The witch shuffled forward, and the light hit her in full.

Purple, pus-scabbed sores covered her body. Her pale skin had the pallor of someone three days dead. Her clothes were of the southern human style, reduced to bloodied tatters. Blood crusted her face, and blue-ringed puncture marks marred her arms.

Ranka went cold. Only a handful of blood-witches were born every generation. She should have rushed to the witch’s help, overjoyed to meet someone like her at long last. Someone who understood.

Instead, she remained rooted in place.

Instead, something inside her whispered: Run.

“Are you all right?”

The witch panted. A beetle crawled from her left nostril and skittered down the hollow of her throat.

“Do you need a healer—”

A horrible gurgle crawled out of the witch’s throat—and she lunged.

Ranka scrambled away. Her heel snagged on a root and down she went, tumbling backward to land awkwardly on her wrist. Pain lanced up her arm. The witch ran straight through a briar patch. Nothing registered in her eyes but hunger. Ranka scrambled for her blood-magic, but it hovered out of reach, satiated by her recent kill.

The witch leapt on top of her, slammed a hand to Ranka’s throat, and pinned her to the earth.

Ranka clawed at her fingers. “Wait. I can help you.”

The witch licked her lips, her rotting teeth flashing. Her all-white eyes rolled.

“Please.”

Ranka’s vision swam. After everything she’d fought for, here she was again—weaponless, terrified, alone.

At least if she was going to die, it was here in the north where she belonged. Not in some distant human kingdom.

Please, let it be painless, let it be quick, it’s more than I deserve, but please, give me this.

The witch raised her other hand—and her eyes cleared.

A gasp left her. The witch snatched her fingers away from Ranka’s throat, face contorting, and keened. She jerked away from Ranka and collapsed to her hands and knees, retching violently, tears dripping from her cheeks, her entire body rocking with convulsions. Finally, the witch raised her head. When her eyes met Ranka’s, they were a clear forest green.

“From the poison,” she croaked, “comes the cure.”

And then she collapsed.

Once, when Ranka was a witchling, she’d held a piece of glass above an ant and angled a beam of light onto it. The sun had fried it instantly. The ant had twitched in a horrible dance before it finally curled up and went still. That was what that witch’s body did on the ground, body convulsing, fingers spasming, blood leaking from her nose as she writhed. It was a mercy when she stopped moving. The witch died with her eyes open—one eye a blank, blood-witch white, the other shining green.