The thing that came out of the brush was not a wolf.

  Dennis knew wolves. At least enough to know their general shape from photographs and documentaries and the occasional overexcited internet argument under news articles.

  This creature had the body plan of a wolf, yes, but it was too long in the shoulder and too narrow in the head, with grey skin stretched taut beneath patchy fur as black as wet soot. Its eyes caught the moonlight with a dull green sheen. Thorny burrs clung to its flanks as if the forest itself had tried to hold it back and failed.

  The little girl fell face-first into the mud.

  The beast lunged over her.

  Dennis moved before anyone else did.

  Later, if he lived long enough to remember the moment clearly, he would blame adrenaline. Or instinct. Or the fact that once you had seen a child in danger, your body stopped consulting your fear before acting.

  He threw himself sideways into the creature’s path.

  Its weight hit him like a sack of concrete dropped from a truck.

  Pain burst across his shoulder and chest. He went down hard. Teeth snapped at his face. Dennis jammed both bound wrists against the beast’s throat and shouted in a language no one there understood.

  One of the riders screamed something.

  A spear drove down.

  The creature twisted with impossible speed. The spear struck mud. Dennis rolled, dragging the beast half with him. Rotten breath washed over his cheek. The glowing line beneath the rope on his wrist flared hotter, white-gold under his skin.

  The beast recoiled with a shriek.

  It had not touched the mark. Dennis was sure of that. But it had seen the light.

  Or feared it.

  The leader recovered first. “Kill it!”

  Three spears stabbed in. One found flesh. Black blood sprayed across leaves and boots. The creature leapt backward, howling, then vanished into the trees with a crash of branches.

  Silence followed.

  Not real silence. Horses blowing. Dogs baying. The child sobbing in the mud. Dennis trying to breathe through a chest that felt crushed. But compared to the heartbeat chaos before it, the world seemed to pause and stare.

  The young rider dismounted and ran to the girl.

  The leader dismounted more slowly and came to Dennis with his sword half drawn.

  Dennis rolled onto his back and glared up at him. “You said there was no child.”

  The man’s face was unreadable in the moonlight.

  Then his gaze dropped to Dennis’s wrists.

  The rope had blackened where it crossed the skin. Thin curls of smoke rose from it.

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  No one spoke.

  The older riders looked as if they had swallowed stones.

  The youngest whispered something Dennis did not catch.

  The leader crouched. Slowly, deliberately, he sheathed his sword. “Up,” he said.

  Dennis did not move.

  The man’s voice hardened. “Up. Now.”

  Dennis got to his feet, lungs protesting. The little girl clung to the young rider with both arms wrapped around his neck. Her small face was streaked with mud and tears. She stared at Dennis with huge dark eyes.

  The leader cut the rope from his wrists.

  The sudden release almost made Dennis sway.

  The mark on his left wrist dimmed but did not vanish. Now that he could see it clearly, he realized it was not a line at all. It was a shape. Fine and pale beneath the skin, like an old scar traced in light: a narrow flame inside a square frame, with three tiny strokes beneath it.

  A lantern.

  No one missed the resemblance.

  The leader stood. “We go to Red Hollow,” he said, but there was strain in his voice now. “Fast.”

  He looked at Dennis as if reassessing every decision that had led to this road.

  They reached the village near dawn.

  Red Hollow was less a village than a handful of buildings gathered around a wide muddy yard and pretending, by sheer stubbornness, to be civilization. A low palisade of sharpened logs marked the outer boundary. Smoke rose from chimneys. A narrow stream ran behind the houses, half hidden by frost-silvered reeds.

  Dennis counted maybe twenty buildings in all. Most were timber-and-plaster with steep roofs and tiny shuttered windows. Chickens scattered as the riders came in. Two men lifting barrels near a shed looked up and abruptly froze when they saw Dennis walking among the mounted patrol.

  Word spread with village speed.

  By the time they stopped outside the largest building, half a dozen doors had opened.

  The building itself had a hanging sign carved with a loaf and a cup.

  An inn, then.

  The smell drifting from it—yeast, smoke, onions, stale ale—was so normal that for one dizzy second Dennis nearly laughed.

  The door opened before the leader could knock.

  An older woman filled the threshold.

  She was tall and broad-shouldered, with iron-grey hair braided back from a weathered face and sleeves rolled above strong wrists dusted with flour. She took in the horses, the mud, the frightened child, the blood on the spear, and finally Dennis.

  Her eyes narrowed.

  “Beren,” she said to the leader, in a voice like rough cloth. “If you have brought trouble to my yard before sunrise, I’ll nail your boots to my door and make you walk home barefoot.”

  The scarred leader—Beren, apparently—answered in their language. Fast. Tense.

  The woman’s gaze snapped back to Dennis’s wrists.

  To the fading mark.

  Something unreadable crossed her face.

  Then, to Dennis’s surprise, she stepped aside.

  “All of you in,” she said.

  Inside, the common room was warm enough to make his eyes sting. A large hearth burned at the far wall. Benches sat around heavy wooden tables scarred by years of knives and tankards. Bundles of herbs hung drying from the rafters. The child was taken at once to the fire, wrapped in a blanket, and given a cup that steamed in her shaking hands.

  Dennis stayed near the door.

  He had not been invited to sit.

  The older woman disappeared through a back curtain and returned carrying a wooden board. On it lay a heel of dark bread, a small dish of salt, and a clay cup of water.

  She stopped directly in front of Dennis.

  The room fell silent.

  Even without understanding the custom, he knew ritual when he saw it.

  The woman broke the bread in half. Dipped two fingers in the salt. Touched the bread with them. Then she held one half out to him.

  Dennis hesitated.

  Beren said something sharp.

  The woman did not look at him. “Take it,” she said to Dennis, in accented but clear English. “Unless you prefer to stand outside when the Tithe-Men arrive.”

  Dennis took the bread.

  It was still warm.

  She handed him the cup. “Drink.”

  He drank.

  Only then did she take the other half of the bread and eat from it herself.

  A collective breath seemed to leave the room.

  Beren swore softly.

  The woman turned to face him. “He has eaten my bread and salt,” she said in her own language. “Under my roof. Until sunset, no hand in this room spills his blood.”

  Dennis did not know the words, but he knew the meaning from the way every face tightened.

  Beren’s jaw flexed. “Marta—”

  She cut him off. “If your reeve wants him, your reeve can knock.”

  Then she looked at Dennis again, and for the first time there was no suspicion in her eyes. Only deep, dangerous curiosity.

  Quietly, so only he could hear, she said, “Tell me true, stranger. Did your mark answer a lie?”

  Dennis stared at her.

  Before he could answer, hooves thundered outside.

  A voice rang through the yard.

  “Open in the authority of the Tithe!”

  Marta closed her eyes once, like a woman confirming the worst of her expectations.

  Then she sighed, set down the board, and said, “Ah. There they are.”