Page 6 of A Fate Unwoven
But she couldn’t take the words back. The damage was already done, and Finæn was already moving away.
Lena’s fingers twitched at her side with the urge to reach out to him. If she didn’t do something now, she feared he’d be lost to her forever.
Her mouth opened. Her heart raced.
And somewhere inside the village, someone screamed.
TWO
LENA
Her footsteps slammed against the frozen earth as Lena made her way back through the village, frosted huts and darkened windows flying by in a blur. Even though the scream had stopped almost as suddenly as it had started, the echo of it vibrated through Lena’s bones.Please,she thought, gripping the hilt of her dagger until her knuckles burned.Let me get there in time.
The village, which had been crowded with a dozen of her people just hours earlier, was now empty. No candles flared to life beyond the darkened windows. No doors creaked open. And even though Lena knew hiding was the smartest choice in a place as unforgivable as the Wilds, she couldn’t ignore the rush of anger that went through her at the sight.
It stayed with her as she reached the far end of the village, where skeletal branches reached toward her like claws, and the familiar form of Maia Æspen lay crumpled in the snow.
No.
Lena kept running, even when the world swayed dangerously beneath her feet. Even when the panic threatened to swallow herwhole. She was three feet away from her friend when she finally saw the creature in the shadows.
At first she thought it was just a wolf. It had the same lupine body. The same thick fur.
But as her eyes adjusted to the darkness, Lena froze.
It wasn’t a wolf at all. Its snout was too long, with fangs that protruded over an almost skeletal-like jaw, and eyes the pure white of freshly fallen snow. And its fingers, like the branches behind it, were twisted, skeletal things.
An awful, ancient truth tugged at Lena’s brain as she stared at those claws, her legs locked beneath her, her hand clutching the hilt of her dagger hard enough to hurt.
It wasn’t any animal Lena had ever seen, but she recognized it all the same.
Wylfen.The wolf-likekoruptedfrom her mother’s stories.
Flakes of snow hovered in the air before Lena’s eyes, and there was a roaring in her ears that sounded almost like the whispering crescendo of a dozen different people all at once. She was hallucinating. Months on the road with little food had muddled her brain, conjuring visions from her imagination. Thewylfenweren’treal.They were just metaphors for the corruption the Fateweaver’s creation had brought to their world. They were—
From her place on the ground, Maia let out a small, barely perceptible whimper.
The sound brought Lena back to herself. She drew her bow, ignoring the twinge her wrist gave in response. She had to get to Maia before—
“Maia!”
Thewylfen’s pointed ears twitched at the sound of Finæn’s voice. In the space of a heartbeat, Finæn was between her and the creature, his axe raised.
“Wait!”
Her shout pierced the air. The creature crashed into Finæn, tumbling him to the half-frozen ground. Finæn’s axe flew from his grip.
Lena notched an arrow and found her mark. But the creature …
She froze, the howling wind stealing her breath.
Thewylfen’s fangs were inches from Finæn’s throat, saliva dripping from them in thick, disgusting strings. Its white eyes were fixed on Lena, every muscle in its twisted body pulled taut as it stopped itself from dealing the killing blow.
Was it … hesitating?
A sharp pain erupted from her wrist. The air around thewylfenshimmered, and a sickening dread began to fill Lena’s veins as she saw the faintest glow of threads in the air.
Dozens of them, hovering around the creature like a tapestry waiting to be unraveled. They were faint. Faint enough that Lena could almost convince herself she was imagining them as well as the shadows surrounding them. But then there was a voice in her mind, a whisper, telling her to reach out and—
