We rode overland for miles before we stopped. I didn't want to risk going any further knowing that one of the horses was injured in some way. I doubted they'd pursue immediately. They had dead and wounded to attend to.

  Altivo was already slowing when I called out to the others. I hopped down from his back as the horses all gathered around and quickly found the mare with burns along her side. I winced when I saw how bad it really was, but quickly sent a surge of healing light into the animal, ignoring the scent of blood as best I could.

  Nadine and the spellbreaker stopped nearby, both dismounting and heading my way.

  "I can't believe they'd attack the horses like that. They're innocent animals," I said, checking to ensure the wound was entirely healed.

  "Who were they?" Nadine asked. "Their clothing and armor matched enough to feel like a uniform, but I didn't recognize it."

  I shrugged. "They didn't feel like the heretics. Whoever they were, we will need to be ready for them if they follow."

  "Vampire Hunters," the Spellbreaker said as he joined us leading his horse by the reins. "I don't know what they could have been thinking."

  He froze as we both locked our gaze onto him, then bowed—carefully, like someone still recovering from broken ribs. Like wounded prey, my mind supplied, unbidden. I forced myself to stand still, dragging my eyes away from his exposed neck.

  "I owe you an apology," he said. "For before. The attack on the road. For not understanding what I was a part of until it was already in motion."

  Nadine’s expression didn’t soften, even though she'd been the one to ask me to spare him. I stayed quiet, curious where this was going.

  "I don't expect forgiveness," he said after a moment. "They hired us to stop a renegade mage who'd stolen the body of a false saint. To recover the artifacts for the church. I never would have gotten involved if I knew who you really were."

  I stared at him long enough that he risked glancing up at me before I spoke. "You mean to tell me that you chased after us all this way just to say that? Why?"

  Slow and awkwardly, he stood. "Because it was wrong, and people died because of it. I don’t get to walk away from that just because I survived.”

  "You mean," Nadine said sharply, "you were afraid of being forsaken by the gods."

  He flinched.

  “You don’t expect the Saint’s forgiveness,” she continued, “but you want it anyway.”

  “I do,” he said quietly. Then, after a breath, “And yours, Lady Nadine.”

  He lowered his head again.

  “I knew the moment our eyes met that you were no criminal. I still closed the distance. I am sorry.”

  I turned away, taking a step away from him and toward Altivo.

  "I am not angry at you," I said, before glancing at my cousin. "You should be more worried about Nadine."

  His eyes met hers, and they stared at each other for a long moment. I didn’t stay to hear what they said.

  I turned away and walked into the dark, putting distance between myself and both of them. I needed the air. I needed the space.

  I hadn’t fed. There'd been no chance in the fight, and needing to heal afterward hadn't helped. The power I’d spent left me hollowed out, and painful hunger followed close behind. Everything smelled like blood. Even me.

  I pushed through the haze it threw over my mind and focused. Our flight had taken us far from the road. I scanned the stars above, looking for reference, only to confirm what I suspected. We'd been traveling almost directly south. If we tried to get back to the road, they'd just cut us off. I hated to admit it, but I wasn't prepared to deal with them. Our only path was the one we were already on.

  I wasn't sure how far overland we'd need to travel, but I did know this route would take us back to the road that would lead us most quickly to the Dark Forest, and home. Maybe that would be for the best.

  I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, holding it until the world felt steady beneath my feet. Then I let it out and walked back toward the others.

  Whatever heated discussion they’d been having had died down. Now they stood in an awkward silence.

  "What is your name?" I asked the spellbreaker, making them both jump.

  "… Perrin. Of the Adventurer's Guild."

  I gave a short nod. “I am Mirela. This is Nadine. We are going south. Once we reach the road again, we will turn west to Angelshade. If they took this much effort to set this trap, they will follow us.”

  I met his eyes, just briefly.

  “You helped us. I won’t leave you to face them alone, but I’m not going to force you to come. I suggest you travel with us at least as far as the road.”

  Nadine huffed, annoyed, but she didn't look nearly as angry as before I'd walked away.

