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Back We Are Blood and Thunder
Chapters (32)
  1. PROLOGUE
  2. ONE
  3. TWO
  4. THREE
  5. FOUR
  6. FIVE
  7. SIX
  8. SEVEN
  9. EIGHT
  10. NINE
  11. TEN
  12. ELEVEN
  13. TWELVE
  14. THIRTEEN
  15. FOURTEEN
  16. FIFTEEN
  17. SIXTEEN
  18. SEVENTEEN
  19. EIGHTEEN
  20. NINETEEN
  21. TWENTY
  22. TWENTY-ONE
  23. TWENTY-TWO
  24. TWENTY-THREE
  25. TWENTY-FOUR
  26. TWENTY-FIVE
  27. TWENTY-SIX
  28. TWENTY-SEVEN
  29. TWENTY-EIGHT
  30. TWENTY-NINE
  31. EPILOGUE
  32. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

She didn’t want to wait to find out.

She returned to the narrow path and carried on at a stumbling run.

After a time, it grew so late that she could barely distinguish the trees from the darknesses in between—but soon she began to see other things, shapes in the fog twisting into suggestions of hands, eyes, mouths. She blinked, rubbing her face and cursing the loss of her shield-eyes. No one in Duke’s Forest would step outside with their eyes unprotected—the toxic storm cloud caused visions if they were exposed for too long. Every now and then, larger shapes loomed from between the trees, and she could not prevent herself from starting backward before they dissipated, even though she knew they weren’t real.

She imagined the strangers’ bodies in the clearing moving, rising up, following her. Don’t. Think. But despite her stern thoughts, and the exhaustion screaming at her to stop, she quickened her pace.

Eventually, Lena could continue no longer. Her legs gave out, and she felt her fingers burrow into the mossy mulch of the forest floor. The hallucinations were worsening. She knew she was vulnerable out here—to real threats—if she wasn’t able to run. She remembered Vigo’s tales of the giant snakes and wild boar that infested the wood and screwed her eyes shut against a wave of terror. She took a deep breath. She needed her wits now more than ever.

But the forest stretched in all directions, and she had long lost the road—how would she escape? And even if she were to find her way out, what fate could a girl like her expect in the wider world? She felt for the birthmark on her cheek, several shades darker than the brown of her skin. Even the people of Duke’s Forest had regarded cryptlings—marked out by their various deformities—with a mixture of disgust and begrudging respect for their duties. Vigo had said the gods were cruel, their followers toying with dangerous magic. What would they make of her? What did they do to Marked people outside Duke’s Forest?

Would they try to execute her too?

Lena felt a sickly chill spread from her throat to her stomach as she considered the most terrible possibility of all: What if the storm cloud had swallowed everything, leaving the city of Duke’s Forest the lonely center of the universe? What if those people had been trying to reach Duke’s Forest to save themselves?