Everna shed one spell only to plunge headfirst into another.

Her body moved of its own accord. There wasn't a thought in her head, only adrenaline singing in her veins and panic gripping her heart. The few instincts her father ingrained into her over the years took hold, and before she realized it, she was on her feet.

As the blade came down, she hurled herself at the Shroud agent's back. She hit shoulder first and sent him stumbling. The tip of his sword struck the dirt beside Wil's shoulder, missing his neck by mere inches.

"How did you break the spell?!" the agent demanded while Wil questioned her intervention with a strangled "What the fuck are you doing?!"

She hadn't a clue and, at that moment, she couldn't care less.

She took advantage of the agent’s imbalance and flung her arms around his neck, hauling herself onto his back. Her legs wrapped around his torso; she locked her ankles to maintain her balance as she reached down and wrenched her sword from its sheath. The agent reached for her, his fingers raking across her cheek. Everna swung her sword in retaliation. The blade tore through his hand with ease, severing three of his fingers below the knuckle.

"You fucking bitch," the agent growled, undaunted by the missing digits. He reached for her again, his thumb narrowly missing her eye. Blood smeared across her face, the nubs of his fingers digging into her cheekbone. "Godwin wanted you alive, but I'll fucking kill you for that!"

"Unfortunately, neither of you is getting what you want," she spat.

Anger choked her thoughts, her blood boiling in her veins. Her hands shook, not with fear but barely restrained fury, as she pressed the length of her forearm into his throat. One of them would not survive this fight, and she'd make damn sure it would be him.

That vile murderer. She'd burn him as he burned the village, if she could — set him alight and let the flames melt his flesh and char his bones. She'd dump the remains in the pigsty, for that's where he belonged; scattered among the dung like the disgusting piece of shit he was.

He reached for her again, the stub of his index finger catching her in the nose. Everna lashed out with her teeth and bit down as hard as she could. The skin gave way beneath her teeth, the coppery taste of blood filling her mouth, and not a moment later, she swore she felt the dull crack of a breaking bone. The agent howled. He dropped his sword and his now freed hand rose to seize her by the hair.

He yanked hard.

She bit down harder.

Over the agent's shoulder, she spotted Wil. He struggled to sit up, his bent leg refusing to move. His sword lay just out of reach, and try as he might, he couldn't pull it into his hands. The tips of his fingers barely brushed against the pommel.

She had to end this now, while she still had the advantage.

Everna retracted her arm, only to wedge her palm beneath the agent's chin. She pushed upward, forcing his head back. Her mother once said that where the head went, the body would follow — and it did. The agent stumbled backwards, struggling to maintain his balance. As the hand in her hair relinquished its hold, she brought her other arm around and pushed the edge of her sword against his throat.

Everna had always assumed that if she ever had to kill in self-defense, she'd hesitate. She never imagined, even in her wildest nightmares, there would ever come a time when her father's gift would serve its purpose. No, that only happened in storybooks, and to everyone but her.

Yet there was no hesitation as her blade tore through the bundle of robes at the base of the agent's neck. It cleaved into the skin beneath, rending muscle and sinew and bone as if it were nothing at all. Blood spilled over her blade, and the moonsilver blue of the metal bled iridescent.

His body slacked beneath her as the blade broke through the other side of his neck. The head, now fully detached, rolled back, knocking into hers as it tumbled over her shoulder and hit the ground with a hollow thud. She hung there for a second longer, a pulsating fountain of blood climbing high from the stump of his neck, blood dousing the both of them. The lifeless corpse careened forward and sent them both crashing to the ground.

No sooner than she landed, she released the dead agent and scrambled to Wil's side. His wounds were worse than she assumed. Blood pooled beneath him, his skin pallid and beaded with sweat. Heavy, ragged breaths pulled from his lips. His hand clutched at his side, as if to stem the bleeding. A shallow, weeping cut arched across the front of his throat.

Ignoring the sudden exhaustion that took hold of her, Everna leaned over him and hauled Leah's satchel into her hands. By the blessing of the Golden Lady herself, the remaining three healing potions survived; they were shaken, but intact. With trembling hands, she popped the cork of the first one she could grab and braced a hand behind his head.

"You should've run," he chided, though his voice lacked its usual bite. He coughed, blood flying from his lips and pooling at the corner of his mouth. "You're lucky you're alive right now."

