"Thank you."

Her crime in betraying me, in thinking to betray me, was forgiven in that moment.

I turned on my hooves and started toward the forming crowd. I heard a denunciation behind me, a ringing voice naming me coward, and heard the first impacts of my witch and the warmaiden. I shoved past a blond woman, spilling a basket of herbs and flowers, and slashed the face a massive guard who tried to stop me. I leapt over the Elderman a moment later and passed around the front of the inn.

I caught sight of a plump woman running towards me, a knife raise high as she cried out, and I saw Nadia a dozen feet behind her; a bloody bruise near her hairline.

I wasn't much of a fighter, not really, but a fat woman with a knife was far from a credible threat. I ducked her clumsy stab and tore my talons through her throat; a vague sense of familiarity striking me as she fell with a gurgling cry. Nadia's dazed eyes focused as she caught sight of me, and I screamed at her to block the warmaiden if she came; when she came.

I must have cut a dozen more peasants in my hurried escape, running into past the gate and towards the forest.

But I made it; scarcely better than my condition when I reached the area, but I escaped the town of Barley.

Hunted, but alive.