The land unfurled around her, sprawling into a wild tangle of boreal forest unsullied by human hands, brilliant even when rendered in blacks, whites, and soft grays. She could have run for days like this, her blood-magic a hum beneath her skin, her only concern the target ahead. This was what she’d been born for—the solitude of the hunt, tracking in the shadows of mountains with nothing but a weapon and the drumbeat of her heart for company.

Out here, she was no one. Out here, she was free.

Younger witches always thought they wanted adventure. They dreamed of bloody battles, secret missions, and noble sacrifices. They were never prepared for what came after—injuries that ached more every year, nightmares that never ended, and the guilt, festering like a wound, fed by memories of friends killed in an act of mercy because the healers always arrived too late or never at all.

Ranka gulped in clean air, tearing over a bend, sunlight warming her back even as her cheeks grew numb. Wind whipped at her face, snatching her straw-colored hair from its braids. The world could shove its glory. Here, in the north, far from the border and the whims of cruel princes, her coven could build a life away from bloodshed. They could rest.

And maybe, someday, they could even be happy.

Ranka stepped through the trees and froze.

A fangwolf lay on its side.

Incisors curled from its lips, longer than the span of her hand, their points dripping poison that Ranka knew was the soft hue of a robin’s egg. Memories flashed behind her eyes: witches lowered into the earth, skin broken by puncture wounds ringed blue. Her hand twitched to her weapon—but no. This beast could barely move. Gashes carved its flanks, revealing glimpses of bone. Bite marks mangled its neck. She frowned. Cougars didn’t come down from the mountains once the north shifted into summer, and even the greenest witchlings knew to stay far away from a predator as deadly as a fangwolf. What, then, had attacked this beast so viciously?

Not my target. I should move on.

Instead, beneath her skin, her blood-magic began to hum.

Even after five years under its grip, Ranka was startled every time the power rose. Her vision was the first to go—colors melting away, rendering the world in burning gray. Power rushed in like adrenaline tenfold, filing her nails into claws, swelling her muscles. Her hearing sharpened, suddenly capable of picking up the soft scuttle of mice beneath the snow, the nervous snort of a whitetail deer picking its way through the pines. She could break bone with her bare hands and run for miles without growing winded.

It made her an excellent hunter; it made her a better killer.

But with it came a hunger satiated only by taking a life. With it came the death sentence that was blood-magic.