VINCENT.
My breath came in shallow, ragged hitches, the icy mountain air burning like acid in my throat.
I stared at the empty space beside me. The thirty iron arrows lay scattered in the bloody gravel, but Galen—my sister, my second-in-command, the only person in this wretched world who shared my blood—was gone. Her body had collapsed into a wolf form, dissolved into a shimmering mist, and vanished into the freezing night sky.
And to my left, Daniel's heavy body hung completely limp from his post, his neck twisted at an unnatural angle inside the tight iron chain he had wrapped around his own throat. He was dead. His boots dangled inches above the dirt, swaying gently in the cold wind like a broken pendulum.
They were both gone.