  He waited, but when she only turned and resumed checking the horses, he looked back to me. "Thank you. I don't think they'd be happy to see me again."

  I didn't answer, instead heading for Altivo. He was grazing nearby, looking none the worse for wear after the run, but I was sure crashing through someone in full plate at a gallop wasn't pleasant. I went over his chest and legs, seeing no injury, but pushed a bit of healing into him to be safe. I felt it catch on bruises in his chest and bones. He nickered his thanks before continuing to eat the dew-covered foliage.

  "There will be monsters in the wilderness. We will need to be careful," Perrin said, filling the silence.

  I nodded without turning around. "I hope so."

  "You do?" he asked.

  "You should, too," Nadine said. "Mirela, we should keep going. If they're willing to leave their dead and wounded, they could be coming this way already."

  I looked back the way we came. "I don't think they'll rush. They were already beginning to hesitate before we escaped."

  "It didn't feel that way to me," Nadine said. "I guess they were a little confused. Still, is it worth the risk?"

  I nodded. “Even if they want to pursue us immediately, they’ll know they need as much of their team as they can bring.” I looked ahead, then shrugged. “The ambush was planned. They’d hidden runes all over that ruin. There’s no way they could’ve cast that many powerful spells over such a wide area so quickly otherwise.”

  “That’s true. You were right. They were ahead of us, waiting…” Nadine paused. “They aren’t working alone. There’s someone else communicating with them. They could already have another ambush in motion.”

  I nodded, beginning the walk south, Nadine at my side. "Yes. But they won't know for sure where we're going to meet the south road, or that we're going that way at all. And that means, we have time to prepare."

  "Hold on!" Perrin said, hurrying to walk beside us. "Those are vampire hunters! Aren't they part of the church? And you want to fight them again?" He paused as the wrong conclusions began clicking together in his head. "There are more of them. They're like the ones who hired me."

  "I don't know about that," I said, edging further away from him. "They thought Nadine was a vampire, or that's the impression I got when they approached us. They didn't want to talk, so it turned into a fight."

  He looked at Nadine with mild alarm. She only shook her head. "I’m not a vampire. And they’re not part of the church,” she added. “They’re an order. Self-declared, but well-backed.”

  "Surely they will give up the chase once they realize we've continued on during daylight, then?" he asked.

  I could only shrug. "They seem like the type to believe what they want to believe. If they follow us too far, they will regret it."

  We traveled like that for nearly an hour. When the horses seemed rested enough to continue normally, we still hadn’t spotted any pursuit. We kept a reasonable pace for traveling in the dark, but still put a lot of distance between us and the ruins.

  When the sun came over the horizon a couple of hours later, I knew we needed to stop. It didn’t take long to find a place where we could stop to rest. And trying to set up camp showed us exactly how costly the attack on our previous one had been.

  Before we'd settled in for the night, we'd taken the saddles and our bags off of the horses, leaving them loaded with nothing but their blankets and saddle pads. When we'd been forced to flee our camp, Nadine had managed to grab her bag, but nothing else. It didn't cripple us, but would make things less comfortable.

  Between Nadine’s cloak and a borrowed blanket, the two of us would sleep well enough. Perrin tried to offer more of his gear, but I didn’t need a bedroll, and Nadine didn’t seem comfortable taking it.

  Just as we finished setting things in place to rest, the breeze carried the scent of copper and damp earth over our camp. I froze, slowly turning to take in our surroundings again, then letting my eyes follow across the rolling grasslands to face upwind.

  Nadine turned from where she'd just sat down in the makeshift bed. "Are you coming?"

  I shook my head. "You go ahead. I will catch up. There's something I want to check."

  "Is everything alright?" she asked, moving as if she were going to stand.

  I waved her back to calm. "Everything is alright. Just, wait for me."

  Reluctantly, she relented, lying back.

  I looked to Perrin, who'd volunteered for the first watch. He only nodded.

