Madfall: A Duo of Dragon Shifter Novellas by Grace Draven & Dana Marton

Author:Grace Draven & Dana Marton [Draven, Grace]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Draven-Marton
Published: 2018-06-16T18:30:00+00:00

Chapter Three

Dawn had not yet risen from its featherbed the following morn when Einin stopped at the edge of the woods to look back at her village. In her brother Hamm’s brown shirt and britches, she blended into the darkness. She watched her hut, the front door, through which the village elders were even now entering, led by the priest.

“Caw.” The raven on the low branch just above her gave its opinion.

Her stomach clenched. “Definitely a close call.”

If premonition hadn’t awoken her in the middle of the night, she would be waking now to hard hands grabbing her.

“The priest said I was unnatural,” she told Midnight, the black bird she’d befriended in the woods when she was a child. “He’s probably right.”

She should want to give herself over to Wilm’s godly correction instead of running from it. Something about her had been wrong as far back as Einin could remember. Maybe because she’d been raised by her father and her brothers instead of a mother.

“I don’t want to spend my life standing by the kitchen fire, bowing and scraping to a husband who beats me.” She wanted to run wild and free. Be her decisions right or wrong, she wanted to be the one to make them.

Weeks ago, when the men in the village had begun talking about a sacrifice to appease the great devil in the hills, Einin knew they were likely to pick her. She had no family to protest on her behalf, nobody left. So she’d volunteered before the priest could have put forth her name. Her choice. At least, it’d been that.

Now, having made yet another choice, Einin watched her hut with tears burning her eyes. The light of the men’s torches flickered in the windows, but not for long. Soon they came pouring out, their expressions even angrier than when they’d entered.

’Twas the rope in the blacksmith’s hand that scared her the most—a length of rope long enough to tie a witch to the stake so she could be burned.

Einin wasn’t going to volunteer again. Not today. Today, she chose to live.

“I’d better get going. Try to be quiet,” she whispered to the bird.

She turned into the woods and hurried, her heart pounding as she sneaked away. If the men looked for her, they’d look for her on the road to Morganton, God willing. They had no reason to suspect that she’d head to the deep woods in the opposite direction, staying off the roads. Nevertheless, she walked as quickly as her legs could carry her, toward Upwood, the nearest village, on the other side of the hill.

Midnight flew ahead, waiting on a low branch for her to catch up, then flying ahead again, playing the game for a good while before he grew bored and disappeared.

While Einin missed the company, she did not raise her voice to call the bird back. She didn’t know who or what might hear her instead. Menacing shadows loomed over her, the trees like hungry giants bobbing their heads to see her better.

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