“Umm.” Jace stepped back. The gazes of two strangers followed him closely, neither moving, but Jace was sure it was a fragile arrangement.

  With a nervous smile, he hit a tree with his back.

  “Sorry, wrong camp,” Jace chuckled, hands roaming the trunk behind him to measure its girth and walk around it.

  “Is that…?” the person whose face was a grotesque shadow hidden behind the fmes asked. Though obscured, his features seemed familiar. Too familiar. And, surely, who else could be here, in the middle of nowhere?

  “It’s him! Catch him!” Drosel jumped from the ground, finger pointed at Jace and eyes wide.

  “Fuck,” Jace cursed and turned around to run.

  The firelight had blinded him before, so now the darkness was pitch-bck and he could hardly see. Not a sliver of moonlight lit up his path, and he tripped over roots and crashed into trees as he fled.

  Behind him, the rushed footsteps grew closer. How could that happen? What were the fucking chances? How could those Lodgerod idiots set up a camp so deep into the woods and just a literal piss distance away from him and Liut!?

  All the possible vulgar words raced through Jace’s mind as he ran through the thick forest.

  “Don’t let him get away!”

  “I’m trying!”

  Jace forgot which way he came from. He was panicking, his sense of direction was always terrible, and in this darkness, he had no chance to even find a simir-looking tree. They were all fucking the same!

  As he breathed in enough air to yell for Liut, hoping it would wake him up, his foot got caught in a tangle of bushes. Instead of a bellowing scream, he groaned as he fell in a heap of meat and bit down on his tongue.

  Fuck!

  Gathering himself up, Jace heard the ragged breathing and crunching footsteps of his pursuers. They, as opposed to him, had grabbed some branches from the fire and could actually see where they were going.

  The forest was dense; if Jace could run again, he would be able to hide. But what if he ended up running in the opposite direction from Liut? This was the Whispering Forest! How would he survive the night here alone?

  The cloak!

  Right, he didn’t need to run that far, he just needed to hide under the cloak! It was too dark and the thick woods were a perfect environment for the cloak to do its job. Kirsten and Drosel wouldn’t be able to see him even if they walked right by him.

  Hands shaking, Jace searched the back of his colr for the hood. It wasn’t there. Because he used his cloak to cover the soil that got damp after the rain. Idiot!

  With a soundless curse, Jace crawled backward to the closest tree and tried to make himself small enough to hide behind it. Just as he was about to attempt another scream, a hand grasped his shoulder.

  “Got you!”

  Damn it. The light from the burning branch was further away, so Jace believed he was safe here. Now that he looked at it more closely, he realized the makeshift torch was stuck into a crevice of a split tree trunk.

  He shifted his gaze down to the fingers clutching him. Quickly, Jace grabbed the wrist and pulled, lightly twisting it in the process.

  There was a crack. The noise of bones fracturing was one of the most abhorrent sounds—Jace almost gagged, a shudder of disgust going through his body. Inadvertently, he also loosened his hold.

  But why was there a crack?

  Jace didn’t mean to break anything! He wasn’t even trying to use some considerable strength, fully relying on the effect of surprise.

  Were the guy’s bones made of compressed sugar to crumble so easily?

  “What the fuck!?” Kirsten hissed—strained cursing through gritted teeth. Jace could make out his silhouette, bent in half in front of him and cradling his fractured arm to his chest. “What in the eversting fuck!? Damn it! It hurts so bad!”

  A bleak light of another torch shimmered through the woods, blinking among trunks. Branches creaked and rustled as Drosel made his way to them.

  “Kirsten? I heard something! Did you catch him?”

  The sound of his voice brought Jace out of his trance. He braced himself against the tree and got up.

  “Sorry,” Jace couldn’t help but whisper to Kirsten, who was nursing his wrist. “You should drink more milk; your bones are too fragile!” Jace threw an unwanted piece of advice over his shoulder and started to run.

  “Huh!?” Kirsten gnced up. “I was raised on a farm; my bones are fine! It’s you who almost ripped my arm off!”

  “Sorry!” Jace jumped over a root, still able to see in the dim light of the torch Kirsten had fastened into one of the trees. “But you started first anyway!”

