CHAPTER THIRTEEN The Village That Chose Wrong
249 Words
The village doesn’t smell like home anymore.
It smells like split earth and old fear, like something dug up that should have stayed buried. Bodies line the road in ways that make my stomach twist—limbs bent wrong, eyes open and empty, mouths frozen in screams that never finished escaping. These aren’t feeding kills.
Vampires don’t leave this kind of mess.
This is punishment.
The survivors gather in the square when they see me. I recognise faces. A man who taught me to fish. A woman who once braided my hair. Their fear curdles into fury the moment the mark at my throat glows.
“You brought this,” someone screams.
A stone hits my ribs. Then another.
I don’t stop them. Maybe part of me believes I deserve it.
The ground shudders beneath my feet.
A crack splits the square open with a sound like bone snapping. Heat pours out, carrying a whisper that crawls straight into my skull—You are tired. Let go.
I drop to my knees, clutching my throat as pain explodes through me, white‑hot and blinding. The mark isn’t opening—it’s being pulled.
Astridr reaches me, slaughtering anything that gets in his way, but I barely feel his arms around me. I feel something vast pressing upward, testing my resistance like fingers against glass.
I understand then.
This thing doesn’t want destruction.
It wants permission.
And the villagers, sobbing and praying behind me, have already chosen the wrong god..
- Writer
