A Fate of Blood and Silence

The fire was dying.

I could tell by the way the last embers glowed weakly beneath the ash, their light no longer bright enough to push back the shadows gathering in the corners of the cabin. I knelt on the splintered floorboards and fed another piece of wood into the hearth, then another, my fingers so stiff from the cold I could barely feel them.

Winter had been cruel this year.

Even inside our cabin, there was no escaping it. The wind slipped through the narrow gaps in the wooden walls in long, thin whistles, carrying with it the kind of cold that sank beneath skin and settled deep in bone. No matter how close I sat to the fire, no matter how many layers I wore, I never seemed able to get warm anymore.

“Seris.”

My brother’s voice came from the other side of the room, thin and rough enough to make my chest tighten before I even turned.

Tomas was sitting up in the narrow bed tucked against the far wall, an old blanket pooled over his legs. Dark hair clung to his forehead with sweat, though the room was freezing. His skin looked pale—paler than it had yesterday—and his cheeks had hollowed enough that fear moved sharp and ugly through me before he even spoke again.

“Do you know if there’s anything left from dinner?”

For a moment, I could not answer. Not because I had not heard him, but because I knew there was nothing to give.

My gaze dropped back to the fire. “No,” I said quietly. “I’m sorry. Father took the last piece of bread this morning.”

The silence that followed felt heavier than the cold.

When I finally looked at him, Tomas only nodded, as if he had expected the answer. As if hunger had become so familiar that disappointment no longer had the strength to show itself on his face.

That somehow hurt worse than if he had cried.

I swallowed hard and turned back to the hearth before he could see the guilt written too plainly across mine.

It had been almost a week since we had eaten until we were full. A true meal had become something I remembered rather than something I expected. Now we lived on thin broth, hard bread, and the carefully measured rations the vampires distributed as though we should thank them for their generosity.

They called it rationing. Claimed humans consumed too much, that if they loosened their grip now, there would be nothing left for winter’s end. So they measured our hunger in scraps and called it mercy.

Behind me, Tomas coughed.

The sound tore through the room, wet and deep and wrong. I closed my eyes for the briefest moment before turning again.

He was already trying to push himself out of bed.

“You shouldn’t be up,” I said, rising quickly.

“I’m tired of lying there.” His voice came out as little more than a rasp. He braced one hand against the wall and slowly made his way toward the hearth. “I’m tired of staring at the ceiling.”

My throat tightened as I watched him lower himself onto the floor beside the fire, every movement careful, every breath too shallow.

He had gotten so thin.

Not all at once. Not enough for it to strike me from one day to the next. But little by little, sickness had hollowed him out. His wrists looked too narrow. His fingers too bony. Even his eyes, once so bright, seemed too large in his face now.

He stretched his hands toward the flames and shut his eyes as the warmth reached him.

“I can’t stay in bed anymore, Seris.”

I looked away before he could see the fear on my face.

We had taken him to the healers nearly two weeks ago. They had listened to his breathing, pressed cool hands to his forehead, and asked questions in voices so careful that I had known, even before they spoke, the answer would not be one I wanted.

They had no medicine left.

Not until another delivery came in, they had said. If another delivery came in.

Winter had only worsened since then.

And so had Tomas.

“Was he drunk again?”

I stilled.

He did not look at me when he asked it. He kept his eyes on the fire, on the weak orange flames struggling over the wood.

After my mother died three years ago in one of the vampire hunts, my father had started slipping away from us. At first it had been one drink at the end of the day. Then another. Then bottles hidden beneath loose boards. Evenings lost at the tavern. Nights where I had to search the alleys before curfew, dragging him home by one arm while he muttered slurred apologies that meant less each time I heard them.

“Don’t worry about him,” I said, though I hated how tired my voice sounded.

I crossed back to Tomas and brushed a hand through his damp hair. He leaned into the touch for half a second before looking back at the fire.

The warm light caught in his eyes.

