**CHAPTER EIGHT

  “Night of the Two Shadows”**

  Night fell early, smothering the valley beneath a blanket of bruised purple. Anna hurried home from the Festhall with the urgency of a hunted animal, snow crunching under her boots like snapping bones. The council meeting still throbbed in her ears—shouts, accusations, Jonas’s voice rising above the others like a saw cutting into raw timber.

  She brought the darkness with her. She must be cast out.

  She had never been so grateful to see her cabin appear through the swirling snow. The lantern’s glow made a trembling halo on the frosted window. Inside, Lukas and Lena waited—her anchor, her purpose, the reason she still breathed.

  As Anna approached the porch, she stopped cold.

  Small tracks—child-sized—circled the cabin.

  Lena’s whisper from earlier slid like a blade through her memory:

  Someone’s watching… and they’re angry.

  Anna forced herself calm, knocked twice, and slipped inside as Lukas lifted the bar.

  “You’re back,” he exhaled, relief sagging his shoulders.

  Lena wrapped her arms around Anna’s waist without a word. She was trembling.

  Anna stroked her hair. “I’m here. Both of you, to bed.”

  Neither argued.

  Only when they were under quilts did Anna move through the cabin, checking each shutter, each braced board. The storm outside thickened, the wind whistling like something trying to squeeze through the cracks.

  She picked up Markus’s old wood axe and placed it beside the door.

  The valley had turned against her.

  The dead were rising.

  And she was alone.

  The first knock came near midnight.

  A single, hollow thud against the door.

  Anna snapped awake, heart lurching. The twins stirred but did not cry—they’d learned silence too fast for her comfort.

  Another thud.

  Not the living knock.

  Not the two?tap signal she had taught the children.

  Something dragged itself across the porch boards. Slow. Wet. Wrong.

  Lukas sat up, whispering, “Mama… is it him? From the window?”

  Anna pressed a finger to her lips and moved to the door, breath held tight. The lantern’s flame flickered wildly, as if it sensed what waited on the other side.

  From outside came a low, rattling moan.

  Then—

  A scraping sound.

  Claws or fingers—or the remnants of them—dragging down the door.

  Lena buried her face in her quilt. Lukas clenched his fists.

  “Mama…” he whispered. “He’s smelling for warmth.”

  Anna’s skin crawled. He was right. Whatever was outside paused exactly where the lantern cast faint heat through the boards.

  A soft, desperate groan seeped through the wood.

  The door bowed inward. Once. Twice.

  “Stay behind the bed,” Anna ordered quietly. “Don’t move unless I tell you.”

  She grabbed the iron poker from the stove, raised it, and held her breath.

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  The thing outside slammed the door a third time—harder.

  The bar rattled.

  “A?nnn—ahh—” The voice was strangled. Wet.

  Not a voice at all—vocal cords spasming with mimicry.

  Anna’s stomach clenched.

  It knew her name.

  Or what was left of Hans did.

  Snow thudded heavily off the roof.

  Then the porch creaked again—but this time, the weight of the footsteps changed. Became lighter. Faster.

  Running.

  Away.

  Anna’s heart froze.

  Not from fear of the undead.

  From the unmistakable sound of living boots crunching in the snow.

  She hurried to the window, peeking through a tiny slit in the shutter.

  Torches.

  Three of them.

  Carried by men climbing the path toward her cabin.

  Jonas Neely was in front.

  His face lit by firelight, twisted by triumph and fear.

  And behind him came Brunner and Hess—two men easily turned by a loud enough voice in a dark enough hour.

  Jonas planted himself in her yard, torch swinging in his fist.

  “There!” he hissed to the others. “She shelters evil. Did you hear it? The creature came for her!”

  Brunner nodded grimly. “We can’t let her bring more of this.”

  “Burn her out,” Jonas said.

  The words hit Anna like a blow.

  Lena whimpered. Lukas clenched her sleeve.

  Anna’s blood turned to ice. She forced herself silent, forced herself still.

  Jonas had become something worse than the horrors in the snow.

  He had become convinced.

  He lifted his torch to the shutter.

  And that was when the moan came again—right behind him.

  Louder.

  Closer.

  The three men whirled.

  Hans—what was left of him—lunged from the shadows, smashing into Brunner with the weight of a falling tree. Brunner screamed as he toppled into the snow, torch flying into the air.

  “Get back!” Jonas shouted, stumbling, fumbling for a knife.

  But Hans didn’t care about Jonas.

  He wanted heat.

  He wanted breath.

  He wanted the living.

  Anna seized her moment.

  “Now!” she hissed to the children. “To the back! Quietly—go!”

  Lukas grabbed Lena’s hand and led her behind the bed. Anna snatched the axe and positioned herself between the kids and the door.

  Outside, chaos erupted:

  Brunner shrieking. Hess trying to drag him away. Jonas shouting curses. The creature gurgling, snarling, wet breath grinding like stones.

  The snow churned with struggle.

  Then—

  A wet tearing sound.

  A gurgled cry.

  Then silence.

  Anna pressed her hand to her mouth.

  Brunner was gone.

  Jonas’s torch sputtered out in the snow.

  For a moment, no one breathed.

  Then Jonas yelled—raw, terrified:

  “It’s her fault! All of it! If she hadn’t come here, this demon wouldn’t walk!”

  Anna felt something inside her snap.

  She lunged to the door and shouted, “Your hatred will kill us faster than the dead!”

  Jonas spun toward her voice, eyes burning with panic. “You! I’ll see you driven from this valley!”

  Hess grabbed his arm. “Jonas—we need to run!”

  A heavy thump cut him off.

  Hans slammed into Jonas’s back, sending him sprawling. Jonas scrambled to his feet, slipping in the blood-stained snow. His face twisted in shock and horror as the creature dragged itself closer.

  Hess fled downhill, torchlight bobbing wildly.

  Jonas, left alone, stumbled backward—straight into the pile of firewood Anna had chopped that morning. He tripped, hitting the ground with a cry.

  Hans closed in.

  Jonas screamed.

  Anna closed her eyes. She did not want to see what came next.

  When she opened them again, the snow was still.

  Jonas lay unmoving.

  Hans was gone.

  Disappeared into the forest or the night.

  The valley was quiet again.

  The wrong kind of quiet.

  Inside the cabin, the children shivered behind her. Anna lowered the axe, suddenly aware of how heavy it was. She locked eyes with them and forced strength into her voice.

  “Tonight,” she whispered, “we survived both kinds of monsters.”

  Lena whimpered softly. Lukas clung to her arm.

  Anna pushed the shutter closed, barred the door again, and knelt between them.

  Outside, the cold deepened.

  Inside, three hearts beat fast and terrified.

  And Anna knew the truth now:

  The valley was lost.

  But she would not be.

  Not while her children still breathed.

  Not while she still had air in her lungs.

  Not while she had a single blow left in her arms.