The smell of smoke still clung to everything.

It was in the floorboards, in my hair, in the sheets of the narrow bed where I sat, staring at my trembling hands. The lodge was quiet now, too quiet. Outside, the rain had stopped, but the silence that followed felt heavier than the storm.

Every breath burned. The Reckoner’s mark throbbed against my collarbone like a bruise that wouldn’t heal.

I’d scrubbed my skin raw trying to erase it. All I’d done was smear the blood.

Footsteps ...