Page 71 of The Dead Saint

A reincarnation of the original savior. Kahina Kira had promised that Sorcha was special and raised her to believe it was true. The voice chuckled again, grating against her nerves.

“Special? Maybe,” it said. “Unique? No. There have been others. There would have been others. It would not only come down to you. You are replaceable. Would it have been now? Probably not. In a few years? Twenty? A hundred? His resurrection makes no difference. It is inevitable.”

Now her city was burning before her eyes, and she knew that somewhere within the walls, she ran for her life. Her friends were dead. Brothers. Sisters. Priests. Priestesses. Her family lay dead by their own hands.

By Adrian’s hands.

The monster she’d somehow come to accept.

“There is no shame in loving a monster,” the voice said. “We all love monsters.”

A puff of delicate air caressed her cheek—tender and gentle.

“You will be loved,” the voice promised, tone softening, growing kinder. “The Saint will cherish you. Yes, there could have been others. Yes, you are replaceable, but still appreciated.”

There was a pause, her chest constricting with the promise.

“And who knows? Maybe your monster loves you in return. Maybe the Saint will have a place in his new world for this monster of yours. The Saint loves monsters too.”

In the city, towers were falling, stones were tumbling free, and walls were crumbling. Thick smoke curled into the sky, billowing higher and higher, drifting across the sun and casting a shadow where she stood on the hillside.

Out of the dark smoke and flames, a figure uncurled like a fire god rising out of the ashes of destruction. A giant golden skeleton towered over the landscape. It stood as tall as any of the toppled towers, taller than the vanished city walls. It turned its hollow sockets to the sky, moving in a circle just as she’d done, taking the whole world in. Gold glimmered in the sunshine, faceted gems catching rays and reflecting them back in a myriad of intense colors. The creature sparkled—a jewel, a precious thing, a treasure. And so terrible.

Then the Saint saw her.

Fear seized Sorcha’s heart, the terror of being seen and the urge to curl in on herself painfully strong. She wanted to pull back into her shell like a snail, make herself small in the knee-high grass. She wanted to close her eyes like she had as a child, when she’d thought it would make her invisible during a game of hide-and-seek.

But she wasn’t a child any longer. She could not hide from the Saint.

He stepped out of the city, great strides eating up the landscape, coming toward her with a terrible purpose.

“He comes,” the voice spoke softly. “He comes for you.”

Then the Saint was towering above her, so massive that she had to tilt her head far back to see him. Sorcha shaded her eyes against the sun and glare, staring into the skeletal face. He was beautiful in the intricacies of jewels and gold—the clean lines of skull and bare bones. Something in the hollow eye sockets locked on her—seeing her, knowing her. The Saint crouched, joint by joint, until he was closer but still so far away.

Slowly, gently, he reached out, a finger extended and hovering in front of her chest. She was gasping, as if she was once again fighting for air in the sunken city—mouth open and waiting for the contact she could not prevent. She thought he would push her down, pin her to the earth, and keep pressing until she was dead and buried. She would be nothing but worm food here in this strange place—a woman decomposing and forgotten.

A bird began to sing. A meadowlark trilling, notes rising. A bee buzzed by, and a breeze ruffled her hair and sighed through the grass. Vessel and Saint remained frozen together—a silent tableau. The moment stretched so far she was sure she’d shatter with the tension.

The Saint closed the distance between them finally—as if reading her thoughts—and pressed his giant finger to her chest. She’d thought he would be cold, a dead thing, but he was warm and gentle. His head tilted to one side at the contact, an unspoken question she could not understand or answer.

Then the images began to come. One right after another, blurring together and speeding up. A succession of things that could be or had been. Things happening right now, just beyond her reach. The Saint moved through the world, controlling life and death, each held in one golden palm.

She’d seen some of the story—his story—on temple walls. Paintings and mosaics, careful brushstrokes and gilt, the horror made beautiful. Those were remnants of his history, the dry and removed remains pulled from pages and stone. Now, she saw them differently. A terrible foreboding crept into her body and grew, a physical force threatening to tear her apart. Briefly, Lacus’s words crossed her mind. It would be a mistake to bring him back.

Then the vision changed. She was no longer watching the Saint cross a landscape, towering above it all and wreaking havoc, rebuilding the world in his image through blood and death. Now she was seeing it as he would have seen it. Towns and cities, small villages, lone homesteads, and little bits of civilization. People ran and kneeled. They raised their hands to the sky and praised him. People screamed, and fierce, joyful cheers echoed. There were oceans of tears and people throwing flowers.

Sorcha saw them all from a great height, removed from it—a silent witness. In the vision was this sense of rightness. The world had aligned and become the place it should have always been.

Years raced past, a quick succession of temples rising across the continent. Cities were built as others fell. Fashions changed, the Saint’s worshippers changing as old ones died and new were born. How many years? They rolled by, but she had no sense of time. A hundred years? A thousand? She witnessed it all, an unending stream, a spool of thread sent rolling out, a ribbon unfurling.

Then it was gone. All of it. Everything.

The past. Present. Future.

The hill and the Saint vanished.

Sorcha was back in the meadow with Adrian.

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