Green. Bright even now, though dulled by fever.

My mother’s eyes.

The thought hit me hard enough that I had to look away.

Tomas had once been all laughter and restless energy. Always running, always climbing things he should not, always dragging me into trouble with that grin that made it impossible to stay angry with him for long. He used to come home with scraped knees and muddy hands and stories he could barely get out fast enough.

Now all that life seemed trapped somewhere deep inside him, buried beneath illness and hunger and the kind of weakness no child should ever know.

I rose too quickly and crossed into the kitchen nook before my face could betray me.

I opened the cupboard though I already knew what waited inside.

Nothing.

Dust lined the shelves. A cracked bowl sat near the back. Beside it, an empty flour tin and a chipped mug. Thin spiderwebs clung to the corners.

Still, I searched. I lifted the bowl. Checked the tin. Ran my fingers along the back shelf as though a forgotten crumb might somehow appear beneath them if I wanted it badly enough.

Nothing.

A sharp knock at the door cut through the silence.

I turned just as Tomas pushed himself to his feet again.

“Stay there,” I said, but he was already making his way across the room.

The moment he opened the door, winter rushed in.

Cold air slashed through the cabin so sharply it almost snuffed the little warmth we had managed to gather. On the other side stood Lysa, her red hair half-escaped from its braid, cheeks pink from the wind.

“Hello, Tomas,” she said with a crooked smile. “Is your sister home?”

Her gaze slipped past him and landed on me.

“Lysa,” I said, stepping closer.

She held a small woven basket in both hands.

Empty.

The sight of it made something sink in my stomach before she even spoke.

“I was hoping...” Her voice faltered. She looked down at the ground. “I was hoping you might have some bread left.”

Her fingers tightened around the handle of the basket.

“We didn’t have enough for Mama last night,” she said more quietly. “She’s worse this morning.”

For a moment, shame burned hot beneath my skin.

Lysa’s household had six people in it—her parents, her younger brother, and both grandparents. It did not matter to the vampires. One ration bag per house. One measured portion, whether there were three mouths to feed or ten.

I had seen her mother just days ago. Pale and thin, pretending she was not exhausted. Pretending, like the rest of us, that survival still felt possible.

“I’m sorry,” I said softly. “We’ve got nothing. Father took the last of it this morning.”

Lysa’s shoulders dropped.

Tears gathered in her eyes, though she blinked as if trying to force them back. My gaze fell to the empty basket twisting in her hands, and suddenly a memory rose sharp in my mind.

My father in the forest years ago, before grief had turned him into someone I barely recognized.

His voice low beside me as he showed me how to tie a snare. How to watch the ground for tracks. How to dig carefully beneath dead brush for winter roots. Before the vampires banned us from entering the woods, the villagers had hunted there.

Food had once come from more than a ration bag.

I stepped past Lysa and glanced outside. The sun had only just begun to rise over the mountain ridge, pale and cold against the morning sky.

There was still time.

Before she could turn away, I caught her by the arm and pulled her inside, shutting the door quickly behind her.

“I have an idea,” I said.

Lysa narrowed her eyes at once. “That is usually how your worst decisions begin.”

Despite everything, I nearly smiled.

“If this is anything like your we can make our own bread plan, then no. Absolutely not.”

I winced.

That plan had involved me insisting we could find maize near the stables, grind it down, and somehow start making our own flour. It had ended with both of us ankle-deep in horse dung and not a single maize seed in sight.

“This is different,” I said.

“That is also what you said last time.”

“Lysa.”

Something in my voice must have reached her, because the teasing fell from her face.

I lowered mine. “Tomas needs food. Your mother needs food. We are not going to get it waiting here.”

Her grip tightened on the basket. “What are you saying?”

“I know where we can find some.”

She stared at me for a beat too long.

Then understanding dawned, and all the color drained from her face.

“No.”

I turned toward Tomas before she could say more. “Lock the door after us and stay by the fire.”

