"The Reader's first death is at the fangs of the beast."
The words had appeared the night before and hadn't dissipated from his mind since. Every sound echoed louder, every shadow a little too dark. Even the sunrises beyond the walls felt cold.
The Warden summoned Elias soon after breakfast. Elias entered the map room to find Aric, Brynn, and two other officers already seated. The Warden's gaze was on a small cluster of markers on the hills north-east of the city.
"A farmer called in movement in the Ash Hollow," the Warden said. "Tracks too large for wolves. We need to know what it is."
Elias's stomach clenched. I already know.
Brynn glared at him. "You've gone white."
"Just tired," he fibbed.
The Warden looked between them. "Aric, you'll go with him. If there's a threat, end it before it reaches the villages."
They left within the hour, riding hard over frost-hardened ground. The Ash Hollow was a long depression between jagged hills, its floor covered in pale ash from an ancient fire. Even in daylight, it had the hush of a graveyard.
Elias looked down at the ground as they walked, noting the paw prints—bigger than a carrion's, wider than pad. The prints disappeared into the hollow.
"Be careful," Aric said, staff in hand.
The Script appeared before they'd taken twenty steps. The beast is in the shadow of the tallest rock.
Elias's eye swept the hollow. At its far end stood a pillar of black rock, taller than the others. Its shadow cast a dark wedge across the ash.
He gulped. "It's there."
Brynn didn't hesitate—she'd seen enough by now to believe his warnings. She signaled the soldiers to spread out, closing on the stone from all sides.
The first roar shook the air.
It exploded from the shadow like a landslide—giant, fur the color of midnight, muscles tensed beneath its hide. Its eyes glowed molten silver, and its jaws were lined with teeth far too long for its head. Each step crushed the ashen crust beneath.
The soldiers tensed. Aric raised his staff, muttering an incantation.
The creature sprang.
Elias barely leaped clear of the way, ash bursting above him as claws tore ground he'd stood upon. Brynn attacked it head-on, flashing blade against its hide.
"Flank it!" she shouted.
Elias darted to the side, his heart pounding. He caught a flash of its flank and cut, but his sword rang off hard hide. The beast spun about with dizzying speed, jaws snapping at him.
Aric bellowed, and a spout of fire erupted between them, sending the beast back with a snarl. "It's quick—don't let it settle on you!" the mage cried out.
The Script flashed again, so fast it caught Elias reeling. The Reader's throat is rent in the turning.
It was as if the ground beneath his feet was yanked away. He saw it already—turning too slowly, the beast's teeth in his throat. The prophecy wasn't ambiguous this time. It was exact.
He tried to keep on the move, striking when the beast's focus was distracted by Brynn or the soldiers. But it was too fast, too ruthless. One soldier went down screaming, blood black on the ash. Another was crushed into the black rock, motionless.
Brynn parried a blow that would have killed her, but the beast was turning already—on Elias.
Instinct took over. He swung at its eyes, and it ducked low, baring white teeth.
Pain flashed at his shoulder as the jaws clamped around it—post, not throat, but close enough that hot blood flew across his chest.
He screamed, taking a stumbling step backward, vision reeling. The creature charged at him again.
Aric's fire consumed it on the side, but it didn't slow fast enough. Elias felt claws crash into him, slamming him to the ground.
The last thing he recalled was the jaws of the beast descending.
Darkness.
Not the slow decline of falling into unconsciousness—cold, total, terminal darkness. For one beat of his heart, there was nothing.
Then—light.
He was standing in the marketplace. The position of the sun was the same it had been three days earlier. The same merchant was shouting about fresh bread. The same child was running past with a wooden toy.
Elias's breath caught. "No. No, no, no—"
Brynn was at the fountain, alive and uninjured. She looked at him like he'd just walked up out of nowhere. "You look like you've seen a ghost."
He didn't answer. He couldn't. His hands were clean. His wounds were gone. But he could feel the memory of teeth in his flesh.
The Script flashed faintly at the edge of his vision, teasing him. The loop begins.
He sat alone in his room, staring at the wall. His heart was still racing from a fight that—by all outward evidence—hadn't yet taken place. But he knew one thing for sure.
If he didn't change what was going to happen, he'd die in Ash Hollow again.