Swoosh—thud!

Another arrow buried itself in the high back of the leather saddle, inches from Salviana’s hip. Behind them, the sounds of the possessed royals and knights were getting louder. They weren’t just running anymore; they were moving with a supernatural, predatory grace, leaping over fallen logs and pushing through briars without a single cry of pain.

Soar let out a frantic, shrill whinny, his eyes rolling back to show the whites. The stallion was terrified. The smell of blood and the unnatural "wrongness" of the forest were pushing him to the brink of a panicked bolt.

"Steady, boy!" Alaric roared, leaning forward to press his weight into the horse’s neck, trying to ground the animal even as his own strength flickered.

The arrows kept flying—a lethal, rhythmic rain. Sebastian and Simon were leading the charge, their faces blank as they loosed shaft after shaft with terrifying accuracy. One arrow grazed Alaric’s thigh, cutting through the heavy leather and drawing a fresh line of red.

"They’re not letting up!" Salviana’s scream was raw, shredded by the wind. When she looked back, the world had dissolved into a fever dream. The "stick figures" from her carving weren’t people anymore—they were a singular, many-limbed entity, a tidal wave of milky eyes and silent, rhythmic movement surging through the undergrowth.

"Look for the round shape, Salviana!" Alaric’s voice cracked, the sound of a man pushing past the limits of human endurance. "The one from your carving! Tell me where it is!"

Through a blur of tears and the stinging lash of branches, she saw it. High on the ridge, where the trees gave way to jagged stone, an unnatural moon hung in the sky. It was bloated, a sickly, bruised amber that didn’t cast light—it swallowed it.

"There!" she shrieked, pointing toward a circle of ancient stones that stood against the horizon like broken, rotted teeth.

"Hold on!" Alaric roared, but the air was already thick with the hiss of death.

A volley of arrows, dozens deep, blotted out the amber moon. Alaric moved with the desperate grace of a wounded predator, twisting his body to act as a living shield. But there were too many. A shaft buried itself in the corded muscle of his neck; another pierced his forearm, and a third sank deep into his thigh.

Salviana was unscathed, but the silence she held was more violent than a scream. Her heart was a frantic bird caught in a cage of ribs. What have we ever done wrong? she sobbed internally. Why are we so hated? I only wanted a home. I only wanted a husband.

The copper-thick scent of his blood filled the air, cloying and heavy. She looked at him, her mind spiraling into a strange, frantic clarity. He’s a weird vampire, she thought, a hysterical edge to her grief. The myths said they didn’t bleed, that they feared the sun, that they were hollow things driven by hunger. But Alaric bled. He bled like a man. He stood under the sun. He was more human in his pain than any of the monsters chasing them.

Can he actually die?

The thought snapped through her like a whip. She turned to look at him just as his fingers, slick with red, lost their grip on the reins.

Time fractured. Salviana watched in agonizing slow-motion as Alaric—her husband, her protector, the man riddled with the arrows meant for her—slipped from the saddle. He hit the forest floor with a sickening thud, a fallen god amongst the ferns.

She tried to scream, but it was as if a wall of cold stone had been built in her throat. No sound came out. The horse, panicked by the scent of death and the loss of its master, bucked in a disgraceful fit of terror. Salviana was flung into the air, landing elbow-first on the hard, unforgiving earth.

She didn’t feel the pain. She scrambled on hands and knees through the dirt, her breath coming in jagged, wet gasps.

"A... Alaric."

Her hand shivered as she reached for his face. She felt drenched—liquid dripped from her hair, ran down her spine, and pooled at her thighs. She was soaked in his blood and her own cold sweat.

"Alaric, please wake up! You’re stronger than this!"

She hovered over him, her mind a chaotic static. Where was she supposed to look? There were arrows protruding from his neck, his chest, his limbs. Should she pull them out? Should she leave them? She shook him violently, her palms staining red.

He was so pale. The lifelessness in his face sent a chill through her more terrifying than the beasts he had shown her in the Mist. I don’t want to live a life without this man, she realized with a crushing, soul-deep certainty. Her sweat trailed into her eyes, the salt stinging like a reprimand.

The voices of the controlled—the hushed, rhythmic chanting of the family that had become a pack—drew nearer. They were scattering, surrounding the clearing like wolves closing in for the final kill.

Salviana took a shuddering breath, her eyes darting to the arrows on the ground. Should she pick one up? Try to fight? The thought hit her with a wave of paralyzing shame and disappointment. I should have trained. I should have been ready.

"Alaric! Alaric, please!" she begged, shaking him with everything she had left.

The prince remained still, his eyes closed against the sickly amber light of the Eye. Around them, the forest began to crawl with the silent, milky-eyed shadows of their kin.

He was a vampire; she had known that since their very first night. But seeing him now—so horribly pale, so unnervingly lifeless—sent the same primal shivers through her that the beasts in the Mist once had. ’I don’t want to live a life without this man,’ she realized, a broken sniffle escaping her. Sweat trailed into her eyes, the salt stinging and irritating her vision as the world blurred around her.

The voices of the controlled drew nearer, scattering through the brush like a closing net. Salviana forced herself to take several deep breaths, trying to anchor her mind. Her eyes darted to the arrows on the ground. Should she pick one up? Could she even fight back? The idea felt laughably implausible, and in that moment, she was hit with a wave of shame and disappointment so heavy it nearly crushed her.

’I should’ve trained,’ she scolded herself bitterly. ’I would have been ready.’