As the verses of his lullaby hummed in her ears and lulled a peaceful security to wrap around her, Raith’s blood rushed through her body, lighting a fire in her veins. The eldritch whispers of the umbre de sânge grew bold, stabbing through her consciousness like knives thinning the fog of her fevered delirium.
Intertwined with the words of her lover’s Scottish melody, Gabriella listened to the blood shadows, listened to directions they told her to go, pictured the door she needed to find, saw her destination-- one that didn’t make sense for the inside of the castle.
A tree?
The impatient umbre de sânge was no respecter of the hampering weakness in her muscles. Like petulant children, they hissed, moaned, badgered inside her brain like angry bees, demanding she pick her
