Natalie's POV
I was drowning. The blood was thick and warm and suffocating. It filled my nose and my mouth and my lungs until I could not tell where I ended and the blood began. I kicked hard and clawed toward what I hoped was the surface but there was no surface. Just endless red stretching in every direction. No up. No down. No escape.
Faces appeared in the blood. Pale. Distorted. Screaming. My mother's face came first. Her eyes were wide with terror and her mouth was open in a silent scream that I felt more than heard. Then my grandmother. A woman I had never met but somehow knew. She looked just like me. Same white hair. Same blue eyes. Same expression of absolute horror.
More faces appeared. Dozens of them. Hundreds. All women. All Winter Bloods. All dead. They pressed closer and t
