Page 43 of The Dead Saint

The Wolf and his men—his pack—weren’t subject to the rules and hierarchies of the Horde.

Sorcha moved a stool as close as possible to the fire, making sure she wouldn’t singe her skirts, as Adrian passed her a fine porcelain bowl filled with meat in brown gravy and a piece of bread.

“Where did you find such lovely dishes?” she asked, unable to stop herself.

“Do you think we’re all barbarians?”

What was in that question? Humor? Derision? Sorcha looked up, catching a muscle twitch at the corner of his mouth. Amusement then.

“I didn’t expect an army to travel with such delicate items,” Sorcha said, stirring her bowl and searching for anything too suspicious to eat. “I didn’t expect you to be so human.”

Human? Sorcha bit down on her tongue, cursing herself for even opening her mouth.

Adrian didn’t respond, and the fire popped—a log collapsing in a shower of sparks. He moved to add another to the stack, wiping his hands on his trousers before picking up his own bowl. He sat across from her, always at a distance, unless there was some kind of necessity.

Maybe she’d been mistaken about the moment in the Silvas. His arms had come around her at the edge of that clearing—when death had been so close she could smell it—but it hadn’t held that edge of desire. Only fear. And the moment in the tent earlier when he’d dipped a hand into her bath was nothing more than Adrian testing the temperature. There was nothing else between them—captor and captive, killer and victim.

Knowing that, it didn’t matter if she asked questions, did it?

* * *

“What was your childhood like?”

Adrian paused, surprised by her question. She seemed softer to him somehow beside the fire—less angry and defiant. He hadn’t expected that from her.

“Will you tell me?” she asked softly, eyes focused on the bowl cradled in her hands.

He considered her question. It had been a long time since he’d thought about the years before he became the prince’s favorite killer. Adrian had lived longer with the prince than without him. Life before the empire felt like a dream—even less solid than memory. His father had been a king, and there had been a queen, as well as brothers and sisters. Some had died, and the others had been married off, shuffled around the empire until everyone had forgotten where they’d come from and who they’d been. If his siblings were still out there, he had no idea where they might be found. Or even if they could be. He wouldn’t know them by sight, or even name, at this point.

His father had been offered the same terms as countless kingdoms before him, as countless kingdoms after.

Accept my terms and you will live.

Adrian’s father had looked at the waiting Horde and accepted the conditions. It made no sense to fight—a little kingdom with no army, small and insignificant—and sacrifice so much when it was all so inevitable. His father was practical and valued the lives of his people more than whatever honor might have been found in trying to withstand a relentless empire.

“Do you know what the prince does with the people who accept surrender terms?”

Sorcha shook her head.

“The families—kings, queens, princes, princesses, dukes, whatever they might be—are broken up. They’re sent to the four corners of the empire, married off to one of their countless cousins, moved into minor positions of state beneath the prince’s most trusted people. They’re buried so deeply within his court, in his way of life, so there is never any hope or chance of escape. Until you forget what your life had been like before.”

“Is that what happened to you?”

“Yes,” he replied softly. “I was separated from the family I’d been born into and forged a new one within the Empire of the White Snake.”

“Have they been good to you?” Sorcha’s voice held curiosity and a hint of disbelief.

But he knew her life had been similar. He’d spoken to the priests from the other temples they’d come across. The Oracle, the Vessel of the Saint, was chosen as an infant—taken from her birth family, given to the temple.

“Were the priests and priestesses in your temple your family?”

“Yes,” Sorcha said, brow wrinkling. “Of course.”

“It’s the same thing.”

“And these men,” she said, waving at the camp around them, “they’re as close as brothers?”

“Some are.”

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