The pressure, the pressure. It hurt to be inside her own skin. Her fingers seized and twitched on the ground. Blood dripped from her nose and lips. Something was inside her; it was burning and it was growing and it hurt and it wanted out. She wanted it out.

The pressure rose, swelled, expanded.

I have to protect her.

Vivna screamed. A man grabbed Ranka by her throat, and she tasted death.

Have to protect.

He drew a knife.

Protect.

And finally, Ranka gave in.

She bucked forward and sank her teeth into the man’s wrist. He screamed and dropped the knife to the snow. Ranka snatched it up—it was heavier than she expected, the handle rough and warm. The man lunged for her and Ranka cried out, slashing at the air. Her arm jerked as the knife snagged on something rubbery. It was like cutting through a deer stomach but softer. Easier. Warm blood sprayed her cheek. Ranka adjusted her grip and pushed.

His life flashed through her—a field ruined by blight, a storm-wielding king drowning his family because they couldn’t pay the crop tax, a witch breaking into their home to steal food. Ranka cringed backward, trembling, the colors of the world windmilling before her eyes in brilliant, saturated hues.

The man died—and the pressure exploded.

Power roared through her limbs, her veins, white hot and brilliant. It lit up her nerves, fused with the very cells of her body. Ranka screamed. Her nails darkened, shifting from gray to the deepest black, a void of color that drank in all the light. Her irises vanished.

Curled in the melting snow, in a tiny village in northern Isodal, a blood-witch was born.

Ranka opened her eyes.

The world rearranged itself. The pain was gone. Something ancient, crueler and hungrier than regular witchery, expanded inside her. Her muscles felt as if they were made of steel. She inhaled. The air tasted of pain, and nothing had ever tasted so sweet.

Something eternal and furious guided her young hands. It curled them into fists. She looked at the humans she had tried to love. The humans who had given her and her sister up once to the Skra and welcomed them back only to burn them.

A man with an axe lunged.

Ranka caught his hand with her own. She broke his fingers with a twist. He screamed, and Ranka stepped forward, prying the weapon from his ruined hand and turning it against him. Her body moved on instinct, the blade singing a terrible song as it sawed through his coat, the flannel shirt his wife had stitched him, and finally met his heart. Blood coursed down Ranka’s arms as he collapsed. She felt stronger, better. His life flashed through her in images of fields, golden-haired children, a lover lost to the war—and then he was gone. The dark thing inside her swelled and demanded more.

The humans came for her.