Gradually, the howls and barks faded altogether, but it was a long time before Lena allowed herself to be certain she had not been followed—perhaps the dogs, penned for so long within the city walls, had been spooked by the alien scents and noises of the forest. Or perhaps the houndmaster had assumed her dead and called them off, or perhaps he’d feared losing them forever among the trees, as so many travelers had been lost before. In any case, she was painfully grateful. She slowed down, rubbed her stinging eyes, and caught her breath. She rested her hands on her knees for a moment, her heartbeat slowing—and then she reached for the brass butterfly she kept in the pocket of her robe. It was as big as the palm of her hand, warm from her body. Tracing the delicate filigree of its wings, she felt her breathing slow.

Whenever she held the butterfly, she remembered how she had felt the night she’d found it—or rather, the night it had found her. She had felt wanted. Calm. Secure in the knowledge that she was worth something, because she had something of worth.

Out of the corner of her eye she saw a shape—a human shape, hunched at the foot of a tree. Her stomach convulsed and she ducked behind a rotten tangle of undergrowth, pressing her hand against her mouth to stifle a rising scream. But the figure didn’t appear to have noticed her. The cloud shifted, alternately revealing and concealing a long cloak, brown boots, large leather gloves. So still, so quiet, his hooded head resting on his chest. Sleeping? But she saw no movement, not a twitch, no rise and fall of breath. Slowly, Lena realized the man was dead.

She slipped the butterfly into her pocket, stood up, and walked toward him, her whole body still trembling—but gradually calming as she approached the corpse. She wasn’t afraid of the dead—not unless they … She shook her head, not wanting to think about it. No, it was the living who frightened her.

She crouched, examined a blade dropped near the body glinting in the faint evening light filtering through cloud and trees. It was a short dagger, the hilt twined with a dragon motif in silver, its eye set with a green gem. Hardly thinking, she picked it up, slid it carefully into her belt. As she moved on, she realized the man had been resting at the edge of a small clearing. And she saw another body. A woman, her back turned to Lena, marked by her perfectly preserved, long red hair, splayed in the mud. And another—a man curled up under his cloak by the blackened remains of a fire. Without meaning to, she glimpsed his face, decayed and ghastly.

These bodies had been here for a long time. Had they been trying to reach the city? They were strangers, surely. What had killed them?