"I don't want to hear that from you," she said, fighting to keep her voice even. "Consider it repayment for the three times you've saved me."

He tried to argue further, but she shoved the bottle’s opening into his mouth and tipped it back. With a half-hearted glare, he gulped the potion down. Almost immediately, his skin regained color, the ghastly pale fading into a more natural one. The cut along his throat faded. His leg straightened itself out. Once his breathing evened out, he sat up.

He wiped the blood from his face with the back of his hand and said, "Maybe Shroud hasn't completely lost their minds. It's not every day one of their Enforcers gets their head lopped off by a barmaid."

As soon as the words left his lips, the stunning realization of what she'd done stole the air from her lungs. With it came a horrible cold that lodged itself deep in her chest. There was blood on her hands, smeared across her face, and streaked through her hair. Blood that wasn't hers. She cleaved someone's head off without a second thought.

She killed someone.

Bile burned the back of her throat, but she swallowed it down. Her father warned her this would happen, that killing for the first time was not something even the most vile and wicked of people could take in stride. But no amount of forewarning could prepare her for the intensity that it came with.

Her hand shook so violently she couldn't fit the bottle back into the satchel. The blood burned at every point of contact, like molten metal searing through her skin. Her chest constricted and with it came a sudden rush of dizziness. She couldn't get enough air into her lungs.

A pair of clammy, bloody hands encased her face. Wil forced her head up, his gaze locking with hers. For the first time since she'd met him, there was nothing but sympathy — no, empathy — in his eyes.

"Breathe," he ordered.

She drew in a shuddering breath. It didn't help. Her throat constricted, her chest tightening further.

"Everna, taking one breath and holding it isn't breathing," he said. "Let it out. Slowly."

She did as instructed. A bit of the tension in her chest abated, but her throat still felt like it was collapsing on itself. She couldn't draw her next breath fast enough.

"I think I'm going to be sick," she mumbled, nearly gagging on her own words.

"While that's completely normal, I suggest you try to keep it down," Wil said. "Once you start, you probably won't stop, and right now isn't the best time for that. That may not be the only agent around."

She swallowed, albeit with much difficulty, and drew in another shuddering breath. "Dain said there were two of them."

"Then let's pray the other left," he said, moving his hands from her face to her arms. "Not that I think they'd have a chance against Lisette, Cedric, and Vina — assuming Vina's not cowering somewhere."

With his help, she stumbled to her feet. Her legs wobbled beneath her, and her head spun. Wil released her slowly, his hands hovering just above her arms, and when she leaned a bit too far to the left, he scrambled to grab ahold of her once more.

"I'm fine," she assured him, though she knew she was anything but. "Enough for the moment, anyway. We... we need to get moving. The less time I spend here, the better."

Despite her insistence that she could walk, Wil's hand hovered over the small of her back as they pushed further into the village. Half a mile up the road, in the middle of what appeared to be a small plaza situated around the crumbling remains of a well, they found the others. Vina leaned against a pile of scorched bricks, her hand clamped over her nose. Blood seeped between her fingers. Beside her, Lisette stood doubled over, holding her side. A large gash ran down the length of her thigh, her leathers rent and stained crimson. Though winded, Cedric was unscathed.

The second Shroud agent dangled precariously over the edge of the well, a tangled heap of limbs and bloody robes.

"I see Everna got her initiation," Cedric said. "How'd it go?"

"Wil almost died," Everna said.

Cedric raised a brow, and it occurred to her then how similar he looked to his sister. Their resemblance was uncanny, even for siblings. While Cedric had a little more bulk and height than Lisette, they had the same sandy blonde curls and deep hooded eyes, Lisette's irises only a shade or two darker than her twin's.

"You don't look so good yourself," he noted. "You sure you weren't the one who almost died?"

Wil threw Cedric a pointed look as he pulled the last two potions from the satchel. "The blood's not hers. She killed her first Shroud agent today."

"After you did all the work, I'd wager," Vina said. Her words lacked their usual bite, her voice even more nasally than before.

"No, I got my ass handed to me," he admitted with startling ease. "Shroud didn't pull their punches this time."

"No shit. Those were gods be damned Enforcers!" Lisette snatched the potion from Wil's hand and popped the cork. "We can't find the informant. The village's gone. We got our asses handed to us for nothing."

"Not exactly," Everna said. "We got something. Something probably as important as whatever the informant had."

