My heart thudded against my ribs.
Terror thickened in my throat.
What was it?
“Nightmares made flesh, child,” the voice responded, as if I had spoken my thought aloud.“What is your name?”
Rían drew me tighter against him.
A pair of muddy boots came into view, belonging to a man in a soiled, threadbare soldier’s uniform. I’d seen illustrations of soldiers who fought the creatures in the war for Airren. Only, in the drawings, the men had heads.
These shoulders, concealed beneath a stained overcoat, ended at the stump of a neck.
The Dullahan.
I had convinced myself he wasn’t real. That something as horrifying as a headless horseman couldn’t possibly exist.
A white whip dragged in one of his hands, the fall glinting like links in a chain. Only the links weren’t metal but bones from a human spine. In the other hand, he held an object aloft like a lantern, only it gave no light.
A head.
Bloody fingers clutched matted strands of inky black hair. Eyes rolled back into the sockets. Bugs crawled from the nostrils, over the brown teeth, and into the gaping mouth.
I whimpered, squeezing my eyes closed, but it was too late. The image had been seared into my memory. The monster turned toward where we hid. And stopped.
“You know my name, now give me yours,” the Dullahan demanded. “Give it to me, or I shall take it.”
Unforgiving pressure squeezed my skull, like my head was being crushed beneath the monster’s muddy boots.
“Whatever you do,” Rían whispered, his fingers contracting against my jaw, “do not tell him your name.”
Had he heard the monster’s request?
Every part of me screamed to give in, to tell the Dullahan my name. All I wanted was this pressure to end.
“I know you’re there,” said the voice, the stench of death and rotting flesh overpowering everything else. “I canfeelyou.”
Feel. Not see. Rían must’ve used his magic to conceal us somehow.
“I can take away the pain. All I need is your name.”
My name lived on the tip of my tongue. If I told him, the pain would subside.
“He’s not here for you. Fight it.” Rían sounded so far away, and yet I could still feel him holding me in the steel cage of his arms.
“Think of something else. Anything else. Distract yourself.”
He moved his hand, uncovering my lips.
I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t think of anything else.
My name is—
Rían’s heat at my back vanished. Something warm and soft pressed against my lips.
Tasting like alcohol and cherries.
My lashes flew open to find blue eyes staring at me from only a fraction of an inch away.