Page 90 of The Dead Saint

But she feared it now.

Ines. Rohan. The others sipping poison as if it were water, welcoming the convulsions and frothing mouths. She didn’t want that to be her fate—following blindly and giving her life away so carelessly. There had been minutes and hours when she hadn’t thought of her loved ones. The guilt that followed that realization was haunting. Letting life in, the small joys—a beautiful sunrise, a flower, the breeze that brought the scent of snow and pine. How could she enjoy those things when they were gone?

Not gone, said a voice in the back of her head. I am coming.

Sorcha shivered. It had been growing stronger, this strange pull that began in the center of her body and stretched out into the world. She wasn’t sure where it would lead her. But the moment she would meet the Saint—a living, real-world creature—was coming. And they would collect the final relic in the Androphagoi.

This was one temple she’d never wanted to visit. It housed a relic—the Saint’s skull—but this place was shrouded in mystery. No one talked about it. She only knew the skull was there because of the map on her skin. No one had ever spoken it aloud. No one wanted to talk about what happened within those temple walls.

Some whispered, though, when they thought no one in a higher-ranking position could hear. And Sorcha had never passed up the chance to eavesdrop.

Priests volunteered to be bricked behind solid walls, left to starve while they prayed and dedicated their last days to the Saint. Some claimed there had been a harsh winter years ago, and the men living there had been snowed in for months. When someone had finally gotten through the narrow pass leading to the temple, several people had been eaten. Right down to the bone.

Unease trailed them—a persistent companion—as they traveled. Adrian, Revenant, Thompson, and herself were the only ones going all the way to the Androphagoi doors. The others would continue across the mountains to a location Thompson had made sure they could describe—a place where the old road forked near a stream. Then, as soon as this final relic was retrieved, they would reunite and continue south.

Prince Eine would be waiting for them somewhere in the Wastes.

* * *

The walls of the city around the Androphagoi were jagged teeth—rubble and tumbled stones, with turrets crumbling against a gray sky. Statues of men in robes and women wearing halos were on every corner, gathered in the squares they passed through as if moments before they’d been speaking privately but now paused to watch these interlopers pass through.

Sorcha studied the stone faces, each one larger than life and coldly beautiful. They stood seven or eight feet tall, looking down on those who passed beneath them. She wondered if a person would emerge if the stone cracked. If that happened, she might scream. Epona tensed beneath her, tuned into Sorcha’s unease.

But the statues weren’t nearly as unsettling as the crows that sat everywhere. The birds watched them—silent and aware. Sorcha felt more than watched. It was inspection, critical and relentless. One bird broke the silence, stretching out its neck, its caw filling the air.

“Do you want me to shoot it?” Revenant asked, pulling his bow and nocking an arrow.

“No,” Adrian’s voice was hard. “Leave it.”

Sorcha let her eyes sweep over the two men who had come with them without resting for too long. Revenant was bloodthirsty and always so ready to kill. Thompson, though outwardly not as vicious, was the same.

One pale as death, the other dark as terror. They made a striking pair, following their monster general. Sorcha couldn’t stand them, couldn’t meet their dead eyes. If they could, they’d put an arrow in her heart, a knife in her throat. They saw the way Adrian looked at her when he thought no one was looking—when he thought she couldn’t see him. A look she struggled to understand, one that angered his men, made them distrust her even more.

Witch. Temptress. Oracle. They said she was many things. A priestess to a god, a harbinger, a woman holding more power than they thought she should have. Too many times, she had been alone with them. Too many times, she had felt their desire to end her life. If the prince hadn’t wanted her alive, she would be dead, no matter what Adrian said. It had been true since the beginning, but it was worse after this last audience.

She could feel them at her back now, waiting, wondering if maybe, in this place, they could get away with pushing her into a crumbling wall or down a broken flight of stairs. If Adrian knew, he didn’t show it, refusing to expose the weakness to them, but they had all seen him pull his sword on the prince as well as pull her up from the cliff and into his arms.

Safe, he had murmured against her ear. Safe with the monster.

Another raven cawed farther into the ruins. A receiver of the message. Whoever or whatever was in there, they knew Sorcha was here.

The Saint knew she was here.

Adrian turned to her. “Where will the relic be?”

“A safe place, deep within the temple. I’ve heard stories of this place, but none of them were clear about where the relic was located.”

With a nod, he led the way, Sorcha following, and the two men remained behind her. The flat stone paving beneath her feet was cracked—dead grass wilting through the breaks. The broken gate loomed—iron rusted, wood rotted.

What happened here? Sorcha wondered. How long has it been since anyone from the Citadel visited this place?

She’d never met anyone who had, but there was never any hint that it lay in ruins. Why leave the relic here when this place was decaying by the moment? Another lie. Another dark truth. More illusions of security and well-being. Kahina Kira talked about the temples in the world as if each were as powerful and important as the one Sorcha had grown up in.

Lies. So many woven together to create the illusion of safety and importance. Sorcha was no longer sure what was true. And in her heart, she no longer cared. There was no choice but to continue. Somewhere, the Saint waited. She could feel him, just as he must feel her.

They passed beneath the arched gate into a narrow street beyond. Buildings rose around them with hollow, empty windows and tumbled beams blocking doorways. Human bones, bleached white and weathered, were everywhere. They were in the gutters and on the street, slowly breaking down beneath the onslaught of the seasons. So many people had died here, and she wondered if they’d chosen poison over whatever might have broken through the gates.

Turning away with a shudder, she concentrated on Adrian’s back, trusting him to discover a path. Too much trust, leaning into him in a way she couldn’t understand. A man despised across the continent, feared in a way no other person had ever been, hated. Yet she had never felt so safe. Her heart had never raced the way it did when his dark eyes met hers. What did that make her? Betrayer, lover of monsters. A woman sick with darkness, infected with it, soul corrupt.

---