The air inside the makeshift infirmary was thick with the suffocating, greasy stench of charred timber, damp wool, and the unmistakable sweet rot of infected flesh. Iris Thorne wiped a mixture of sweat and gray soot from her forehead with the back of her forearm, leaving a dark smudge across her brow. Her thick, dark curls were pinned back in a messy, tight knot at the crown of her head, though several stubborn strands had escaped to cling to her damp neck.
She did not have time to brush them away. She did not have time to breathe.
"Keep the pressure on that femoral artery, Maren," Iris said, her voice remarkably steady despite the chaos around them. "If you let go, he will bleed out before the willow bark can even begin to dull his pain."
Maren, a girl of barely sixteen whose eyes were wide with a terror that had not left her since the raiders struck, nodded frantically. Her small, soot-stained hands pressed down hard on the thigh of a young farmer named Thomas. The man was groaning, a low, animalistic sound of pure agony that vibrated through the damp stone walls of the old cellar.
The cellar was all they had left. The main clinic, along with the village council hall, the granary, and dozens of homes, had been reduced to smoldering mounds of ash three days ago when the northern wolves descended.
Iris gritted her teeth, her amber-gold eyes narrowing in intense focus as she threaded a curved bone needle with heavy, disinfected gut-string. She didn't look like the delicate, pale beauties of the southern courts; her skin was sun-warmed and dusted with freckles, her shoulders broad and strong from years of lifting heavy crates of soil and carrying injured patients. Her hands were calloused, her nails short and scrubbed raw. She was nineteen years old, but in the last three days, she felt as though she had lived a century.
"Steady, Thomas," Iris murmured, leaning over his mangled leg. The flesh was blackened at the edges, torn by claws that could only belong to a werewolf of the northern pack. "I am going to sew the skin now. It will bite, but you must remain still."
"The... the Gravedigger..." Thomas gasped out, his eyes rolling back as his pale skin shone with a cold sweat. "He was there, Iris. I saw him. The giant... the one with the silver-scarred hands. He watched the granary burn. He wanted us to starve."
A cold, hard knot of bitter grief tightened in Iris's chest, threatening to choke her. The Gravedigger. That was what the borderlands called the warlord of Ironwood, Alpha Kazimir Vale. To the southern territories, he was a mythical beast, a monster who left nothing but shallow graves and ash in his wake.
To Iris, he was the author of her nightmares. He was the reason she woke up gasping for air in the dead of night, her ears ringing with the phantom screams of her younger brother, Leo, and her mother, Elspeth. Three years ago, a similar northern raid had swept through their previous border settlement. Iris had been hidden in a root cellar by her mother, forced to peer through a crack in the wooden trapdoor as the dark wolves tore her world apart. She had watched her mother fall. She had heard her brother's voice cut short.
When she had finally crawled out of the ashes the next morning, her family was gone, and the only thing left of her mother was a tarnished silver locket clutched in a severed, cold hand.
Iris forced the memory down, burying the hot, liquid anger deep beneath a wall of icy professionalism. She pushed the needle through Thomas's torn flesh. The man shrieked, his body jerking convulsively, but Maren held fast, tears streaming down the young girl's dirty cheeks.
"Focus, Iris," she whispered to herself, her hands moving with practiced, rhythmic speed. "Save the living. The dead are already gone."
For two hours, Iris worked in the dim, flickering light of tallow candles. She cleaned the soot out of Thomas's wounds, applied a thick, cooling poultice of calendula, honey, and crushed yarrow, and wrapped the leg tightly in clean linen strips. By the time she finished, her back was aching with a dull, throbbing pain, and her fingers were stiff.
Thomas had finally succumbed to an exhausted, herb-induced sleep. Maren collapsed onto a nearby wooden stool, burying her face in her hands.
"Go home, Maren," Iris said softly, placing a gentle hand on the girl's trembling shoulder. "Go find your mother. Sleep for a few hours. I will watch over Thomas and the others."
"But Iris, you haven't slept since Tuesday," Maren protested, looking up with dark-ringed eyes. "You're going to collapse. You can't keep carrying the whole village on your back."
"I am fine," Iris said, offering a small, reassuring smile that didn't reach her eyes. "My mother used to say that a healer doesn't have the luxury of being tired until the fever breaks. Go on. I will be here."
