Witching Hour, Nikolai Lantsov

Prologue

prologue —— the places from which you do never return

then. the permafrost.

The cold is a cruel monster biting and tearing into her skin with its teeth. The girl shivers violently where she is cowering in the snow and for the first time since she found that she was one of the cursed witches, she finds herself praying to her God— the one, who had abandoned her when he had allowed this cursed magic to take root.

Just this once, she thinks. Please be kind to me. You've taken all else— my life, my family, my home.

Let me have my life.

She doesn't think he'll listen. He's never listened to her before this night after all, why should he start now?

She's a witch, the girl reminds herself and the words sound so much like her father's voice in her mind that she's half convinced he's standing behind her. And Djel does not care for rotten girls like her.

For hours she's dreaded nightfall, but now that the shadows have stretched like languid monsters waking at last around her and the only thing that illuminates her is the tiny flame dancing on the skin of her palm, she's too far for fear.

Death is calling at her door and she doesn't think there's anyone left here to stop him. Even the witches.

She wonders if this is the punishment; from the witches for where she is from or from Djel for what she is.

Either way, it is some punishment. It has to be.

The girl is so busy fighting the darkness creeping into her vision, to not close her eyes against the utter exhaustion gripping her bones, to keep the small flame on her fingers alive, that she barely registers the drumming coming closer.

It sounds foreboding. Like a war drum. Like a rising chorus of the Drüskelle marching to kill another witch girl.

But it's not. It's not a war drum, and it's not the witch hunters. It's the hoofbeats of horses.