Chapter Twenty-Six
Sylvie
Băjenie, Romania
There was once a bloodwalker whose village
was inundated by a flood. Many perished.
With her neighbors hurt or mourning,
her strong sense of duty forced her
to begin recovering bodies herself.
One was lodged in a tree.
Despite her long skirt and vertigo, she
climbed the tree and pulled him loose.
The branch cracked.
She and he crashed to the ground at the same time.
He was no worse for wear. She broke her back.
The villagers found her a week later,
dead from exposure.
A sense of duty is a virtue.
Foolhardiness is not.
~ The Bloodwalker’s Book
Sylvie ran down the dark hallway following her rescuers. The big scarred man—Anushka called him Rurik—stopped short, and she thumped into his back. All three men bunched up in the corridor
