Page 57 of White Horse Black Nights

“Fuck.”

A cough claws its way up my throat, and I bend over and retch. Then, I stagger after the tracks, trying to scent him, but the smoke is too overpowering. I plunge through the kitchen, where flames have eaten half the ceiling, and escape through the open back door into an alleyway.

It slopes sharply uphill, where a staircase leads to a different sector of Blackwater.

Climbing the stairs with great effort is the spy.

With a growl, I race after him. He glances over his shoulder, eyes simmering with fury. His cloak hangs askew from his neck, the hood fallen back to reveal shoulder-length blond hair and rugged features. He’s got a decade or two on me, and his advanced age, paired with the critical wound in his neck, means he’s too weak to use his speed fully.

It doesn’t stop him from trying, though. He lurches up the stairs, moving with odd, short bursts of brief speed, then having to slow.

Rushing up behind him, I grab him by the arm and throw him against the nearest brick wall. He winces, clapping a hand on his bleeding neck wound. Folke’s crossbow arrow juts out from the tendon, squirting blood with every pump of his heart. Drawing my hunting knife, I hold it to his blood-soaked neck.

He can’t last long. He’ll bleed out in minutes, so I need answers fast.

“Who do you work for?” I demand.

Chest huffing with exertion, he bares his teeth. Then his lips purse and, to my surprise, he forms a sharp whistle.

A caw sounds from overhead. I pitch my head up as a massive bird swoops low over the alley, its wingspan greater than an eagle’s. Its feathers shimmer like stars against the moonlight, rich with iridescent colors that belong to no goddamn bird I’ve ever seen.

It opens its beak, and a burst of virulent blue dust blasts in my direction.

“Fuck!” I release the spy, rolling to the ground to dodge the dust. It’s comprised of midnight-blue particles like ash, and it reeks of sulfur and rot. An ashy flake lands on my cheek, and the skin swells and oozes. A few paces away, the spy slumps to the ground, more sprays of blood spurting from his neck wound. He tries to whistle again, but his lips are too slick with blood.

His body gives one final tremor before he stills.

Breathing hard, I watch the sky, but there’s no more sign of the bird. What in the name of the Immortals just happened? There’s no bird in Blackwater—hell, in all of Astagnon, with iridescent feathers like that. That can breathe fuckingdisease. I only know of one creature capable of such magic, and it hasn’t flown in these skies for a thousand years.

My mind spins as I crawl over to the spy’s body. He’s dead. Moving fast, I hunt through his pockets. Some coins, a key, a hunk of cheese wrapped in wax paper; not much, until my fingers snag on a piece of paper in his inside jacket pocket. I unfold it quickly.

The writing isn’t in the Common Tongue. It’s in a language I don’t speak, but I do recognize the alphabet.

It’s fucking Volkish.

Cursing, I flip the paper around, then freeze. There, scrawled in the corner, is a short line written in the Common Tongue:Godkissed girls, ages 18-25, white, with fair hair.

A terrible dread coalesces in my mind.

What if this spy wasn’t after Folke at all?

I shove back the spy’s hood to get a clearer look at his face. He’s tan, with blonde hair a shade lighter than his skin tone. That’s not rare in Astagnon, especially in the north. But almost all of Volkany’s population has his coloration. And given the starleon—a mythical bird that should be asleep but could have awoken in a kingdom that’s been blocked off for five hundred years—my veins ice over.

“Sabine,” I murmur as terror grips me like a hand around my throat, and shove to my feet to race toward the stables.

* * *

My vision blurs as I shove through the crowd, shouting for people to get out of my way, though whether the blurriness is from tears or the lingering sting of smoke, I’m not sure. Thank the gods my other senses tell me where to go. The smell of straw and manure leads me the few blocks to the stable, where I hurtle through the open door, hoarsely calling out her name.

“Sabine?Sabine?”

The only answer is my voice echoing back. Fear snaps in my chest. Every second hurts as I jog down the aisle, searching each stall. Horse, water trough, hay. It’s the same in all of them. Nothing else.

Sabine isn’t here.

My heartbeat locks up my bodily functions so that I can barely think. Myst is in the last stall, kicking angrily at her stall door like something is wrong.Yeah, no shit.Where the fuck is Sabine?

“Yeah, yeah!” I shout at Myst. “I know!”

---