How long had it been since she reached them? Months? Years?
It was time to move them, and yet she couldn't focus on that fact. Her mind fixated on the knot in her stomach as it tried to consume itself.
She was emaciated, her fingers trembled, and she needed to eat.
She could feel it, that blackness inside herself that was starvation, and she struggled to push it down and at least mostly remain herself.
People died when she was starving, more than just the one or two she needed to sustain herself.
With that in mind, she had ventured closer to a city than she ever intended, and she saw them, all those delicious, tempting souls for her to eat.
She couldn't attack a group; she was too weak for that. She would need someone alone, as even a pair of travellers might overpower her, and then she would be trapped.
Getting out of Ceress would be dangerous, and she could easily be tracked that way.
Chewing on her tongue, she did her best to ignore the gnawing in her stomach and simply watched, waiting for someone passing by to be on their own.
When he arrived, she was panting and sweating, though it was growing cooler as the night drew closer.
She needed to eat desperately, and if she didn't, she was going to lose control and go on a rampage.
The man barely registered to her, only vague flashes of pale skin and silvery hair, his long ears telling her his species. She knew only vaguely that he was higher ranked, thanks to his smart travel attire, but her hunger-addled brain was unable to fully register the details.
One problem, however, was registering: his mount.
Horses and she did not get along under any circumstances.
She had theorised with her sisters that horses could smell the predator in her and panicked. It wasn't a good thing when the beast would then alert her prey to her presence.
She didn't much like it, but she settled in to watch the man as he joined a handful of others who didn't aim to enter the city from the main gates; instead, he headed for stables that were closer to the ridge where she stood.
He trailed behind the others, taking his time to dismount and then unpack the beast before handing the creature off to a young stable boy.
Only once the beast was gone did she finally move, creeping her way around the ridge to come to a slow stop just inside the tree line.
She would need to be careful; if he really saw her up close, he might panic and run—if she stayed shadowed, he would likely get close enough that running would be no good.
Glancing down at the sparse covering of grass, leaves, and twigs around her feet, she intentionally stepped on one of the larger ones—the snapping sound drew his attention.
He stood frozen for several seconds, seeming uncertain of her until she lifted her hand in offering to him, a plea for help or an invitation.
Whichever he took it to be, it worked.
He stumbled forward for her and when he was close enough to see her face, she saw his comforting smile fade, could smell his fear as he realised the threat.
The moment he turned to run, she lunged for him, and her world was turned to black as the need to feed pulled at her.
She could taste his blood, smell his panic, and hear his screams.
They were running, her chasing and attempting to bring him down, trying to keep him from escaping when she was so weak.
She was in pain, her shoulder on fire, and yet she knew she could bring him down if only she could get her nails into him.
He was screaming and his blood sprayed the walls, coated the cobblestones, coated her.
She filled herself with his blood, greedy and desperate for more, and finally, the man was dead.
***
Blood coated her face, and her teeth sank into the flesh of his chest, tearing away at the firm muscle and thin layer of fat.
She was missing an arm and her shoulder burned where the skin and tendons had been ripped.
Swallowing the meat, she swept her eyes over her surroundings but found nothing of note.
Their blood coated the walls of the nearby buildings and the cobblestones beneath them. The ground had been torn and the stone of the building had been cracked during their fight.
Digging her fingers into his chest, she found what she was looking for and, with a wet sucking sound, she pulled the heart free of his ribcage. It was still warm, and it oozed blood as she bit into it, chewing the tough tissue.
Licking the blood from around her mouth, a scuff had her looking up, and she found him there.
He watched her curiously as she crouched over the corpse, her hair a tangled mess and her simple brown dress torn from the fight. Her feet were bare, and she was covered in blood, but she did not really care. She would go back to the river she had found earlier and clean off most of the gore.
He was a problem, though, and her eyes narrowed as she considered what he might want.
She knew what he was, and it made her immediately wary of him.
His kind were dangerous and volatile.
She wanted absolutely nothing to do with him, and yet, she had to protect her kill or he or any of the other scavenger species would take it and she would be left with nothing.
His hair was long and silvery-white, he was broad and tall with muscles that she thought must have been present before his death, and yet he was still somehow gaunt. His eyes were slate grey and cold as he studied
her, and she knew he was assessing her the same way. They were both gauging the threat that the other represented.
She knew instinctively that he was a lich, one of the dead arcane magic users who was once human and had given himself up to the dark, demonic magic that, once found, was almost impossible for the human to give up again. It was an addiction like no other.
Neither of them dared to move, aware of the other predator that could so easily turn on them. Frozen, she contemplated her choices. She could run, but that would leave her open to attack and would mean abandoning her kill, a kill who had been difficult to bring down.
He had damaged her body, and she needed his meat to recover, or her arm would possibly never grow back.
Her prey had been a skilled fighter, but he was no match for the savage ferocity of her starvation.
It had been weeks since she had found food, the lands surrounding the city being almost entirely devoid of life. It had been a risk, but when she found the city, she decided to take that risk.
Normally she would never have dared to set foot in a place like that, there were too many who could feel what she was, too many who knew how to defend themselves, and that made the risk too great.
She had her own things to defend, but her hunger drove her into the outskirts of the city, to their encounter.
Her prey had seen her, she knew it. But she also knew that he would not immediately react; the men never did.
They caught one look at her and were captivated, enthralled. It made the men easy prey, and she preferred their meat over women's. Men did not have as much fat, lacking the second layer that women possessed; she preferred the leaner meat, as fat did very little to sustain her.
The fight had been brutal, and she thought he was an elf of some description, perhaps a Fae. She did not care enough to look, and, with the lich watching her, it was no longer wise to try to determine what he had been.
She had no pity for any of them; they were food, and that was all.
***
The lich moved and her thoughts returned to him, her fingers tensed on the lump of meat. She needed to make a decision; she needed
to choose what she was going to do. Did she run, or did she fight?
Fighting a lich was not the smartest move. It was impossible to tell how strong they were until the fight started and she did not feel like dying to him.
He tilted his head slowly, and she found her head tilting in the same direction, the mirrored movement bringing a hint of amusement to his dead face, a spark of light to those empty, soulless eyes.
Did lich have souls?
She really had no idea, and the thought made her wonder about him and all of those like him.
Lich were rare, so few mages ever survived the transformation. The humans were not designed to own magic, but some of them managed it, making deals with the Fae or demons, or any number of other mythical creatures, for a shred of their magic.
That was all it took, and their fates were twisted and warped into something entirely different and completely vile.