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Chapters (61)
  1. Dedication
  2. Prologue
  3. Ashyn: One
  4. Two
  5. Three
  6. Four
  7. Five
  8. Six
  9. Seven
  10. Eight
  11. Moria: Nine
  12. Ten
  13. Eleven
  14. Twelve
  15. Thirteen
  16. Ashyn: Fourteen
  17. Fifteen
  18. Sixteen
  19. Moria: Seventeen
  20. Eighteen
  21. Nineteen
  22. Twenty
  23. Twenty-one
  24. Twenty-two
  25. Ashyn: Twenty-three
  26. Twenty-four
  27. Twenty-five
  28. Twenty-six
  29. Twenty-seven
  30. Twenty-eight
  31. Twenty-nine
  32. Thirty
  33. Moria: Thirty-one
  34. Thirty-two
  35. Thirty-three
  36. Thirty-four
  37. Thirty-five
  38. Thirty-six
  39. Thirty-seven
  40. Ashyn: Thirty-eight
  41. Thirty-nine
  42. Forty
  43. Forty-one
  44. Forty-two
  45. Forty-three
  46. Forty-four
  47. Forty-five
  48. Forty-six
  49. Forty-seven
  50. Forty-eight
  51. Forty-nine
  52. Moria: Fifty
  53. Fifty-one
  54. Fifty-two
  55. Fifty-three
  56. Fifty-four
  57. Fifty-five
  58. About the Author
  59. Back Ad
  60. Credits
  61. About the Publisher

They could see a dark shape moving along the ground twenty paces away, too far for them to make out any more than that. Far enough that they should not have been able to see a mere snake. This looked as big as a man, a creature slithering across the rock.

“Move!” Ronan whispered, pushing them ahead. “Go!”

Twenty-seven

Twenty-seven

As they ran, Ashyn fumbled to get her dagger out of the sheath. She’d put it away to hug Wenda. Now she was so preoccupied with removing it that when Tova bounded over a small fissure, she didn’t notice until she was already tripping.

Her hands shot out to stop herself, and they managed to touch down just in time to keep her from bashing her face into the lava rock. Except she wasn’t touching rock. Her forearms rested on something soft. Tova, she thought . . . until she felt the hound yanking her cloak. That’s when Wenda started to scream, and Ashyn looked down at her forearms, resting on green worsted wool. Beatrix’s cloak. With Beatrix’s plump body beneath it.

Ronan silenced the child as Ashyn crawled quickly toward Beatrix’s head, her fingers ripping the older woman’s cloak apart, her hands going to her heart. She felt wet fabric and thought it was blood. Then her fingers began to burn and, as she fell back, she saw Beatrix’s own hands, covering her face and . . .

Bone. Ashyn saw bone. Skin, too—and flesh and bone. Her own fingers continued to burn, and she wiped them brusquely on her cloak as she moved up for a better look. Beatrix’s hands were . . . damaged. Chunks of skin and flesh were missing, bone showing through. Her throat was the same. And beneath Beatrix’s hands, Ashyn could see parts of the old woman’s face. Holes in her . . .

She turned and emptied her stomach onto the sand. Ronan’s hand closed on her shoulder, tugging her up. He didn’t bend—he was holding the child’s face against his tunic, hiding the sight from her.

“She’s gone,” he said as he pulled Ashyn up.

“But what . . . what could do that?”

“Fire, perhaps? She looks burned.”

She doesn’t smell burned.

Her stomach lurched again at the thought. Her fingers still stung and she rubbed them harder. Ronan whispered for Wenda to stay where she was, facing her away from Beatrix’s body, then he caught Ashyn’s hand and pulled it up into the moonlight. Her fingertips were red and raw.

“Did you touch her?” he asked.

“Just her cloak. It was wet. Her blood, I suppose, but . . .” There was no blood. Looking down now, she saw that. But she could also see damp patches all over Beatrix’s cloak.

“Venom,” Ronan whispered. He spat on her fingers and rubbed furiously.