The rain fell like molten iron, turning the road to Thornwick into a black swamp. Each drop was heavy, cold, carrying the scent of decay that had become all too familiar in these dark times. The mud sucked at the horse's hooves, threatening to pull them down into the muck, to swallow them whole.
Thorne Ashford pressed his left hand against the wound in his right side, feeling the warm stickiness of blood seeping through his fingers, mixing with the rain, drawing dark red trails in the mud. The crossbow bolt had gone deep—he could feel the arrowhead moving through his muscle with every breath, a foreign presence in his body that should not be there. The wound had turned black around the edges, infection spreading like a cold snake crawling through his veins, its venom already working its way through his system.
Three days. Perhaps less.
He knew he would die. He had known it from the moment the bolt had struck him, from the moment he had felt the poison on its tip entering his blood. He just didn expect it to be here. Not in this forgotten village, not in this mud, not with the rain washing away his blood like it was trying to erase him from existence.
The village of Thornwick appeared through the curtain of rain like a dying man's final hallucination: a dozen thatched cottages clustered around a stone church, thin smoke rising from chimneys, dim yellow light flickering in windows like dying embers. Ordinary. Peaceful. Unaware of the horror consuming the rest of the kingdom, unaware that their time was running out, that the dead were coming for them too.
Thorne urged his horse forward, each jolt of the saddle sending fresh waves of pain through his body, but he didn't stop. Couldn't stop. The old mare he had stolen from a dead nobleman two days ago was dying, just like her new master. Her breathing was ragged, her steps stumbling, her eyes rolling back in her head as the infection took her. Both of them were dying, he realized. They were just dying at different speeds.
Keep moving, he told himself, the words a mantra he had repeated for seven years, since the day his life had ended and this half-life had begun. One more mile. One more hour. Just one more...
The wooden gates of Thornwick were closed, as he had known they would be. In these times, no village left its gates open after dark. No village trusted strangers, no village took chances. Three armed men stood atop the wall, their faces hidden behind rusted iron helms that had seen better days, crossbows trained on the dark rain-soaked figure approaching through the mud.
"Halt!" a young voice called, nervous and tight, the voice of someone who had never killed, who hoped never to have to. "State your business!"
Thorne laughed—a bitter, rattling sound that turned into a cough, blood bubbling at the corner of his mouth, spilling down his chin to mix with the rain. "My business is dying," he said, his voice rough as if he were chewing gravel, as if the words themselves were hurting him. "Are you going to help me with that, or just stand there and watch?"
A murmur of argument behind the gate, voices debating what to do with this stranger, this dying man who carried death with him like a cloak. Then an older voice, weathered and weary: "Open the gate. But keep your crossbows ready. If he makes any wrong move, shoot him."
The heavy wooden door creaked open, revealing a narrow gap, just wide enough for a horse and rider to pass through. Thorne rode through, his consciousness already fading at the edges, darkness creeping in from all sides. Before darkness took him completely, the last thing he saw was a woman standing at the tavern door.
Silver hair that gleamed even in the gray rain. Purple eyes that seemed to see too much, to know secrets they shouldn't. Silver light flickering around her wrists like captured starlight, like magic waiting to be used.
She looked familiar. Why did she look familiar? He had never seen her before, he was certain of that. He would have remembered a woman like her, would have remembered those eyes, that hair, that light. But something about her called to him, something deep in his blood, something ancient that recognized her.
Then the world went black, and Thorne Ashford knew no more.