The red thorn

Chapter two

The walk to the northern boundary was quiet, save for the crunch of dry grass beneath Elora’s boots. The morning sun hung low, casting long, dramatic shadows through the pine trees. Despite the warmth of the sun, a persistent chill clung to her skin, starting deep within her marrow.

She adjusted the heavy strap of her satchel, her mind racing. *The blood has begun to sing.* The phrase hadn't been spoken aloud to her, yet somehow, it echoed in the back of her mind like a remembered melody, persistent and unsettling.

Up ahead, the wooden boundary fence marked the division between Oakhaven’s farmlands and the dense, overgrown expanse of the Sunken Woods. Old Man Miller was waiting by the gate, leaning heavily on a wooden walking stick. He looked worse than his livestock—skin papery, eyes bloodshot and rimmed with red.

"You're late, girl," Miller muttered, his voice sounding like dry leaves scraping across stone.

"Mother had to finish grinding the rowan roots," Elora said, pulling three dark blue vials from her bag. "Three drops in their water trough, every morning. It will break the fever."

Miller reached out to take the vials, his gnarled hand trembling. But as his fingers brushed against Elora’s skin, a sudden spark shot between them.

Miller gasped, leaping back as if he had touched a hot iron. He stared at her, his jaw slack, his pupils dilated with sudden, raw terror.

"What... what are you?" he breathed, stumbling backward into the wooden gate.

"I—I'm sorry, it was just static," Elora stammered, holding her hands up to show she meant no harm.

"Your eyes," Miller whispered, pointing a shaking finger at her face. "Your eyes just turned..."

He didn't finish the sentence. Before Elora could ask what he meant, a low, guttural snarl echoed from the dark treeline just twenty yards past the fence line.

Miller froze, all color draining from his face. Without another word, he dropped the copper coins into the dirt, turned, and bolted back toward his farmhouse with speed uncharacteristic of his age, slamming the wooden door shut behind him.

Elora stood alone at the gate. Her heart hammered against her ribs, but it wasn't fear that flooded her senses—it was an bizarre, electric awareness.

Slowly, she looked down at her right hand. The skin on her palm was glowing with faint, hair-thin veins of silver light that pulsed in rhythm with her heartbeat. Panic flared in her throat, but when she blinked hard, the silver light vanished, leaving only her pale, ordinary skin.

*I'm losing my mind,* she thought, her breath coming in short, jagged gasps.

"No, child," a voice murmured from the shadows of the pine trees. "You are simply waking up."

Elora whipped around, her hood falling back from her shoulders.

Stepping out from behind an ancient oak tree was a woman clad in traveling robes of deep indigo, her silver hair braided intricately around her head. In her left hand, she held an iron staff capped with an unlit obsidian orb. Her eyes, pale gray and sharp as shattered glass, locked directly onto Elora.

"Who are you?" Elora demanded, stepping back and reaching instinctively for the small utility knife she kept tucked into her belt. "How did you get past the boundary?"

"Boundaries are for men and beasts, Elora Vance," the woman said softly, taking a slow, measured step forward. "Not for those who weave the threads of what is to come."

Elora’s pulse spiked. "You know my name."

"I have known your name since before your mother fled the smoking ruins of the eastern castle," the woman replied, her gaze lowering to Elora's hand—the hand that had sparked just moments before. "And I am not the only one. Dracula's hounds have picked up your scent. They walk among your villagers even now."

The woman raised her staff, pointing it toward the village spire in the distance, where a thin column of dark smoke had just begun to rise into the clear morning sky.

"If you want to live past sunset," the witch said, "you will drop that knife and walk into the woods with me."