His brow pulled together. “Seris—”

“I’ll bring something back,” I said, already reaching for my coat.

I pulled it on, tied my knife at my hip, and grabbed Lysa’s wrist before either of them could stop me.

Then I pulled her out into the bitter morning.

We moved quickly through the village, our boots crunching over the hard, frosted ground.

Smoke curled thinly from a few chimneys, though not many. Most families were saving what little wood they had, same as us. The streets were quiet in that hollow way they always were during winter—people moved when they had to, kept their heads down, and hurried back inside before the cold stole too much from them.

A few villagers looked our way as we passed, and I offered small smiles where I had to, not slowing when one woman lifted a hand as though she meant to stop me. I kept my eyes ahead and walked faster.

“Seris,” Lysa hissed beside me, nearly jogging to keep up. “Where are we going?”

I did not answer.

If I said it aloud, she might refuse me outright. And I needed her. Someone to help me look. Someone to keep watch in case a patrol came by. Someone to remind me I had not completely lost my mind.

We reached the outer edge of the village where the last row of houses stood crooked and mostly abandoned. Their shutters hung loose. Roofs sagged beneath old weather and neglect. No one wanted to live this close to the forest anymore.

Not after Gregory and his family.

One day they had been there.

The next, gone.

Their front door had been found open, swinging in the wind. Blood had stained the floorboards inside, dark and dried, splashed across walls and furniture alike. No bodies. No bones. Nothing left but the proof that something terrible had happened there.

After that, the houses nearest the woods began to empty one by one.

I slowed near one of the abandoned cottages and pulled Lysa behind the broken side wall. The stone bit through the sleeve of my coat as I leaned carefully around it, scanning the area.

No patrol.

No villagers.

Nothing but frost-silvered grass and the dark line of trees beyond.

“Come on.”

I darted from behind the wall and headed for the forest.

Lysa ripped her arm from my grip so suddenly I nearly stumbled.

“Seris, no.” Her voice dropped to a whisper, but fear sharpened every word. “We are not allowed to be here.”

“I know.”

“You know?” she repeated, staring at me as if I had gone mad. “Then have you truly lost your mind?”

I turned to face her fully. “Please.”

She looked between me and the tree line, panic already rising in her eyes.

“If they find us—”

“I know.”

“They’ll kill us.”

That truth settled between us, hard and cold.

They would.

The vampires did not tolerate disobedience, and entering the forest was more than disobedience. It was defiance. There were rules for where humans could go, when we could be outside, what work we did, how much food we received. Every part of our lives had become something measured and watched.

Crossing into the woods meant stepping beyond what they allowed.

It meant risking death.

But when I pictured Tomas back in the cabin—his thin shoulders, his shaking hands, the fever bright in his eyes—something stronger than fear rose inside me.

“I would rather die trying to save him,” I said quietly, “than sit there and watch him starve.”

Lysa’s face softened, just for a moment.

I knew she was thinking of her mother.

She looked back toward the village, then at the forest, and I watched the war inside her play out in the tight line of her mouth.

Finally, she nodded once. “Then we have to be quick.”

Relief nearly made my knees weak.

I turned at once and stepped toward the trees.

The cold changed the moment we crossed beneath them.

Outside, the wind had been sharp and biting. In here, the air felt heavier. Wetter. It clung to my skin and slipped down the back of my neck like something unwelcome and alive. Snow dusted the ground in thin patches between roots and dead leaves, but the deeper we went, the less even that seemed to matter.

The forest felt wrong.

I lifted one hand, stopping Lysa before she could move past me.

Then I listened.

Nothing.

No birds. No insects. No rustle of movement in the underbrush.

Only silence.

Not the quiet hush of a sleeping forest. Not the gentle stillness of winter.

This was something else.

Something watchful.

A strange unease settled low in my stomach, but I forced myself to keep moving.

My hand rested on the hilt of my knife as I searched the ground the way my father had once taught me. Disturbed soil. Bent stems. Tracks pressed into the earth. Signs of rabbits, birds, anything.