Cedric threw her an inquisitive look and prompted her to continue.

"Right before I..." she paused, the words refusing to leave her lips. "I got a name. Godwin. I can only assume that's whoever's pulling the strings in Pendel."

"Thank the gods we're not leaving empty-handed," Lisette sighed, re-corking the emptied bottle. "You're right. That probably is just as good as whatever we came for. Osain told us the informant had something that pertained to the case in Pendel."

"Maybe that's what it was," Wil suggested.

Cedric made a sound at the back of his throat. "I'm still not convinced there was an informant. Why would an Anwellian agent have information on what's happening in Pendel?"

Everna couldn't find it in herself to admit she knew what information the contact had. People had died because of her. People had gotten hurt because of that information. Vina wouldn't hesitate to point that out.

And she didn't.

"Are we all just going to ignore the fact that this is her fault? Osain sends her with us and Shroud's conveniently lurking around Windhollow?" Vina slammed her empty bottle on the ground, cracks webbing across the glass. "And how'd you get that out of that agent, huh? Cozy on up to him? Bat your stupid eyelashes at him like the whore—"

"Vina, if I were you, I'd keep your mouth shut for once," Wil warned. "She just took the head off a man twice her size. I don't think she'd have much trouble doing it to you."

Vina scrunched her nose, which was ringed with blood. "Her? I'll believe that when I see it."

"Oh, you will.” Wil snatched the bottle from her hand and shoved it into the bag. "Try not to trip over it on the way back."

Dain and Adela, who'd woken up at some point, were waiting for them on the outskirts of the village.

"You kill 'em?" Dain asked, eying their bloody and tattered armor.

"Both of them," Lisette affirmed.

Dain nodded once, his face set with grim approval. Adela said nothing, but her shoulders sagged with relief.

As they began preparing for their departure, Everna stood off to the side, half-listening to the bickering. They'd brought three horses, and with four more people tagging along for the return trip, balancing weight distribution would be no easy feat — not when half of them had their own set of conditions they wouldn't compromise on. Vina refused to ride with anyone but Wil. Dain would not let Adela leave his side. Everna couldn't care less who she rode with; if it meant returning to the safe house quicker, she'd suffer riding with Vina.

She could always push her off the horse if she became too annoying.

In the end, and after Wil reminded them all that he was, technically, Osain's second in command, logic reigned. Lisette, being the smallest of them, shared the largest of the three horses with Dain and Adela. Cedric hauled himself into the saddle behind Vina, much to her dismay, though Cedric didn't seem all that displeased with the arrangement. Everna found herself astride Esazia once more, Wil controlling the reigns from behind.

A precaution, he insisted. Shroud might have other agents in the area, and the arrangement would allow him to deal with the situation while leaving her in a position where she could easily take control of the horse. It sounded more like a flimsy excuse to get under Vina's skin.

If looks could kill, the glare Vina gave her would've taken her head off.

That unpleasant thought prompted a question she'd been meaning to ask. "What's an Enforcer?"

"Shroud has ranks," Wil said. "If you compare it to the Guard, they're the lowest-ranking officers."

"But far more dangerous," Cedric cut in. "They're changed. Living artifacts. They carve runes into their bodies that alter their physical capabilities. It's as unpleasant as it sounds."

Everna suppressed a shudder.

"You're lucky to be alive if even Wil couldn't handle it," Lisette said. "Though, I'm surprised he couldn't. He's slacking."

"You try fighting while having to split your attention between an Enforcer and a dazed barmaid. It's not that easy."

"Excuses. Still, Everna, how the hell did you pull that off? Uninjured, at that."

"She caught him — both of us — by surprise," Wil said before she could answer. "He didn't expect her to shake off the spell as quickly as she did."

"Expected it or not, unless she was on top of him or something—"

"She was."

Lisette rolled her eyes. "I should've known. She's insane."

"I'm perfectly sane," Everna muttered.

"You burnt down an entire goblin village and then had the audacity to tell a cavernbrute to eat his own servants," she countered. "You are absolutely insane."

Cedric turned to face his sister, his eyes wide. "What?"

"Oh, you'll love this," she said, bemused. "Vina fainted."

As Lisette launched into a wildly exaggerated retelling of the incident, Everna sighed. She had neither the will nor the energy to correct her. She could've left out the failed Liquid Fire attempt, though.

