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I wasn’t born a monster.

As a child I had no bloodlust, no desire to manipulate or control. No dream of immortality. I wanted to survive the long winters. I wanted my mother back.

But now I must face them as my mother did. Now I feel as murderous as a monster, as cold as one of their walking corpses.

They arrive in our village like a funeral procession in an enclosed black carriage drawn by a matching set of four horses, with two more following, just as the first snow begins to fall.

It’s risky for a carriage not to carry skis at this time of year in case of deep drifts, but the wheels and horses look to be in fine condition. Better than fine. The stallions in back have no leads and yet no one astride the polished leather saddles. Eerier yet, there’s no one atop the driver’s seat of the carriage.

The horses seem to halt on their own. The carriage rolls to a stop at the edge of our village square, a stretch of frozen dirt with a dry basin of rough-hewn stone in the center that the headman generously calls a fountain. The square still smells of fish, offal, and dung—the remnants of the market, packed away for the occasion. Now the space only serves to make the clomping hooves echo forlornly in the late autumn air.

The carriage sits, gleaming and malignant in the dying light, an ill omen made real. As we all wait in a line, shivering, I wonder without hope if it’s empty.

Of course, it isn’t.

Only when the snow-shrouded sun finally drops behind the mountains do they flow like water out of the carriage: one male, one female, and one seemingly neither, all clothed in finery. Long velvet cloaks, gowns, and robes in deep red, black, and silver. I’m wearing whatever scraps I could find, though the scarves and shawls wrapped around my neck and waist serve a dual purpose, hiding what I want hidden.

Showing your neck to them is bad luck. Showing what’s at my waist would be a death wish.

They clearly have no such concerns. Their skin flashes everywhere despite the cold, their complexions and hair as varied as their clothes. The female has fair skin, perfect brown curls that fall to her waist, and full crimson lips to match the color of her eyes and her plunging gown. The male has light brown skin, black hair pulled back into a sleek ponytail, and a black silk shirt crisscrossed with knife belts over dark leather pants. The third is remarkably pale, with snow-white hair, silver eyes and robes, and no telltale signs of being male or female. I’ve heard they can be like that, among the many ways they can be—live however they want, at seemingly no cost to themselves.

The only similarities among these three are their unnatural eyes and flawless faces, not a wrinkle or pockmark in sight. They all look to be in their early twenties, late twenties at most, but I know they’re not. The creatures’ faces never reflect their true age. Despite their seeming youth, they’re long dead. And despite their cold limbs, they move like stalking predators.

They are predators. Predators that glow like lanterns in the darkness, inviting their prey to be consumed like moths to flame.

I want to back away. Only Silvea standing next to me in line holds me steady. She’s my only friend. And maybe more than that, if only on my end. I need to make sure she’s safe, and a place at her side is more appealing than these creatures will ever be. Far more tempting than becoming one of them.

Even when I’ve been starving, lying awake at night getting gnawed at by a nameless longing for something, someone, someplace I don’t know, I’ve never hungered for an endless existence sustained by the blood of others. Never for shadowy figures with gleaming eyes and red lips and mocking laughs to haunt my waking hours as well as my dreams. Never for luxurious, frozen courts that never sleep, cloaked in garments of scarlet and gold, silver and midnight.

I’m the child of a dead fisherman, and I lost my mother to them. They are the enemy: overtaking our lands, usurping our gods, terrorizing our nights.

Drinking our blood.

To want to be like them, to live a richer life despite being dead, to share their hideous craving, would be worse than a foolish dream. It would be deplorable.

But that’s why they’re here.

The male holds out a black bag, his lips quirked, while the female says in a musical, disinterested voice, “Is this all?”

It’s quiet enough to hear the falling snow, no one brave enough to speak. But it is all, according to their terms: all the children I’ve grown up with and have mostly hated and occasionally tolerated, now on the cusp of adulthood, standing before them.

Silvea shifts in place, and her shoulder presses against mine, startling me. I immediately tilt away, assuming it was an accident, but she leans closer. I stay exactly where I am, hardly daring to breathe. She never usually touches me. I let myself lean back into her, just a little bit.

Even now, I wish she were somewhere else, but “wishes won’t feed you,” as my father used to say. This is our first Finding ritual, but the rules have been in place since before anyone can remember: Once per year, these creatures come to six different villages, and all youths aged seventeen to nineteen must gather for a drawing, like children at the Midwinter Festival lining up to receive a hotcake.

The only gift we’ll receive here is our lives, if we’re lucky. And if we’re unlucky, death. If you choose the wrong lot, the creatures give you a new life that’s no life at all—and you’re supposed to thank them. To revere them.

I hate them.

They must not be too impressed with us, either. Or at least the female isn’t. She glances at the male, her red eyes shining like wet blood. “Nothing to pique my interest here, Maudon, but let’s get on with it.”

The male—Maudon—drinks us in with his dark gaze before he moves to the head of the line. His eyes are completely black, I realize, the pupils indistinguishable from his irises. As he stands before each of us, holding up the bag, his stare could swallow me whole.

I suppress a shiver. I don’t know why he seems so interested. The others who have come for past Findings usually seemed bored. Never mind that this seemingly mundane task determines our fates.


Copyright © 2023 by AdriAnne Strickland