But there was nothing.

No tracks.

No feathers.

No evidence that anything living had passed this way in hours.

Maybe longer.

Lysa stayed so close behind me I could hear the quickness of her breathing.

“You see?” she muttered after a while. “There’s nothing here.”

“There has to be.”

But even to my own ears, the words sounded thin.

We spent the next hour moving deeper through the trees, stopping where brush thickened, where roots might be hidden beneath the frozen ground, where game should have passed if game still lived here.

We found nothing.

I crouched beside a withered berry bush and clawed at the earth with numb fingers, pushing aside dead leaves and frost-hardened dirt. “There should be nectar roots here.”

Lysa wrapped her arms around herself. “There’s nothing.”

“My father showed me once,” I said, digging harder. “They burrow deep during winter.”

The soil crumbled beneath my nails. Cold packed into the cracks in my skin. I dug until dirt coated my fingers and the ache in my hands turned sharp.

Still nothing.

I sat back on my heels, staring at the small hole in disbelief.

Lysa looked around the trees, fear plain on her face now. “Seris, we have been out here too long.”

I glanced upward. The sun was hidden behind the thick canopy, but the gray light filtering through the branches had shifted. Afternoon had started to tilt quietly toward evening.

A knot of dread tightened in my chest.

Maybe I should have listened.

Maybe we should turn back now and pray tonight’s ration was larger than yesterday’s. Maybe I could pretend I was not hungry and give my portion to Tomas. Maybe Lysa could take hers home to her mother.

Maybe.

The word felt useless.

Then a sound broke through the silence.

Low.

Strange.

Wet and uneven, like something between a groan and a gurgle.

Lysa gasped.

Every muscle in my body went still.

The sound came again, somewhere ahead through the trees.

I rose slowly, every nerve suddenly alert, and reached for my knife.

“Seris—”

I clapped a hand over Lysa’s mouth before she could speak any louder. Her eyes flew wide, and I pressed a finger to my lips.

If it was a deer, I did not want to scare it off.

If it was something worse, I did not want it hearing us first.

I removed my hand slowly and motioned for her to stay close.

Together, we moved toward the sound.

Step by careful step, we slipped between the trees, avoiding branches and loose stones, every breath feeling too loud in the heavy silence. My heartbeat pounded against my ribs so hard I could hear it in my ears.

The sound came again.

Closer now.

My grip tightened on the knife.

Please be food, I prayed silently. Please let it be something we can bring home.

Lysa brushed against my shoulder as we reached a dense cluster of bushes. I crouched behind them and gestured for her to do the same. She lowered herself awkwardly, her whole body trembling.

I pushed through a small opening in the brush.

The forest dimness began to thin.

A patch of pale light opened ahead.

I moved toward it slowly, carefully parting the last branches—

And stopped.

My breath caught in my throat.

A man hung chained between two trees.

For one terrible moment, I could only stare.

His arms were stretched wide, wrists shackled high above him. His head hung forward, dark shoulder-length hair falling over his face in damp, tangled strands. His clothes—what remained of them—were torn and stained, and even from where I stood I could see the angry red blistering that crawled over his exposed skin where thin shafts of sunlight broke through the branches overhead.

The ground beneath him was dark.

At first I thought it was shadow.

Then I realized it was blood.

“Oh, gods,” I whispered.

I took one slow step closer, horror tightening around my ribs.

From this distance he did not look wounded enough to have bled so much.

Then I shifted to the side and saw his back.

The flesh there had been torn open in long, brutal lashes.

A wave of nausea climbed my throat.

This was not punishment.

This was torture.

Behind me, I heard Lysa push through the bushes.

“Seris—”

Her voice broke the moment she saw him.

“What in hell is that?”

Her whisper shook.

I could not answer.

I could only stand there staring at the man chained between the trees, every instinct in me screaming that whatever waited ahead had just become far worse than hunger.