Page 69 of The Dead Saint

Closing her eyes, Sorcha waited. It didn’t take long. From beyond the arched hands, a voice rustled—like the leaves, like the sudden wind through the trees, like a temple chant heard at the gates of the Citadel when she was late for services. The Saint. He was here. Or a piece of him was.

“We go through,” she said. “The relic is ahead.”

“And you know this how?”

“Because I can feel it,” Sorcha said, turning to him. She placed a hand flat against his chest, feeling him breathe, his heart beat. He covered it with one of his, staring into her eyes. “Nox should stay here though.”

They remained frozen, unwilling to break the connection. But the voice was growing. No words. No sense. Only the incessant murmur. Was it aware of the other relics above them? Could the Saint feel himself coming together?

“Are you afraid?” he asked, his fingers tightening a fraction.

“Does it matter if I am?” Sorcha smiled bitterly.

She stepped back and ran a soothing hand down Nox’s neck. The horse turned to her, ears pricked forward. With a smile she held out a hand and he nuzzled her palm, snorting softly. They’d come along way from their first meeting. Maybe it had been her stern voice warning him not to bite her. Or the apples. That might have been the making of their friendship.

Sorcha turned to Adrian, her shoulders set. “I go forward no matter what comes next. Are you?”

Adrian shook his head, one hand casually laid on the hilt of his sword, the other still covering the spot her hand had rested. “I’m not afraid to follow you.”

* * *

Heat engulfed Sorcha as they passed through the stone hands. It reminded her of the moment they’d crossed into the Silvas—crossing into an unknown, into a place with only tenuous connections to the world she inhabited. Vibrant green and blue surrounded them now, birdsong broke the silence. Behind them, bare trees and an overcast sky waited. Which was reality? The place she’d come from, or this one?

“Where do we go from here?” Adrian asked.

We. As if it were that simple. And from here? Sorcha couldn’t tell him. She only knew that the relic was here, and if they kept going, they’d find it.

“I’m not sure,” she said, searching the trees, waiting to feel that familiar pull. “This place is different from the others.”

“Different enough that you won’t bleed for it?” he asked dryly.

The comment surprised her, and she threw him a look. Adrian wore that face—careful and expressionless—and she was finally beginning to understand it. She didn’t respond, waiting to see if he would offer more. To her surprise, he did.

“Don’t they want him back?”

They. Monsters and villains from the stories. Myths and legends given flesh and bone—brought out of hiding with the promise the Saint would bring about a new age. He would return them to light, a place in the sun, as soon as he walked the earth again.

“I think some do.”

“Do you?” Adrian asked.

Sorcha stopped, chest tightening. All the destruction and rebirth the Saint would bring—the world washed clean. And the price of it all would be her blood. Her life. Her hopes and dreams for a future she could no longer see clearly. She lifted one shoulder, refusing to commit to an answer out lout—not wanting to leave room for more questions.

Ahead, the trees opened to a meadow, waist-high lacy white flowers with splashes of delicate purple and sharp yellow scattered throughout. A bird sang as it spiraled higher, the sound piercing her heart. A breeze ruffled the grasses, flowerheads bobbing, and in the distance, a femur sat on a flat black stone flecked with sparkling rubies.

Adrian started forward, hand on the hilt of his sword.

“Wait,” she said, grabbing his arm and coming to stand beside him.

With the contact came a rush of emotion. It flooded her, taking her by surprise, coursing through her like a storm surge—unstoppable, consuming.

I want you to touch me. I want your hands on me. I want you to hold onto me so tightly that I forget my name, I forget your past. Let’s remake the world, change our story.

Her attraction to him was something dark, coming from a twisted place in her heart, a thing no one would understand, and they’d be sickened by it, disgusted.

Adrian the murderer. Adrian the monster.

I still want him.

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