Chapter 13

“What if there’s more of them?”

Night had finally settled outside, stray flakes of snow drifting past the storeroom’s narrow windows. A sliver of the crescent moon peaked through a break in the clouds above, shining weak silver light on the rocky bluffs, the mountain range trailing in the distance.

“We fight them off, I suppose,” the Hawk said, lying back against the wall. “You aren’t much for fighting hand to hand, but you can handle a blade, girl, I’ll give you that.”

“Thanks,” said Anji flatly, pulling her knees to her chest. She cast around, eyes wide, as though another monster would crash through an undiscovered hole at any moment. Just outside, the Scorphice’s corpse was still visible, lying in a tangled heap of blood and bone and carapace. Were there more waiting somewhere in the chasm below? She and the Hawk had obviously disturbed some kind of den or nest. Anji imagined the skeletal remnants of whatever the Scorphice ate—goats, foxes, people—scattered about the cave’s floor. Or perhaps it had lain coiled in wait until it sensed its prey and sprang out of its hole to do its feeding on the slope, leaving the bones (if it left any) for the snow. Anji shuddered and curled tighter against her bit of icy wall. She wondered if the Scorphice had had a mate, or whether it was cooped in its den all alone. Bit of a boring life, Anji mused, but better than being led to slaughter. Then she remembered she’d just slaughtered it moments ago and shut her eyes, willing her mind to stop the million intruding thoughts clamoring for attention. Her heart hadn’t quit hammering since she’d seen the thing. Fingers trembling, she ran a hand over the fringe of her scalp and sniffed a thin trickle of snot. She closed her eyes and let out as steady a breath as she could manage. Sleep might come easy enough tonight, considering her exhaustion, but she wasn’t excited for the dreams that would follow, the Scorphice shuddering beneath her knees and screaming for its life an addition to the show that already played in her head every night while she tossed and—

“Where did you learn to fight?”

Anji opened her eyes and stared at the Hawk’s unmasked face.

“Thought we weren’t trying to get to know each other?” Anji said, licking at her lips.

“Stop doing that,” the Hawk said, pointing at her mouth. “You keep licking those things and they’re going to freeze off.”

“You’ve got your own lips, you do what you want with them,” Anji said.