Two girls. Two secrets.
Only one can survive.
Years before Nelle Wychthorn plans her escape, Tabitha Catt may unearth something in a Horned God's lair that is the key to freedom.
Desperate to save her beloved aunt from a dark curse, Tabitha is out t...
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The gloaming draped itself over the Hemmlok Forest like a forlorn lover. Barely any sunlight could pierce through the thick canopy above and motes drifted in the thin shafts of pale and insipid light. With every quiet inhale I breathed in the pungent scent of decaying wood and leaves, damp moss, and moist earth.
Valarie and I were perched high up in the uppermost reaches of a walnut tree. A haunting melody whispered around us as a cold breeze ruffled through golden leaves turning red. Valarie panned her loaded crossbow across the small clearing below. Her eyes were narrowed and her body tense and ready. Her forefinger twitched, itching to curl around the crossbow's trigger. The weapon was loaded with a cursed bolt that would render the prey paralyzed before a plague-like curse would boil its flesh to a pulp. My own fingers tightened around the blades of slender throwing knives. Both of us were on edge, our keen senses honed on the ground below.
A creaking sound—not branches bending with the wind, but something else. Close, very close, right behind the deeply furrowed tree trunk where we couldn't see.
But we heard the soft, hungry whine.
Saw the breaths that clouded cool air in streaming puffs.
Quietly, a lesser creature stalked out into view, paused, a glance over its feathered shoulder—tense, listening, waiting.
A Tjolk, long-limbed with a cloak fashioned from sparrow feathers, lifted a leathery arm, and a faint shimmer of magic blurred the background around its lanky body. Its thumb unconsciously rubbed across the tips of three knobbled fingers as it cocked a large furled ear and sniffed the air. It had picked up our scent half an hour ago and had begun to hunt us.
Tjolks were solitary creatures and ate rocks or vegetation if they had to, but they preferred the delicacies of flesh, whether it be animal or human. Saliva gathered at the corners of its fat rubbery lips as if its mouth was watering in anticipation of consuming my sister and me—alive. I slowly, carefully began to pull my arm back, ready to hurl a knife as its gaunt leathery head twisted around. Its round eyes, pupils strangely star-shaped, raked the walnut tree that we'd climbed, its gaze going up, up, up—
"Shit," I heard my sister say, more breath than voice. Her forefinger wrapped around the metal trigger as she aimed, ready to unleash a bolt.
An unearthly howl shattered the silence.
The howl, loud and nearby, hollowed out my ears.
Not the lesser creature, but something else—a wolf.
The Tjolk jerked around and hissed with fury. It erupted into panicked motion and darted across the small clearing.
Five wraith-wolves exploded out of the undergrowth, their thin black lips pulled back from vicious fangs. The alpha that headed the pack was larger than the four that flanked it. Their misty fur wavered like tendrils of smoke as they bounded across the small clearing, enormous paws ripping up the forest floor.
