Chapter 14 · Two Beats

The knife was in my boot and the wolf was already in the water.

Nine days I'd kept ahead of them by never crossing the same line twice. So when the reeds downstream bent against the current and stayed bent, I didn't wait for a coat to come out of them.

He got there first. Wet hair, black coat, mud to the knee. No scouts. No armor. He'd run the whole ridge in the dark alone and still beat me to the only way out of that valley.

"Serafina. Stop."

I hit him in the throat.

He rolled his jaw half a second before my elbow landed, so I got bone instead of windpipe. Then his hand was on my wrist, my knife was out, and I was already turning under it.

First blood was mine. Three inches across his forearm. He looked down at it like I'd handed him a bill.

"That all you got?"

I went low — boot behind his heel, shoulder into his hip — and he went down and took me with him, and the river closed over my head.

Cold like a fist. Silt in my teeth.