  Sword in hand, I followed the odd, yet familiar scent. I wasn’t sure if it meant trouble, but I’d rather be cautious than dead. The hills were broken by grass and brush, shallow dips and narrow valleys where sound and smell gathered. I knew when I was close. The faint trace I’d followed thickened into something heavier.

  The blood had carried me this far. What waited ahead was something else entirely. The air grew thick with the smell of decay and damp fur, sharp enough to burn at the back of my throat. I slowed, certain now that whatever lay ahead had not moved on.

  Rather than following the next hill down, I crept to the small rocky overhang looking down on the shallow valley.

  It took me a moment to understand what I was seeing. A mass of fur and chitin, bones and limbs, shredded tents, and gear, all in a bulging, tangled heap around the scattered firepit.

  The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

  As I watched, it swelled and shrank with the slow rhythm of breathing, and my mind began to piece it together.

  One long, segmented body, each section several feet in length, bristling with blue-and-black fur jutting between overlapping plates. Dozens of long limbs, all covered in that same dark fur, ending not in paws or claws but in hands. Thin fingers, long enough to wrap around my torso with ease.

  Scattered along its back, bones laced together like the bars of a cage, covering recessed pits filled with slime, torn limbs, and half-devoured bodies. Animals, monsters, and the most recent victims: the adventurers who’d been sleeping here.

  Each pit was lined with mouths, opening and closing slowly as they fed… until they began to quiver. Like a scattered, discordant chorus, their sucking and chewing shifted into a pained, wet hiss. It was a heartbeat before I understood why.

  The light. My Divine Radiance had crept farther than I’d intended, brushing against the creature’s body. Flesh sizzled where it touched, thin threads of smoke curling up from between the plates of its shell as sanctified light met something that did not belong.

  The whole mass shuddered, then its head lifted from where it had been tucked beneath its body.

  There was no face. Only two long antennae unfurled and swept the air—then snapped violently away with another hiss the moment they turned in my direction.

  Its long body uncoiled, and a shriek tore free from one of the pits along its back. I had just enough time to see a blood-slicked arm still clinging to the bone cage, fingers twitching weakly, before the thing moved.

  All of its hands slapped against the ground at once. The impact shuddered up through the earth, something I felt but couldn’t hear, and it hurled itself forward in a wild, serpentine sprint. Every motion sparked confusion and chaos, yet not a single sound followed.

  My heart leapt in my chest as I bounded to my feet, sword drawn. For a heartbeat I thought it was fleeing, its constantly shifting direction making it impossible to be sure. Then it twisted impossibly and came straight at me.

  Long, whipping fingers lashed out from several hands at once.

  Only instinct saved me. I jumped straight up as my wings slammed down in a powerful beat, smashing hands aside as they threw me into the air.

  I felt the wrongness of the thing like pressure against my Divine Radiance, golden light intensifying with its proximity. The creature’s flesh cracked in response, but it didn’t flee. Its body reared up instead, fingers grasping for my legs as I glided over the ledge and dropped toward the camp below.

  Before my feet touched the ground, it spilled over the rockface after me, climbing down as easily as it scuttled across the ground—until the hill gave way beneath its weight.

  Rocks, dirt, and the monster crashed down together. It began digging itself free even as more earth slid after it. I didn’t miss the opportunity.

  Celerity overtook me as hunger burned hot behind my eyes, my vision edging red. I was beside it in a flash of movement, sword singing with vampiric might.

  Two arms spun away beneath the arc of my blade. My next step and strike were already in motion before the creature registered the loss. I aimed for another joint—

  A hand slammed shut around my head.

  It moved too fast to evade. My momentum broke, my blade leaving only a shallow cut as it lifted me clear of the ground. My fangs did better. I sank them into a grime-caked hand, teeth punching through its hide with ease.

  Then I drank. Blood Drain tore through it as fast as I could pull the magic-rich blood free. Acidic pain flared, hot and burning against my throat, tangled with the ecstasy of it. The creature’s grip slackened, then it hurled me away.

  My wings flared, throwing my feet over my head, and I landed in a crouch, eyes already locked on the monster. Its injured arm fell limp, and in an instant, every arm around it latched on and ripped it free. It tossed the poisoned limb aside, but I knew its blood had already carried the venom too far.

