Free Firewalker by Josephine Angelini

dropped off it would be Lillian who would reach out for her in the Mist. That way, Lily wouldn’t have to break her promise to herself. It was a tiny distinction, one that didn’t really absolve her, but Lily was too curious to care. She wanted to know Lillian’s story. She wanted to know what had happened on the cinder world.
    Lily left her mind open and didn’t have to wait long for Lillian to join her, with a memory ready to be shared.
    â€¦ I am running, even though I barely have enough strength to walk. My foot catches on something and I plow headlong into the frozen leaf litter. The dead trees haven’t borne leaves in many seasons, and those that cover the ground are rotten and won’t burn. I see my forearms in front of me. They are covered in scabby sores, like the rest of the walking dead in this poisonous world.
    I’ve been in this cinder world too long, and even though I can heal myself, I can no longer keep up with the rate at which my body is deteriorating. I must get out of here, or I will be past the point of saving soon. I stagger to my feet and force myself to run faster. I can hear their eager shouts and taunting whistles behind me.
    They’re coming. I can’t outrun them. I need to hide. I look over my shoulder at just the wrong time. I crash into someone’s chest, knocking myself to the ground and nearly knocking the breath from my own lungs.
    â€œGot ya, pretty,” the man murmurs, a leer pulling up against his ulcerous gums. “What’s a little thing like you doing running ’round the woods anyway? Don’t you know the Woven can get ya? They’re just about the only things left alive, besides me.”
    I scramble away from him as he guffaws lewdly. He grabs my bare ankle and yanks me back toward him. Fine. He chose his own death, then. Bare skin on bare skin is all I need. I begin to drain the charge right from his nerves, feeding myself on his life. His eyes widen as he drops to his knees, the muscles of his face twitching and twisting his face into an agonized grimace. Being drained is probably the most painful death there is, but this thing is not a man anymore. The only people left in this world are murderers and rapists. They are scavengers, like the Woven. Only the most vicious of the vicious survived, and like the Woven the only real defense I have against them is to suck the life out of them when either attacks me.
    â€œWitch?” he groans, confused and in excruciating pain. “But all the witches died in their cities.”
    He falls to the ground, convulsing. At least death comes relatively quickly this way.
    â€œNot all,” I say, kicking the stiff claw of his hand off my ankle. I scan his body quickly for anything I might need. Knife. Crossbow. Net. I take them all. I notice he has no willstone. This is the fourth one I’ve killed and none of them wore willstones. It’s a puzzle I have yet to solve.
    The deaths of men like this have helped keep me alive so far. There is no food left in this part of the world. To find food you’d have to live through a trek across the Woven Woods and far enough out into the interior of the continent to escape the fallout. A trip like that would be suicide. Either the Woven would get you, or starvation would. All the plants close to the cities have died in the never-ending winter. The surviving animals were made sterile or unable to produce healthy offspring by the blast and then, in a matter of months, were hunted until there were no more.
    It didn’t take long for this area of the world to run out of food, and getting to another area would mean somehow getting past an army of Woven—whose number seem to have grown, not fallen, since the holocaust. They have thrived in the ashes of this world, hemming in the few survivors of the blast until they all starve to death. The only living things I’ve been able to find on this side of the Woven Woods are the Woven and