Deandra and Jacob made their way through the woods, following the path that led back to the Keep. It would take them about an hour on foot. Fortunately, Jacob was an excellent tracker with a talent for navigation. Even when the trails disappeared beneath snow and fallen branches, he could usually find their way.
The forest grew denser as they continued, and the trees blocked out most of the moonlight. Then Deandra smelled it, the unmistakable scent of blood.
She stopped and placed a hand on Jacob's shoulder, preventing him from taking another step. The scent was far stronger than anything she'd encountered at the chapel.
“Do you smell that?”
Jacob stood there trying to figure out what she was talking about. Before he could answer, Deandra moved toward the source. She pushed through a tangle of thorny bushes and stepped into a clearing.
She froze. Three bodies lay scattered across the snow. They weren't human, but she recognized what they were immediately.
They were in fact vampires.
The first lay on its back, its throat torn open. The second had been thrown against an oak tree, its chest caved inward. Deandra stared at the third for a moment longer than the others. It was missing its head.
She approached the nearest corpse, keeping her dagger ready. None of the bodies showed signs of being killed by silver. There were no burns from holy water, no arrows buried in their flesh, and no familiar symbols left behind by hunters. Whatever had killed them hadn't followed the methods she knew.
Deandra crouched beside the first vampire. Her fingers hovered over the torn flesh of its throat. The edges of the wound were blackened, but the skin hadn't been burned. She couldn't explain the discoloration.
She moved to the second body. Every rib in its chest had been crushed. Not a few broken bones from a struggle, but all of them, pressed inward as though something had wrapped its hands around the vampire and squeezed until nothing remained intact.
Deandra rose slowly. Jacob approached, his hand resting on the grip of his crossbow.
“What kind of thing could do this?” he asked. His voice carried an uneasiness she rarely heard from him.
Deandra kept her gaze on the bodies. “I'm not sure.”
Vampires were far stronger than humans. Even a relatively young one could tear a man's arm from its socket. Killing one required skill, preparation, and the right weapons. But crushing another vampire with such force demanded something else entirely, something stronger.
Jacob began searching the clearing while Deandra examined the surrounding trees. A few moments later, he called to her. “Over here.”
She joined him beside a long impression in the snow. The marks were narrow and uneven, cutting through the clearing before disappearing between two trees.
“A drag mark,” Jacob said. He crouched to inspect it. “Something was pulled this way. Whatever made it was heavy enough to leave a trail.”
“Or whatever was being dragged was.”
Jacob glanced at her. “That's a comforting thought.”
“I'm not here to comfort you.”
“Clearly.”
Despite his attempt at humor, he didn't smile. They followed the trail deeper into the clearing until it led to a massive oak tree. Another body lay at its base, partially covered by snow. This one was different. It was human.
Deandra approached cautiously. The man wore a dark coat, now stiff with frost, and his face had gone pale beneath a thin layer of snow. A broken silver dagger lay beside his hand.
She recognized the weapon's markings immediately. The symbol engraved into its handle belonged to a hunter from another Order.
“Jacob,” she said quietly. “Look at this.”
He stepped closer, then followed her gaze to the man's chest. “There's something carved into him.”
Deandra knelt beside the body. A symbol had been cut into the man's flesh. The lines were deep and deliberate, forming a dark, unsettling pattern against his skin.
She recognized this symbol. Not from her training or any of the usual records describing vampire weaknesses. She had seen it once in an old book kept among the restricted texts of the Order of Saint Lamar.
A book she had been explicitly instructed never to open. The symbol belonged to something the hunters called the First Blood.
Deandra stared at it, trying to remember the few lines she'd managed to read before the book had been taken away. The passage had been brief, filled with warnings and references to something ancient. She'd assumed it was little more than a legend, the kind of story older hunters used to frighten recruits into obedience.
Standing over a dead hunter, she wasn't so certain anymore.
“Have you seen this before?” Jacob asked.
“In a book I wasn't supposed to read.”
Jacob gave her a sidelong look. “Of course you have.”
She leaned closer to examine the carving. The wounds looked deliberate, not like the marks of a creature feeding or a hunter fighting for his life. Whoever had done this had wanted the symbol to be seen.
She searched the clearing again, looking for anything that might explain the scene. Three dead vampires. One dead hunter. A broken silver dagger. A symbol connected to a legend the Order refused to discuss. Nothing fit together.
If vampires had killed the hunter, why had they been slaughtered themselves? If another group of hunters had killed the vampires, why leave one of their own dead beneath a tree? And if neither side was responsible, what kind of creature could have done this?
Deandra reached into the dead man's coat and searched the pockets. Most were empty, save for a few coins and a small, rusted key. In the inner pocket, she found a folded piece of paper.
She opened it carefully. Three words had been written across the page in block letters.
DO NOT WAKE.
For a moment, the forest seemed quieter than before. Jacob read the message over her shoulder.
“Wake what?”
“I don't know.”
“That's twice tonight you've said that. I'm starting to dislike this mission.”
Deandra folded the paper and slipped it into her coat. “Then you'll be pleased to hear we're going back to the Keep.”
“And telling Captain Dorne everything?”
“Yes.”
She glanced once more at the bodies. The snow was already settling over their wounds, softening the terrible shapes they had left behind. By morning, the clearing might look almost untouched.
She didn't intend to let anyone erase what had happened here. Whatever the First Blood was, someone feared it enough to leave a warning. And someone, or something ,had already killed to keep it hidden.
Deandra and Jacob left the clearing and continued toward the Keep. Neither spoke much during the journey back. The forest seemed different now. Every distant crack of a branch made Deandra turn her head, and every shadow between the trees held her attention a little too long.
She told herself it was caution because refused to call it fear.
Nearly an hour later, the familiar walls of the Keep rose before them. Deandra had spent almost her entire life within those walls. She knew every corridor and staircase, every narrow passage that connected the training grounds to the main hall.
She knew where the younger hunters practiced at dawn, where the wounded were treated after missions, and where the oldest records were stored beneath the western tower.
The Keep was supposed to be a place of safety. A fortress built to protect humanity from the creatures lurking beyond its walls. Everyone inside had sworn to defend civilization, and Deandra had believed in that purpose for as long as she could remember.
Yet as she crossed the entrance hall, the unease she'd felt in the forest followed her inside. The dead hunter's symbol remained vivid in her mind.
She needed answers, and Captain Dorne was the first person she intended to question. For the first time in her life, the walls of the Keep offered little comfort.