Page 100 of The Witch in the Dead of Night

“So sheltered.”

“Hardly,” I said through gritted teeth.

I’d heard stories. Demons that had escaped from under the watchful eye of Ferinor, giants who made their homes in the mountains to the west. A kraken was even rumored to guard the passage between Valen and the Garion Isles, although I had heard that from an outrageously drunk sailor in a tavern by Valnar’s docks. Still, until now I had never seen anything stranger than the wyverns Mordric kept hidden beyond the castle grounds.

“Well, I hate to be the one to tell you this,” said Enhart, “but magical creatures will, inevitably, be more drawn to you because of your power. It’s an unfortunate truth and all the more reason to keep practicing.”

“If they’re wights, does that mean their souls are trapped here?” I asked. As terrifying as they were, it was difficult to think of a more terrible fate.

“Does it look like they have souls to you?”

My eyes flicked back to the masticated creatures that stood before me. No, it didn’t.

I swallowed. “Are we safe here?”

He shrugged. “It’s your ward.” I scowled at him and he threw up his hands. “I trust your ward, okay? Although that reminds me.” He crossed to where his saddlebag hung on my enchanted fence, rustling around inside. I kept my eyes trained on the wightgasts, too horrified to look away.

“Here,” he said. I glanced down despite myself, frowning as I realized what he was holding.

“You’re giving me a blade?” I asked, bewildered. “I don’t know how to use that thing.”

He sighed. “It’s a last resort. Like if a wightgast sneaks up on you faster than you can raise a shield, or if you’re somehow incapacitated.”

“You just said that you trusted my ward.”

“I do. This is just in case. I doubt you’ll ever have to use it.”

I tugged on the hilt, pulling the dagger from its sheath. I balked as I laid eyes on the design etched into the steel. A serpent. One I had seen before. “This is—”

“Nothing special, I know,” he said.

I glanced up at him. Mordric had told me the night we met that this dagger was meant to be a gift. But he never mentioned for whom it was intended. “This is not nothing. And it’s far too nice for someone like me.”

“Nonsense,” he said, waving away my protests. “It was just something I had lying around. Look, the sheath was designed to be secured to your belt.” He wiggled the clasp between his fingers. “But we could get you a holster that wraps around your leg, if you prefer.”

“Maybe,” I mumbled, sliding it back into place. When I strapped it to my side, it rested flush against the curve of my hip. I was unsure of what to say. Or why he was lying to me.

We stood there for a few quiet moments, watching side-by-side as the creatures milled around the ward. I was too uneasy to go back to sleep, and too wary to take another sip of valerian root. So instead, I sat with my back to the fire, Enhart not far away. His eyes never closed. The wightgasts continued to shuffle to and fro, their bare feet scraping across the clearing floor.

They never attempted to break through the ward, but they never strayed from our camp, either. I didn’t want to think about what would happen if there was nothing standing between us. Shortly before the moon gave way to muddled sunlight, they retreated into the trees, disappearing like ash that had been gathered from a campfire and tossed into the wind.

The air was so thick with smoke that I feared I would choke on it. Cobalt-blue flames lapped hungrily at my boots. A skeleton lay at my feet, splintering in the heat. It spit shards of bone toward me like tiny daggers. A shadowy figure appeared at the door. Luc.

Strings of bloody sinew spilled out of the hole where Enhart had driven his blade into the vampire’s throat. His eyes were wide, the whites of them mottled with red. He groaned as flames climbed up his legs, blistering his skin. His bones cracked, his body contorting until he was made only of shadow, with black eyes and long, bloodied fangs. A silver diadem materialized atop a curtain of silky black hair. No.

I wanted to scream, but I had no voice. This nightmarish form of Mordric surged forward, wrapping its hands around my shoulders. I could feel the cold sting of porcelain at my back. His touch was urgent, but disarmingly gentle. I struggled in his grasp as the flames whipped toward the ceiling, showering us with blue sparks.

“It’s just a dream.”

I opened my eyes and found myself staring into the wide eyes of Prince Enhart. My breathing was labored, my skin slick with sweat. I glanced around wildly, ceasing my squirming as my surroundings came into focus. We were encircled by stone. A cave. We had sheltered here to escape the snowstorms ripping through the Banshee Mountains.

Wind whistled through the cavemouth, mussing the prince’s hair.

“It was just a dream.”

My attention snapped back to Enhart. “I know,” I whispered, my voice hoarse. My gaze flicked to his hands. The same hands that had broken Luc’s neck, now carefully wrapped around my shoulders. How could someone so violent be so gentle? Embarrassment set in as he sat on his heels, his brow creased with worry.

The bottle of valerian root lay at the bottom of my saddlebags, untouched after our encounter with the wightgasts. We hadn’t seen any in the days since, though we were camping on the side of the road nearly every evening now, the distances between the guest houses growing wider and wider until they had disappeared entirely.