The Cursed Blood novel · Chapter 14 of 32

Chapter 14: Taken

I climbed out of the window after her.

Bare feet in the snow below it.

I knelt and put my palms flat on the ground.

The post stood on the Line, and the ground here knew Hettie as well as it knew me.

"She went out on her own," I said. "With a blanket and the bread. She was humming."

Conall was beside me in the dark.

"Humming what?"

"That stupid song about the baker's wife." My throat closed up. "She was going to sleep at the warden house. To leave us the post."

I followed her steps on my hands and knees up the path toward the stones.

At the bend by the split pine they stopped.

Four pairs of boots had been waiting there in the trees. Heavy ones. They'd come up off the path, around Conall's ward, through the deep snow.

One hand over her mouth.

Her heels dragging.

The bread in the snow, where she'd dropped it.

Then the boots went down the path toward the valley, carrying her, and that was when they'd crossed his ward.

"They waited for her," I said.

"They waited for anyone." Conall's voice was flat. "She was the one who came out."

I stood up.

"Get the wardens," I said. "I'm going down."

"We're all going down."

"No."

He turned on me.

"Nine wardens walk into the Mardell valley in the middle of the night," I said, "and the Alpha tells every pack in the Greywater the cursed blood came down the mountain for war. He'd love that. He's been praying for it since the feast."

"I'm not letting you walk into that hall alone."

"I walked out of it alone."

"With the black to your elbows and nowhere to put it."

"I know."

He took my face in both his hands.

They were still hot from the ward. His thumbs were rough on my cheekbones.

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