had nearly done with my blood.

The girl’s eyes locked onto mine with an eerie, unsettling calm. She smiled. What should have been the innocent smile of a child seemed far more sinister.

I knew this girl, I realized. I’d seen her that first day, sitting on the edge of the dais in the Black Keep, kicking her feet in boredom. Her presence on the dais meant she belonged to one of the four great houses.

My skin prickled, but I forced myself to remain composed. She was still just a child, I reminded myself. “You should get back home. Do you need me to go with you?”

The girl said nothing, just kept smiling that haunting smile as she drifted past.

I stood there, frozen in indecision for a moment, watching the small figure vanish into the darkness. If it had been a blightborn child, I wouldn’t have let them go. But the girl...

She seemed like she could take care of herself. I turned away.

I’d just taken a few more steps forward when a soft whimper broke through the quiet. It came from the shadows, just beyond the waterline.

Another child.

My heart leaped into my throat, my body moving before my mind could even catch up. I sprinted towards the sound.

I scanned the darkness, looking for a child’s shape. But there was nothing.

Then, in the dark, I found it. No more than the size of both my hands.

A small puppy, its fur matted with blood, lying in the sand. It was barely breathing. Its body trembled weakly as a soft whine escaped its throat.

I dropped to my knees beside it, my hands shaking as I carefully lifted up the limp form. The warmth of its blood stained my hands.

Horror flooded me as I realized who must have done this.

The girl.

“Hang on,” I whispered to the little creature.

I held it close to my chest and it let out another faint whimper, its eyes dull with pain.

My pulse raced as I turned back towards the castle and started to run.

In the light of the First Year common room, I could see that what I had rescued wasn’t a dog like I’d first thought.

This creature looked as if a fox had mated with an owl.

It had a coat of reddish-orange fur, like the last of the autumn leaves, except for its chest which was a soft creamy white. The animal’s eyes were wide and round. They seemed impossibly large for its small face, gleaming like gold in the firelight.

Now that I could see it more closely, the pup wasn’t much bigger than a kitten. It lay where we had placed it on a soft blanket on top of a large footstool near the fire. The pup’s huge bushy, red tail curled around it. As Florence crouched down on the floor next to it, the creature let out a small cry.

“It’s a fluffin,” Florence said softly, as she inspected the wounds. “A male, if I’m not mistaken.”

“What is it exactly?” I leaned down. “Some kind of a dog?”

We were lucky. The common room was empty. Otherwise I wasn’t sure what our fellow students might have thought of my bringing back a bleeding animal.

Florence had already been in her room by the time I’d returned. Part of me felt bad for banging on her door to wake her. But part of me thought letting her go to sleep without talking through what had happened that night would be worse.

“They're related to dogs, yes,” she said, absent-mindedly, as she gently ran her fingers over the animal’s tiny body. “This one is just a baby. Did you see the mother anywhere nearby?”

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