  The bite had done something more important than that. The blood cleared my head, and I saw my mistakes repeating themselves. I was the Saint. I needed to stop ignoring that. I reached into the well of power, calling forth a Blessing of Light and wrapping myself in a golden shield of protection. Then I advanced, keeping the pressure up, my Divine Radiance burning into the trapped creature.

  Arms flailed, searching for prey, while others worked at digging its head free. More clawed at the collapsed earth and stone.

  I was nearly on it when I realized every motion was a lie.

  The same grasping patterns repeated, hands scrubbing at dirt and air alike, missing stone by inches. My feet slid to a stop, but it was already too late.

  Every hand slammed down at once. The creature launched itself forward in an unavoidable roll, earth spraying outward as the cages along its back flared wide like jaws and its bulk came crashing toward me.

  I let its shadow engulf me, then stepped out the other side as it rolled past, lashing out with my sword. Another arm flew free. My blade was already swinging with my reverse step, catching the counterattack and severing the fingers from the hand.

  The creature shuddered as the venom worked its way through it. Movements that had been fluid moments ago began to stutter. One arm spasmed, then went slack, hanging uselessly until the others tore it free without hesitation. Another followed, then another, its body growing more erratic even as it tried to compensate.

  I didn’t give it the chance. I focused inward, finding the well of light waiting for me, and unleashed Holy Radiance.

  Golden light burst outward, searing into the ground around us. Stone blackened and cracked, earth hissing as the sanctified heat spread. The creature recoiled as its hands touched the burning soil, limbs jerking back too slowly, flesh smoking where it made contact. Its body thrashed, unable to find purchase without hurting itself.

  That was my opening. I was on it in an instant, leaping onto its coiling body and driving my blade down. The sword punched through chitin and bone with a wet, grinding resistance, burying itself deep. The creature convulsed, a hissing spray of slime erupting from its feeding pits as the ground beneath it burned brighter.

  I flared my wings for balance while I wrenched the blade free. Then I struck again. And again. Each blow drove deeper, each impact sending a shudder through its massive form. Arms lashed blindly, some breaking as they struck stone, others falling limp as the venom finally took hold. The thing writhed, losing coordination as its movements collapsed into twitching spasms.

  One final surge of Blood-Fueled Strength flared through me as I raised my sword and brought it down with all my weight behind it, punching straight through what passed for its head.

  The creature shuddered to a stop. The feeding pits slackened, the mouths fell silent. Smoke curled up from scorched flesh as the last of its limbs twitched once, then lay still. Only the weak pulsing of blood from its wounds told me it wasn't quite dead yet, but close, and no longer able to fight the venom.

  I knelt, hesitating only a moment before leaning forward and sinking my fangs in. Its blood was powerful, but dark, and burned the whole way down. None of that mattered because I needed it, and I didn't care if I had to waste some to regenerate the damage it did.

  I don’t know how long I drank, only that I didn’t stop until its hearts did. Then I released my bite and leaned there, chest heaving, blade buried to the hilt, golden light fading as the pressure against my Radiance finally eased.

  It was done.

  I heard the others approaching and wasn't surprised. The monster might have been silent, but its movement still sent tremors through the ground—And we had knocked over a small cliff.

  My eyes fell to where I'd fed, and the rumor about the wagon came to mind. This thing wasn't nearly as drained as those people had been. I'd need an entire coven of starving vampires to exsanguinate a monster this big, but the bite was distinctive. I pulled my sword free, then punched it in again, over and over, removing the evidence.

  "I think it's dead," came Perrin's voice, bringing the motion to a stop.

  "By the gods, what is that thing?" Nadine asked, coming up behind him.

  I could only shake my head. "I have no idea."

  Perrin looked around at the monster, what was left of the camp not under the collapsed hill, and then back to me. "I thought the Hero was the one who fought monsters… Are you alright? Why didn't you call for help?"

  The mention of Laurent froze me for a moment. I told myself I was used to the absence and moved on. I opened my mouth to answer, but Nadine was already speaking.

