Fear the Old Blood

The Huntress’ chest heaves, and there’s a furrow in her brow that suggests the will to argue, but she is weak to the simpler pleasures and there was time enough. Nothing threatened her attention for another hour, at least. Even the busiest of Hunters took their mental leave from the long nights lest their mortal minds wane to beastliness. It was one of many lessons Gherman continued to impress upon her, for Maria could not, for the life of her, find rhyme or reason to take a break from the travesty of the plague.

The flowers she held grounded her well, and she touched the one woven in her paled tresses once more, and she thought upon how they had once been a river of gold, now as diluted as the rest of the town.

But no less pretty, now.