As the conversation dragged on, devolving into heated arguments between Vina, Lisette, and Cedric, Everna turned to observe the plains. The clouds had cleared now, the late afternoon sun bearing down upon them. Even the chilled winds flowing down from the mountains couldn't stave off the heat. Unable to bear it any longer, she pulled the first few clasps of her armor loose. The breeze felt like heaven against her sweaty skin, and it did wonders to calm the ceaseless churning of her stomach.

She shouldn't regret killing Shroud's agent, not after what they did to Windhollow. He deserved it, and when her blade tore through his thought, that was the only thought in her head. It wasn't murder; it was justice.

Yet each time she glimpsed the blood crusted on the sleeves of her leathers, a fresh wave of bitter guilt pitted in her chest. He deserved it — he absolutely did — but though she assured herself of that, it didn't matter.

She killed someone.

Eager to derail her thoughts, Everna turned to peer over her shoulder at Wil. "Who told you I'd be the one who killed Mayor Ashburn?"

Wil's eyes widened, then he sent Lisette a withering glare. "We don't know."

"You don't know, and you took it seriously?"

"We get anonymous tips all the time," Wil said. "We have to take them seriously; most of the time they're right. This time, though, I can't tell if it was purposefully wrong."

"What is that supposed to mean?"

He hesitated, his lips pressed together. "Either someone meant to distract us or give you a fighting chance. I was so preoccupied with watching you I didn't realize what had happened until it was too late."

"I would think one look at me would've told you otherwise," she argued.

"It's more often than you think that the pretty little waitress or barmaid is responsible. Who else would have both the benefit of the doubt and the opportunity?"

If she were in her right mind, she'd have focused on the first part a bit more. The odd compliment rolled off her like water on a duck's back, hardly more than a passing thought as she further considered the implications of his words. She'd dealt with several hypothetical cases where an unassuming chambermaid turned out to be the culprit. Many suspected it was a scorned scullery maid who'd assassinated King Keeland.

Still, the victim in her case wasn't a lazy, arrogant noble but one of Inverness's renowned heroes.

"Between your association with Mayor Ashburn, your parents owning the tavern, and your education, you made for the ideal suspect. You knew the victim — he seemed to trust you, at that — and you'd know what the Inquisitors would look for."

"What, did you think I put my sword in there to incriminate myself?"

"Self-framing is more common than you think it is. The truly clever ones frame themselves and their scapegoat, and leave the scapegoat holding the bag. When you started arguing with Captain Windmore, I thought that's what happened."

"And what made you change your mind?"

He was quiet for a moment. "The Guard post."

If there were any point to cast aside his suspicions, it would be in the face of Windmore's blatant admission of guilt.

"Speaking of, there's nothing Shadowguard can do about that?" she asked.

He shook his head. "That's the problem with Shroud. Removing one person won't make a difference. For your sake, it's best we hang back and gather enough information to take them all out in one fell swoop, or cut off the head of the snake. Windmore proved they'll keep trying until they get what they want. They'll keep killing people until there's so much stacked against you that even a full pardon from the Crown couldn't get you out of it."

No longer in the mood to entertain the conversation further, Everna let it end there.

Despite Vina's incessant protest, they rode as far into the night as the horses allowed — a choice they didn't regret. Just after sunset, the aurora lit the night sky, ribbons of blue and green and pink dancing above the mountain peaks. They were brighter than she expected, bathing the plains in false twilight and drowning out the stars.

In Pendel, they were shifting blurs of color painted across the distant horizon. Looking up at them now, she saw the subtle ripples in the ribbons, the sharp lines of vibrant color that reached into the heavens above. If she weren't so tired, she might have spared the lights more than a few fleeting glances before nodding off in the saddle.

It was well after midnight, the crescent moon high in the sky, when they finally slowed the horses to a stop. They ate the rest of the apples she and Lisette picked the day before and fed the cores to the horses. Everna ate slowly, her stomach painfully protesting each bite. At least if she did finally vomit, her stomach wouldn't be completely empty.

While the others sorted out the watch pattern, Everna flung herself onto the grass. Exhaustion seeped from her every pore, clinging to her like a heavy blanket. The ground was as uncomfortable as the saddle, hard on her back, and strands of grass tickled at her skin. Tucking one arm behind her head, she allowed her eyes to slip closed as she fell into the welcoming embrace of sleep.

Blood

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