“ Run,” a monstrous voice snarled in her ear, achingly familiar. Blood sprayed, painfully hot against her skin and the tentacles loosened their suffocating grip, a battle cry rattling the surrounding trees. Pain exploded across her hand as something struck it, knocking the dagger free to vanish with a splash into the murky depths of the lake. She sucked in one last gasping breath and raised the blade high. She’d spill her blood across the surface of this lake just so it had to scrabble for a fresh taste. She wouldn’t give the Artala the satisfaction of hearing her screams when it crunched her bones to meal. Her grip tightened around the worn dagger hilt as she gathered what little courage she had left. She’d lost her sword somewhere in the muck, but even it couldn’t save her now. The freezing water lapping at her throat, the sting of her wounds, and the glimmer of the stars overhead all faded. Slick tentacles reeled her in closer, hungry and promising, impossible to escape. Never because of a stumbling detour too close to the shore of a lake that should have been empty. She’d imagined her death many times over the years, but never like this. Her weakness would die with her, sinking beneath the lake to join the other bones rotting below. No one would know and when news reached her father, he’d assume she’d died a brave death, strong until the end.

Even if her hand faltered, even if the pain made her flinch in the way a kill hadn’t since she was young and inexperienced. Not from the sword-sharp teeth of the Artala awaiting her just below the lake’s surface, but from the icy bite of her dagger’s iron blade she held against the thin skin of her own neck. A swift death would be Thea’s final gift to herself.

Monsters born and made