Chapter 23 Dawn Comes
(Adelaide)
A calm whisper of water reached her ears. She followed the sound, pushing through a stand of young birch until she stumbled into a narrow stream, its surface catching broken shards of moonlight. The water rushed over stones, straightforward and fast. Mist hovered just above it, a faint silver breath that curled around the rocks and drifted toward the tree roots like smoke seeking a fuse.
She crouched at the bank, cupping the water in her shredded hands and bringing it to her mouth.
It was icy, shocking the back of her throat. The cold speared up into her sinuses, chasing away some of the dizziness clinging to the edges of her vision.
She let it wash away the taste of blood and bile.
Her reflection shuddered on the surface—pale face streaked with dirt, hair snarled with leaves, dark eyes too wide. She barely recognised herself. She looked savage. A girl scraped down to the bone of who she truly was—no braids, no apron, no village expectations. Just tendons, teeth, and a will that refused to bow.
Good.
She rinsed her hands, hissing when the cold water bit into open skin. Blood swirled away in thin ribbons. For a heartbeat, the red streaks tangled in the current looked almost like runes, spelling something she couldn’t read before the river shredded them apart.
When her fingers stopped shaking quite so violently, she splashed water over her face and neck, washing away sweat and grime. The sting along her cut cheek flared bright, and she sucked in a sharp breath, the shock of it anchoring her more firmly in her own body.
She needed somewhere to hide. Something low. Something concealed. A shelter.
Her gaze followed the stream until she saw it—a fallen tree, massive, moss-covered, its roots yanked from the ground years ago. They formed a dark hollow beneath, a tangle of dirt and root and shadow just big enough for a person to squeeze into.
Her heart stuttered with something like cautious hope. “That’ll do,” she whispered. Not safe—not really. But safer than open ground. Safer than standing in the middle of the Devil’s hunting grounds and hoping the Pact remembered her name.
She waded across the stream, teeth chattering when the water wrapped around her calves, and clambered over a slick rock to reach the tree. The space beneath smelled of damp earth and old rot, but it was shelter. It was hidden.
She dropped to her knees and crawled into the hollow.
The ground inside was cold and uneven, but the roots above her formed a ceiling of twisted wood, their silhouettes like grasping fingers against the faint light beyond. The fallen trunk shielded her from three sides. Only a small opening faced the stream. Mud clung to her knees and shins as she wriggled farther in, the close, loamy air wrapping around her like a burial shroud.
If he came from behind, she’d never know. She tried not to think about that.
Adelaide curled onto her side, pressing her back against thick roots, drawing her knees as close to her chest as she could. Her dress clung damply to her skin, still wet in patches from the stream and sweat and blood. Both her blood and his. The fabric cooled quickly in the morning chill, sticking to the curve of her spine and the bruises blossoming along her ribs.
Her own body trembled, the adrenaline finally draining away and leaving a hollow ache behind. Exhaustion rolled over her in heavy waves, each one threatening to drag her under into the kind of sleep she might not wake from.
You’re safe.
The thought whispered sweetly at the edges of her mind.
He left. You hurt him. He has other girls to chase. You just have to wait. Dawn will come. It always does.
She clung to that. She had to. She wrapped the words around herself like an invisible cloak, thin and threadbare but better than the nakedness of hope without anything to protect it.
Time dissolved.
Her sense of it stretched and snapped, reforming into jagged loops of awareness. She drifted in and out of half-sleep, heart jerking awake at every distant sound. Sometimes she was sure only moments had passed; sometimes it felt like she had been lying under the roots for years, listening to the slow, patient breathing of the forest.
Once, she heard a scream—short, sharp, then cut off. She squeezed her eyes shut until it faded from the inside of her skull. Her fingers dug into the earth, nails filling with dirt as if she could anchor herself against the pull of someone else’s terror.
Once, she heard heavy footsteps in the distance, too far to be him, not heavy enough. Maybe a stag. Maybe another girl crashing blindly through the trees. She didn’t call out. She couldn’t risk it. The urge to shout here clawed at her throat, but the memory of molten eyes and obsidian horns shoved it back down again.
Her foot ached. Her shoulder throbbed. The right side of her face stung where a branch had cut her earlier. Every breath scraped her ribs raw. But she was alive.
At some point, the darkness began to lighten. Not much. Not quickly. But the blackness eased into deep blue, then softer grey.
Dawn.
Her heart lifted, painfully hopeful. The word itself felt fragile in her chest, like glass that might shatter if she believed in it too hard.
She wriggled closer to the opening, peering out from beneath the roots. The stream had turned silver in the faint light, the surface faintly misting where the cold air met the water. The trees were silhouettes now, not solid walls.
The sky beyond the canopy was no longer ink. It was the colour of old bruises, tinged faintly at the edges with something lighter. She couldn’t see the sun yet. But she could feel it coming. The air changed—less knife-sharp, more brittle and thin, like the moment before frost melts.
Her throat tightened. “I made it,” she whispered, voice cracking. “I’m still here.”