HOW THE SHADOWS FEAST || ONC 2024 ✔

vii. of black dogs and pale horses

A shiver ran down Saskia's spine.

We will meet again very soon. So soon?

Heart still pulsing agony through her veins with every aching beat, Saskia could not bring herself to care truly. Strange hunter or blue-eyed demon, madness or a haunting—nothing of it mattered anymore. The only truth that did so was that Katinka was lost.

"What did so then?" she asked dully, maybe too quietly to be understood across the distance.

But the prince did.

"Freedom, Sister. Peace."

"This is the last place you would find that," Saskia answered, still not attempting to get closer to him. "If you wish I'll light a blessed candle in your name, lord."

"I'm not talking about candles." Anyan's eyes turned contemptuously towards the flame that did not paint any warm glow onto his face. The shadows it repelled seemed to leave nothing but a figure as delicate as a breath of frost.

Silent fear crept back into her frozen bones.

"Then you may search yourself for freedom and peace. Go pray to the gods, to Perhta."

The sigh that escaped his pale lips sounded like a sweet mockery of sorrow. "They will not hear me, I fear."

"I cannot help you with that. They don't answer my pleas as well."

"It's the lot of the cursed."

Curse?

The horse's tail swished nervously as it eyed the little flames glowing in the dark. It looked as translucent as its master.

An icy wind brushed Saskia's cheeks and got tangled in her hair, but she did not care for the cold. Her eyes stayed fixated on the candles fearfully, as she hoped—prayed—they would not extinguish.

"Who are you?"

"I already told you. A hunter."

"Hunter of what?"

To this, Anyan simply smiled.

The thin scar that parted one half of his face and glowed like liquid silver now twitched with the expression, suddenly making him look cruel.

"I think you should go now, lord," Saskia forced out of her dry throat, already turning back to the door. Please, Perhta, keep out the shadows ...

The white runes glowed in the dark like a silent promise of shelter. Never had their edges and curves looked more beautiful to Saskia, and never had the thought of feeling herself locked behind them appeared more comforting.

"Is that all you will do for your little fawn, too?" Anyan's voice rang out through the night, thundering with taunt.

Already at the threshold, Saskia abruptly stopped.

What?

"While her sacrifice will keep the Wolves fed, you will only light a candle and pray to the Bright Mother like a tame, good daughter, desetnitsa?"

Feeling every word sinking into her skin like a dagger, Saskia's nails dug into the door frame, and she welcomed the pain of wooden shivers in her soft skin.

Saskias voice trembled from rage, grief, and fear as she repeated her question. "Who are you?"

Though she barely heard her words herself, she knew Anyan would.

"The Master of the Woods. The one who freed you. The one who tried to comfort you. The one you saw at midwinter," he answered.

At midwinter midnight, in front of the old sanctuary at the snow-clad crossroads, where you might glimpse your soulmate. Before the snow melts, you will find a soulmate in a devil with no heart.