  "Nothing about this thing fits!"

  She stepped past Perrin without acknowledging him, already crouching near the monster’s remains. She didn’t touch it, but leaned close, eyes tracing the plates, the fur, the warped bones of the cages along its back.

  “That’s not a local morphology,” she murmured. “The segmentation is consistent, but the growth patterns aren’t adapted for the environment here.” She shifted, studying the head. “No eyes. No vestigial sockets either. It didn’t evolve anywhere with regular light. Perhaps subterranean?”

  Her gaze moved to one of the severed limbs, then to the hands.

  “Too dexterous for a simple burrower,” she said slowly. “Not wrong… just excessive. As if grasping mattered more than speed, or tearing.” She paused to think. “That suggests more complex behavior… Or perhaps history.”

  She exhaled and I felt the frustration in it. “It’s not a construct. The tissue’s alive. The magic’s endogenous.” Her brow furrowed. “But it isn’t drawing from any local ley pattern I recognize. The resonance is… displaced.”

  Her gaze moved to the feeding pits, to the bone cages, finally seeing what was still trapped inside them.

  “…Those are people,” she said, voice tightening. “Or what’s left of them.”

  "Yes." I answered simply, turning and making my way in that direction.

  Nadine straightened, finally looking around at the hills, the ruined camp, and the distance we'd already traveled.

  “How did something like this get all the way out here?”

  I shrugged, carefully approaching the first pit. “I’d be more worried about why it bothered to come this far in the first place. This monster is a predator, not just a killing machine, and it’s a smart one. Why would it leave its normal habitat? Was this bad luck, or are there more of them out there? Could more be on the way?”

  It had lost much of its contents in the roll, but it looked like this thing had simply thrown whatever animals it passed into the pits. Sticky fluid held half-dissolved bones within reach of the many mouths. I moved on to the next pit, then the next.

  Perrin had begun looking around the scene and what was left of the camp, but stopped to call out, “How dangerous was it, really? If you hadn’t knocked this hill down, I don’t know if we’d have noticed a fight at all.”

  I stopped at the pit I was looking for. “It doesn’t make a sound. I could only feel the vibrations it made through the ground. I think it just walked into this camp, and it took the entire party while they slept, before they even knew it was there.”

  He shook his head, trying to wrap his mind around it. “Hell of a thing to wake up to. None of them managed to escape or fight free?”

  I reached down, prying back several of the bone spines one at a time. “I don’t think they could have. This thing is strong, and they’d have had no leverage.”

  I didn’t mention the digestive slime. Or lying in a bed of tearing teeth. Nadine didn’t need those images in her mind. I wished I didn’t have them, either.

  I focused back on the pit before me. I hadn't imagined that shriek at the beginning of the fight. The woman was still there, tattered remains of her clothes clinging to her frame, most of her legs missing, the skin on her face and arms raw from where slime had been wiped away as best she could have managed. One of her arms was broken at a bad angle, likely the one she'd been clinging to the cage with before the roll.

  I reached in, catching her unbroken arm, and pulled her out. Her skin was far too cold, and her eyes only fluttered slightly. When I laid her down on the carapace, she let out a small whimper, the only sound she'd made while being pulled free. She was long past the point she should have died, clinging on with nothing but directionless willpower.

  I stared at her for a moment, not entirely sure what to do. I could try healing her, but she was so far gone. I could only rely on my divine magic and this felt so far beyond it. Would it even ease her passing, let alone heal her? Would letting her die now be kinder?

  Nadine gasped from nearby, seeing the wounds, and the ragged breaths. Would she forgive me if I didn't at least try? Would I forgive myself?

  I took a deep breath, and with it, drew as deeply from the well as I could manage. I formed the intent, and let the Healing Touch push into the adventurer.

  Golden light flowed into her form. Her arm straightened, and some of the redness left her skin. But then, the magic faded, and I knew it would before it happened. I could feel how far gone she was, how much was beyond healing. Her eyes slowly opened, full of tension and pain, but even as they took in the open sky above her, I could see she already knew she was past saving.

