Would he ever return?

By morning, everything inside her screamed, Find him! Help him! But still she stayed put. Won’t go against his orders. Not again. Never, never, never. She would rather rot.

She didn’t move the next day or night, either. Nor the next. Her empty stomach seemed to eat itself. Fear came and went. During daylight hours, she overheated. At night, she froze. But Kaysar did not return.

Dizzy and weak, eyelids heavy, so heavy, she teetered in place and smacked a swollen tongue. Wait. Was that…? Clutching Drendall tight, she squinted into the distance. Though her vision proved blurry, she thought she spied a hazy glow. Her breath caught. Had Kaysar returned— Excitement died in an instant. Two burly centaurs trotted closer.

A full armory of weapons draped them. From the swords strapped to their backs, the bow and quiver of arrows hanging at their sides and the spears gripped in hand. Bear fur draped muscular torsos. One had dark fur, while the other was white with spots.

Wizened features brightened when the pair spotted her. They stopped mere feet away, and her heart thudded. Too terrified to move, she forgot to inhale. Centaurs were far worse than pixies. To gain immortality, they ate fae alive, both young and old.

“My, my, my,” the tallest said. “Look what we have here.” He nudged his speckled friend. “Told you I smelled something tasty.”

“That you did,” Spots replied with a grin.

Acting on instinct, she shrank back. A mistake. Her elbow grazed a stalk of poisonvine, and agonizing pain ripped through her. Muscles spasmed, paralyzing her limbs. A temporary condition supposed to last two endless minutes, but she needed to hide now, now, now.

Too late. Laughing, Tallest latched on to her ankle and yanked her from the tangle. As frail as she was, she dropped Drendall, the last link to her family. No!

The centaur withdrew a long, stained blade and slashed her dress. Her skin. A jolt of pain freed her vocal cords from their unused state. A high-pitched scream tore from her, the cadence unpleasant and raspy.

Her attacker dropped the blade. Both males covered their ears. But just as soon as she quieted, they recovered.

Spots withdrew a sharper dagger from a side sheath. “You’re gonna pay for that, girl.”

Shaking off the last of the toxin, Viori scrambled back and prepared to run. The next thing she knew, something whizzed past her, snatched up the fallen weapon, and stabbed Spots repeatedly in the face. The groin. His hindquarters. No part of his body was safe.

That something was… Drendall. Viori could only gape.

Before Tallest realized what had transpired, the blood-soaked doll stabbed him too. Rivers of crimson flowed from a wealth of wounds, forming a macabre pool around their corpses.