Our forest knowledge bought us three miles—until steel jaws snapped shut.
"Jackpot!" A cultivator kicked our cage. "Snow-browed stripey! Bonus fire-dust vixen!"
Thus when Silas returned to the Demon-Subduing Citadel, he found us shivering in his courtyard.
The irony tasted like bile.
"Just... racing you back!" My laugh cracked. "Whoops! Took a scenic detour through your brothers' trap gallery!"
Silas' icicle stare swept over me. Without a word, he vanished into the gloom.
I pressed against Celia's quaking form. "Game over?"
Her tremors deepened as we passed a shack reeking of dried blood. That place.
"There." Her whisper flayed my soul. "Mother's pelt hangs on their altar."
Claws scored the cage floor. "She bit through a jugular buying my escape."
Hatthood crystallized in her eyes—until the iron bars registered.
The vengeance vow twisted into something darker:
"I'll haunt them as draugr. Gnaw their bones through eternity."