  “What’s with your bones?” Drosel’s voice grew quieter as Jace made it further into the woods.

  “Fuck you! I will catch you and break both your legs!” Kirsten roared.

  Adrenaline muddying Jace’s reason and filling him up with dumb excitement, he decided it was only right to yell back.

  “Too possessive! Do you like me that much?”

  “Gods damn you! Drosel, catch him! Faster!”

  Laughter rang through the forest as Jace ran away from them. Hands stretched forward to navigate through the trees, still hitting trunk after trunk and legs twisting in the roots, Jace ran. And despite it all—he felt so alive.

  The light of Drosel’s torch followed him from behind; Jace could hear the ruckus of broken twigs and breathless curses pursuing him. Just a little bit further and he could turn left or right and lose the tail. He just needed to get a bit further.

  His eyes finally grew more accustomed to the darkness, so Jace managed to pick up his pace. Gaze intent, he looked forward as far as he could, maneuvering among countless pines.

  There, far in the darkness, it blinked. Could it be the fire Liut left smoldering in their little camp? But why would there be two lights?

  Jace strained his eyesight to see better.

  And the two burning dots stared back.

  Stopping in his tracks, Jace froze. The little fmes were too close and too far. But they…

  Jace gulped. The fmes burned brighter for a moment. And in that split second, Jace knew—they had found their target. They were getting closer.

  Slowly, Jace took a step back. A tree branch crunched under his foot, so fucking loud Jace stopped breathing.

  The fmes bzed again. And in their light, hellish, demonic light, Jace saw rows of razor-sharp fangs. A long, wolfish muzzle covered in bck fur and with a chunk of meat hanging from the mouth was growling at him. Oh no.

  Blinking as he stared, Jace simply couldn’t move. When he was a kid, they said to him—feral dogs didn’t bite those who stood frozen. Once, he even managed to escape unscathed because he listened to this advice.

  Yeah. It was his choice not to move now. A smart choice.

  Sweat trickled down his nape. The night air felt far colder as it touched Jace’s heated skin.

  The creature didn’t snap a single twig under its paws—did it have paws?—as it stalked closer. But it growled. A low, echoing sound, vibrating through each nerve of Jace’s whole being. As the fmes in its eyes rose up in intensity, gradually, the teeth also started to glow. Metal heating over the fmes, from dull red to bright orange, the canines slowly imitated forged iron. The glow spread from the roots down to the pointy, sharp ends, and that one piece of meat stuck between its fangs sizzled.

  Jace watched the terrifying, smoldering smile and smelled fried bacon.

  It was a buernhound.

  Bigger than wolves but smaller than deer;the eyes of them are two hot, burning spheres;the molten iron warms their mouths in pce of razor-sharp teeth;and you, little one, better run away before they steam your streaming tears.

  That was the song children sang in the chapter where these demonic creatures were introduced. Jace had to admit—reading the description of this monster did it no justice. This thing was a fucking hellhound straight from the most twisted imagination.

  Because it didn’t stop at molten canines. As they dripped bright orange and those drops fell down and smoked the wood, at a terrifyingly slow pace, the whole bone carcass of the buernhound glowed under the skin and fur. It lit up the muscles and blood vessels from within, a web of them twisting over its body and gleaming in all of the shades of volcanic va. The image reminded Jace of when he had put a bright fshlight against his palm and could see the blood and bone under its light.

  He felt heat emanating from the buernhound. The chill in the air disappeared; now Jace was too hot, a literal furnace was moving in his direction. The bark, still moist from the recent rain, steamed with fog, popping and hissing. It was harder and harder to breathe.

  The tip of Jace’s index finger twitched. Then the middle finger. His fist reflexively tightened, as if searching to grab onto something. And once he dug his nails deep enough into his palm, the pain woke him up.

  He was not dying here. Succumbing to the very first demonic creature because he went to take a piss? His death won’t be reduced to a gag death! Not here!

  Resolve found, Jace took a deep breath, the hot steam burning his lungs.

  “Not today, doggy,” he muttered under his breath and ran.