  I reached over and took her hand, and her eyes shifted to meet mine. Her fingers tightened for a brief moment, but nothing else.

  "You're not alone."

  The words came automatically, but they felt right, and from the softening of her face, I think she agreed. She watched the stars fade into the morning light. Then her grip loosened, and that was all.

  We spent another hour at the campsite, the sunrise advancing across the hills. We gathered the bodies of the adventurers first, laying them out for cremation. It was only possible with the aid of two mages, but it was necessary.

  Their camp had been destroyed and trampled in the night attack, and my battle with the monster afterward had only made it worse, but we found a few things we could salvage without digging. A pair of waterskins, a coil of rope, two bedrolls that hadn’t been soaked through, and a plain oilcloth half-cloak. Nadine recovered a reagent pouch from beneath a torn cloak, its contents intact enough to be useful.

  Near the firepit, a greatsword lay half-buried in churned earth, the blade bent nearly in half. Perrin lifted it, tested the weight, then set it back down without a word. There was no fixing that.

  We managed a couple of hours rest back at our camp, but we all knew that was all we could afford. The detour had cost us, but removing something like that from the world mattered. And it had left me steady again, no longer hollowed out by hunger.

  By early afternoon, we were moving again. Before we left, I hesitated over recalling my wings. They had proven too useful too often, and part of me resisted letting them go. In the end, it was our pursuers who decided it for me. If we were going to put real distance between ourselves and them, blending in mattered more than advantage.

  I paused before I began, taking a moment to appreciate how the air felt different with them spread, lighter somehow, as if part of my weight no longer quite belonged to the ground. Letting them go meant accepting that weight again, at least for a while. I focused inward and released the shape I was holding.

  The change wasn’t dramatic, but it was unmistakable. Pressure slid back into my shoulders and spine, a subtle redistribution of strength that left the rest of my body feeling heavier and more contained. I hadn’t realized how much I’d been leaning on them until they were gone.

  The cost was far less than calling them had been, which eased a quiet fear in the back of my mind, but it was still there. Enough that it would always be a consideration I needed to plan for.

  I pulled the scavenged half-cloak around myself, using it to cover the Saint’s mantle. The fabric smelled faintly of smoke and old oil, but it would do. My clothes beneath were torn and stiff with drying grime, hardly fit for returning to civilization.

  Nadine noticed immediately. “Here, take these,” she said, already digging through her pack. A moment later, she produced one of her spare shirts and her second heavy winter skirt .

  “I think you should keep that,” I said, nodding toward the skirt. A glance down at what I was wearing made it clear it wouldn’t do, though. “Maybe the adventurer skirt instead. It’s far too cold for you to wear it anyway.”

  She paused only a moment before nodding. “Yes. Alright.”

  “If you don’t mind me saying—” Perrin began.

  “I do mind you saying,” Nadine cut in, raising a hand. “Turn around so she can change!”

  To emphasize the point, Altivo stepped neatly between us, his blanket a convenient privacy screen.

  “Good horse,” Nadine said, patting his neck.

  I changed quickly, grateful for some semblance of cleanliness. When I straightened, the others were already busy readying the horses. I joined them, starting by rolling up Altivo’s blanket.

  As we mounted, Nadine asked, “So. What are you going to call it?”

  “Call what?"

  “You discovered a new monster,” Perrin said helpfully. “Naming it is your right.”

  I looked between them. “It might already have a name somewhere else. That could get confusing.”

  Nadine scoffed. “If it does, it’s nowhere close enough to matter. You have to name it. It’s tradition.”

  I sighed, urging Altivo forward. “Fine. Its name is Nigel.”

  “She means the species,” Perrin added.

  I nodded. “Also Nigel. Now, can we go?”

  With nothing more than a weary sigh, the two turned to follow.

  By afternoon, the hills had begun to flatten, the land opening into long, empty stretches where nothing moved but wind and grass. No signs of pursuit followed us. Somehow, that made me worry more than if there had been.

  Veil.