Once Maren had reluctantly gathered her things and climbed the stone steps out of the cellar, Iris let her shoulders sag. The silence of the room was heavy, broken only by the ragged breathing of the four other patients lying on straw pallets along the damp walls.
She walked over to a small, cracked basin of cold water and dipped her hands in, shuddering as the bloody water swirled around her fingers. She washed her arms up to the elbows, watching the red and gray grime dissolve.
Her gaze fell on her chest. Hanging from a simple leather cord around her neck was her mother’s silver locket. It was an oval piece, heavy and solid, its surface engraved with an intricate design of winding oak leaves and deep roots. It was completely sealed; there was no seam, no clasp, and no keyhole.
To anyone else, it was a useless, solid piece of metal. But Iris knew better. Her mother had been a true earth-healer, a woman who could make withered crops bloom with a touch of her hand and draw infection out of a wound with a whisper of magic. The locket was a dormant vessel of that ancient, earthen magic.
When Elspeth was alive, the locket had hummed with a warm, gentle light. But since her death, it had remained cold and dead. Iris had inherited her mother's knowledge of herbs and physical medicine, but the magic itself was locked away, buried deep inside her own grief-stricken soul. Try as she might, she could not rouse a single spark of life from the silver metal.
She dried her hands on a clean cloth and stepped out of the cellar, needing a moment of fresh air before she began her rounds of the village ruins.
As she stepped out into the night, the sheer devastation of Oakhaven hit her anew. The air was freezing, the autumn wind carrying the sharp, bitter scent of wet ash and pine smoke. Overhead, the sky was a bruised purple, heavy with the promise of an early winter snow.
All around her, the remnants of her life were laid bare. The village square, once a bustling hub of merchants, farmers, and children playing, was now a wasteland of blackened timbers and gray mud. A few survivors huddled around a small bonfire in the center of the ruins, their faces hollow and pale in the flickering firelight. They looked like ghosts wandering through a graveyard.
Iris walked toward the village well, her boots crunching on the cold ash that covered the ground like a shroud. She lowered the bucket into the dark depths of the well, her muscles straining as she hauled the heavy water back up.
"Iris."
She turned to see Elder Orin standing in the shadows of the partially collapsed tavern. He was an older wolf, his gray hair thin and his face lined with deep, bitter ruts of stress. He had never been a kind man, but since the raids had intensified, he had become increasingly cold and detached.
"Elder Orin," Iris said, keeping her tone polite but distant. "I have managed to stabilize Thomas. But we are running dangerously low on willow bark and clean linen. If we do not get supplies from the southern cities soon, the winter will kill those the wolves did not."
Orin stepped closer, the firelight catching the sharp, calculating gleam in his eyes. "The southern cities have closed their gates, Iris. They view the borderlands as a lost cause. They will not send help."
Iris's hand tightened on the wooden handle of the bucket. "Then we must go gather the winter root ourselves. We cannot simply sit here and watch our people die."
"There is no need," Orin said, his voice flat and devoid of emotion. "The council has spent the last two days negotiating with the north. A peace treaty has been struck."
Iris froze, the cold wind whipping a dark curl across her cheek. "A treaty? With the Gravedigger? Orin, he is a butcher. He doesn't want peace; he wants our land."
"He wants security," Orin corrected, crossing his arms over his chest. "And we have agreed to his terms. The raids will stop immediately. Food and medicine will be sent from the northern reserves to help us rebuild."
A spark of hope tried to rise in Iris's chest, but she ruthlessly crushed it. "At what cost? What did you have to give him in exchange for this sudden mercy?"
Orin looked at her, his expression hardening into something cold and unyielding. "The warlord demanded a blood-tribute. A peace bride from a prominent lineage to ensure we do not break our word. A hostage of the highest order."
A terrible, sickening realization began to settle in the pit of Iris's stomach. The cold of the wind suddenly felt like ice water in her veins. She stepped back, her amber eyes widening.
"No," she whispered.
"The council has voted, Iris," Orin said, his voice ringing with a terrifying, final authority. "You are the daughter of the late Elspeth Thorne. Your bloodline is pure, your status as our primary healer makes you invaluable to our people, and you have no family left to protect you. You are the sacrifice. You will marry Kazimir Vale."
* * *