Page 27 of The Dead Saint

Not that she needed to be. They had the map—the illustrated copies of her decorated skin—and wanted nothing to do with the witch. Whatever abilities they feared, she wished she truly possessed—to fly, to kill with a few words, to foretell the remainders of their lives and when they’d end. But her only ability was experiencing the murky dreams that came each night—a jumble of images and emotions—with nothing solid to hold on to.

If Ines had been with her—alive—she would have helped Sorcha to understand. They would have gone to Kira and deciphered the complications. But even in dreams, they were gone, shades waiting to be recalled when the Saint walked the earth once again.

* * *

Sorcha had never traveled this far before. It felt as if they’d crisscrossed the country, doubling back on the progress they’d made. The farther south they’d come from the Black Stone Mountains, the warmer it grew, though winter still crackled in the air.

The trees were different here, the landscape foreign, a place of imposing gray mountains and evergreen rolling hills. She’d grown up with the vast flat plains with thin thickets of trees, the remains of carefully cultivated fields and orchards—now fallow and barren in the early winter. This was a strange and beautiful landscape compared to home, but it was empty.

They moved through an abandoned world. Everywhere they went, cottages and little villages were silent. Everyone had fled the approaching Horde. Or some advance forces of the prince had come and gone, leaving a terrible silence in their wake.

Adrian rode at the head of their small band, Sorcha close behind, a soldier named Thompson behind her with the map. Revenant stayed at the rear, his eyes on her every time she turned in the saddle to glance behind them.

No one took the time to scout ahead or behind. They stuck together, easy and unbothered, confident they were the most frightening thing roaming the landscape.

They stopped to camp several times, which had Sorcha clutching her cloak around her and missing the warmth and privacy of Adrian’s large tent. Here, she had a bedroll under the sky, a shared fire, and she was exposed to the men’s curiosity and resentment.

The only member of the party who had warmed to her was Nox. She’d finally won him over after she began sharing the scavenged apples she took for Epona as a treat after their long days of riding.

Once, they’d slept in an abandoned cottage. She had lain in someone else’s bed, listening to the night, expecting at any moment for the house’s owner to come through the door and ask why a stranger was in their home. She’d been grateful for the bedroll and open sky after that. She’d hated the feeling of being in a space and not knowing if that person were alive or dead, a stranger in a private place—unwelcome and unwanted.

Sorcha had overheard the men talking among themselves about the Traveling City and the Horde. The city was trailing behind them, though she had no idea how it would make it through the mountains. There was no way it could pass through the narrow valley they’d traveled through.

While the Traveling City moved south, the Horde of the empire was moving north. There was a kingdom unconquered and a promise to be kept. Marius the Mad, a king of Cautes. From the info she’d been able to piece together, it seemed as if the man had crossed the prince. The price was death, and the Wolf was being sent to ensure it was carried out.

But between the Traveling City and Cautes sat the Silvas Wood. Her skin had promised there would be a fragment of the Saint there. They’d locate that piece first, and then she would watch the death of another city, this time from outside the walls. She would be the witness to Cautes’s demise.

* * *

“There is a door,” Domenico said softly, his gaze traveling over the deep shadows of the ancient forest. “That’s the only way in.”

Epona shifted beneath Sorcha, snorting and fidgeting. The trees radiated a sense of otherness—secrets and the promise of the unknown. Sorcha knew from the texts that a temple sat somewhere within, but it had never been made clear exactly where it might be. The Mapmaker had said distance meant nothing, and now they were all discovering the truth of that fact.

The men were on edge, irritated to be traveling with no clear goal in mind, and resentful of the woman in their midst. The Wolf remained unbothered by it all, cold and virtually silent as they traveled, keeping Sorcha near him at all times. Sometimes she could feel his gaze, hot and prickly, but when she turned, expecting to find his eyes on her, he was looking elsewhere.

They were at the border of an evergreen primordial forest—an ancient place full of palpable magic. Inside, waiting to be discovered, was a relic of the Saint. A piece she had never seen before, never touched. Her fingertips tingled with the thought.

“What does the door look like?” the Wolf asked.

Sorcha looked around when no one responded and then realized he’d spoken to her.

“I don’t know.”

“Your cult didn’t teach you?” he asked, derision coloring his words.

Sorcha bit the inside of her cheek to keep from responding, refusing to give him anything he might use against her later. As quiet as she’d been, she knew the little bit of emotion she’d let escape was being stored in that black mind of his. Whatever weakness she might display, he would take advantage of.

“Domenico, can you find it?” the Wolf asked, gesturing to the man who’d spoken earlier.

Sorcha studied the man, someone who had yet to talk much and kept mostly to himself. Domenico was short and thick, with his pale hair trimmed close to his skull and a fresh scar running across the top of his left hand. His eyes were a strange, flat gray, as if they had been cut from a thunderstorm sky.

The man walked up to the tree line, standing with his hands on his hips for several long minutes. One of the men behind her said something, a single word in a language she didn’t understand, and the others chuckled.

Domenico ignored them, licking his pointer finger on his right hand and holding it up as if to test the wind. The laughter died down, and the noise around them faded, birdsong vanished, the rustle of evergreens going still. Then he turned, waving them toward the right, and began to walk that way himself.

The trees they stopped in front of looked like all the others—dark trunks, spruce needles, with gently waving branches. But Domenico jerked a thumb behind him, mumbling something to Adrian as he passed to reclaim his horse.

“Thompson,” the Wolf said, and the other man urged his horse forward, stopping beside him. “What does the map say?”

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