Page 23 of Stolen Threadwitch Bride
Breath steaming, I walked downhill, eyes fixed south. After five minutes, the tent was out of sight. Another ten had me warmed by the swift pace, and I found myself smiling.
The tightness that had filled my chest for days—such a constant, I’d stopped noticing it—disappeared. Free and with some measure of control over my life once more.
There was no sign of faeries—perhaps they only came out in the evening. No drifting fae light, either.
Clack, clack.
I froze. Breath held, ears straining, I cocked my head.
Nothing.
I turned slowly, searching in all directions but found no movement. The wind tapping distant branches, maybe. Shaking my head, I set off again.
I made it a dozen paces.
Clack, clack, clack-clack.
Shit. That was no branch. It was a hollow sound, like stone striking stone, and it came from a rocky outcrop behind and to my left.
Ice crept down my spine, but I forced myself to turn. Shadows writhed between the stones. Something gleaming. Claw or blade, I didn’t know, but it had to be a weapon.
I veered right, pace picking up to not quite a run. Maybe whatever it was hadn’t seen me yet.
C-c-c-clack-clack.
Closer.
My heart roared, and every hair on my body rose. A tickle at the back of my neck whispered that something was watching me—I had to turn.
Movement and moonlight on pale flesh.
I ran.
By the Riverside
As if triggered by my burst of speed, the thing leapt and clouds bloomed across the sky. Legs pumping, breaths gasping, I didn’t dare look back—I’d seen enough—but its landing trembled through the earth.
It had to be bigger than the stag, with sinewy long limbs and dirty greyish flesh. Shadows streamed at its feet and from its back in a mane. Its gnarled hands tapered into claws that looked like shards of bone.
But the thing that was seared into my mind as I ran and ran and ran, eyes stinging with unshed tears, was its face.
Long and narrow, like someone had stretched a wolf’s head, it had a maw the colour of dried blood, full of cracked, yellowed teeth. And where should have been a huge pair of glinting eyes was nothing.
Maybe I could get to the river. Gods knew what this thing was, but in some stories, certain fae beasts couldn’t cross running water. I had no weapons. My magic was useless. There was no other option.
Sprinting, heart roaring, I spared a glance back.
The thing ran, swallowing up the ground, using its knuckles to leap over a fallen tree. Its stomach was a hollow below emaciated ribs, but lean muscle clad its thighs and arms. With such an unbalanced body, it shouldn’t have been able to move, but move it did.
The ground trembled with each step. Its presence thrummed through the land’s magic and jangled on my nerves. That apple-flavoured power was such a constant here, I’d stopped being aware of it. But I could shift my attention and feel it, like shifting my focus from the reflection on a window to the world beyond it. And this thing rocked it, like an angry hornet buzzing in a spider’s web.
My breaths were whimpering gasps. That thing could rip me to shreds, body and soul.
Thirty feet away, moonlight gleamed on running water. If I could reach it…
The thunderous steps came closer. A waft of dry, old death tainted the air. I was too slow, too—
Ahead, the thing loomed out of the darkness.
