Edwyn yawned and pulled his coat more tightly around his body. He shivered against the cold. The stone halls of the crypt were lit by intermittent torches, but they did nothing to warm him. He sighed. It was just like General Heard to stick the junior cadets down here in the dank, dark catacombs under the palace.

There were three other guards posted at the vault, two standing at each side of the closed doors. Edwyn wasn’t sure what use four guards did; very few people could get into the crypts, and the only key to the vault was kept on the person of one of the guards posted there, though it switched keepers at every shift change. Edwyn didn’t even know who held the key—only that tonight it wasn’t him.

A chill ran up his spine as a draft blew through the crypts. If he thought too hard about it, he imagined the bodies in their graves, long-dead kings of Serin from generations of the Ulric name, reduced to dust and bones in the ground. In the throes of sleeplessness, he thought he could hear them breathing.

But it was just the breeze blowing in through the tunnels, that’s all, he told himself.

He told himself that a lot.

But when the torches along the halls flickered and blew out, his heart jumped into a panicked frenzy. The three other men gave shouts, but Edwyn couldn’t see them—it was too dark. He set one hand against the ice-cold stone wall at his back, drawing his sword in a shaking grasp.

He saw nothing, only heard the scrape of feet on the stone and then the squelching sound of a blade piercing flesh. He heard the pained yell of his comrades, somehow both very close in his ear and very far away.

He swung wildly with his sword but met only empty air. His eyes couldn’t adjust to the complete, deep blackness of the tunnel. He swung his sword again, but sharp pain met his forearm. He felt something strike his arm, and the sensation in his hand dropped away.

He heard the clatter of his sword as it fell to the stones, and the wet thud of flesh hitting the floor.

He screamed.

He fell back against the wall, his fingers grasping at where his hand should have been. There was only empty space, and spurting wet heat.

The flames in the torches flickered to life on their own, which should have been impossible. Slowly the hall flickered with the faint torchlight, and Edwyn saw the horror of what had happened.

His comrades lay dead in the hall, and there was someone there crouched over one of them. She hummed absentmindedly to herself as she rifled through his pockets. Her hair as it fell in a braid behind her back was bright white in the dim firelight.

Edwyn whimpered, and the woman turned her head to look at him. He froze at the sight of her eyes. One light and one dark.

“Y-you,” he stammered. “Y-you’re a w-witch.”

She frowned. “Seems I missed a spot,” she said, and stood. The key to the vault dangled from her belt, clinking against its brass ring.

The witch strode toward him and he cowered against the wall. Or at least he tried to. But his vision blurred as his limbs began to grow cold. They failed to prop himself up and he slumped to the floor. His boots slipped on the pool of blood gathering under him. The witch knelt before him, clad in tight black clothing. She tilted her head to one side, her braid falling over one shoulder.

Edwyn tried to lift his remaining hand between them, but he was too weak. Besides, it didn’t matter. She raised a hand, curling her fingers, and Edwyn’s chest crackled with pain. He gasped, tried to draw breath, but he couldn’t.

He remembered swimming in the river with his little brother when they were children. He’d tripped into the water and sucked it up his nose, leaving him coughing and gasping for air.

This witch’s magic was like choking on the river water, but so much worse. Edwyn couldn’t draw air into his lungs. His chest felt like it had been stabbed through with a blade. He gaped open-mouthed, his vision slowly going dark. The witch only stared at him, like she was inspecting a curious find in a shop window.

His lungs twitched. His vision blurred and then went black, and the pulse hammering desperately in his chest sputtered and went still.