Chapter 119 - Who Holds The Knife

The cabin smelled like blood.

Not fresh—fresh blood had a sharpness to it, a metallic tang that filled the lungs and clung to the skin. This was different. Stale, thick, settled into the forest floor, into the fabric of their clothes, into the air itself. The kind of blood that had been spilled and left behind. The kind that lingered.

Taryn barely noticed it.

She stood near the hearth, but the heat didn't touch her. She wasn't sure she could still feel warmth at all.

The cultist slumped against the far wall, his robes soaked through, crimson creeping past torn fabric, past the lines of his mouth where he'd already swallowed too much of his own blood. His breathing was ragged, wet in a way that meant he wouldn't last long if they didn't intervene.

She didn't care if he lasted.