Page 16 of The Crow Games

I could have told her I didn’t know. Omitted the truth. I could have avoided lying to the mind witch by remaining vague, but meeting her eager ochre gaze, I no longer wanted to hide parts of myself. I’d lived like that for years with Lisbeth, and look where it had gotten us. If we were ever to become a proper unit, a real coven determined to win Death’s games, we had to have trust. We had to be true to each other.

“The crow is here to spy on me because I tried to kill his god,” I confessed.

Nola had her sack uncapped and at her lips when she stumbled and choked. She coughed out a chortle, water dribbling down the sides of her mouth. Ruchel’s burst of laughter carried on the air. Their mirth stoked the smoldering ember of my spirit energy into a healthy blaze.

“If you don’t want to tell us what really happened,” Nola said, wiping her chin dry, “next time just say so.”

“I don’t think she’s joking.” Ruchel’s bright smile faded. “Crone take you. You really tried to kill the Old One, didn’t you? What would possess a person?”

Nola’s cobalt eyes went wide. “Are you mad? For the Crone’s sake, he’s the god ofdeath.”

“I am a little mad, I think.” My boots crunched over loose stones and hot earth. My toes were rubbing a hole into my stocking. “I’d just lost my sister to a garm. I worked a wild spell trying to get at the one who’d hurt her. Death got in my way . . . Now here I am.”

Ruchel laid a hand on my shoulder, the touch light and soothing.

“Fucking gods,” Nola muttered. “I understand the impulse, mad as it is. Thirteen months ago, my outpost was attacked by an overwhelming force of Sebrak Nationals. It was our job to keep a village out of harm’s way during the conflict, but the Nationals surprised us in the night. I barely made it out of the encampment in one piece. I could hear them then, all the suffering and dying. That sound doesn’t leave you. It sticks to your bones and clings in your ears. And then I too cast up a wild spell. At least the villagers would survive, I thought, even if the rest of us wouldn’t.”

Nola kept her eyes ahead as she spoke. Her tone was unfeeling, but her expression sharpened, jaw hardening. Her fingers dug into the leather of her water sack.

“And that’s how you ended up here?” I guessed. “All those dead soldiers?”

Her laugh was short and breathy and bitter. “You’d think that, wouldn’t you? That’s what I assumed when I was suddenly out of the cold and on a fucking bone train. The goddess Irmina loves soldiers. Surely it was her who thought it unsporting of me to murder so many with brutal flame. But no. The sigil burned on the door of my sleeper car was the goddess Elke’s great linden tree.”

“Hang it all,” I groaned sympathetically.

“Your lips to their divine ears,” she rasped, voice gone throaty. “The gods don’t care when we slaughter each other. They don’t lift a finger when the innocent die or the resources don’t stretch far enough to help the desperate. But how dare I scorch a few trees trying to protect a village full of war widows and school children.”

“Fucking gods,” I said.

Ruchel went oddly quiet. I caught her staring at me, studying the amulet around my neck. I wanted to ask for her story but sensed the question wouldn’t be welcome.

The lunch hour came and went. We marched on, stopping at a dry goods store that had already been looted, searching for scraps. A small canvas bag of salt was the only item of value I managed to scrounge. As versatile as the substance was, I hoped it would make a decent god gift at the end of this trial.

Ruchel did much better, her instincts leading her straight to an overturned basket with two dented tins of packed biscuits hidden inside. She shared them with us. Nola ate hers greedily, food being the preferred method red witches used to replenish their energy.

I used the empty tins to safely store my new salt, and I carried my biscuits in my satchel for later. The relentless heat had soured my stomach.

Buildings grew fewer and farther apart, this area of the city dominated by a forested park. An earthen path shrouded in trees guided us around a large lake. From the cover of shade, the water appeared black under a citrine sky. Dark waves lapped against the bank. The image reminded me of the crow spy, and I peered over my shoulder, suddenly suspicious of every hovering shadow.

We stopped to rest at a collection of caves that jutted out from a gravel shore. Nola rinsed the sweat from her face and neck, hunched near the dark waters. I found an overturned log to rest upon.

“Not there!” Ruchel shouted a moment too late.

I crashed through the rotted wood, and tiny Hel beasts came pouring out of its base. No bigger than pixies, their fingers were full of needly claws, their feet talons. Blue manes wrapped their sharp little faces. Iridescent wings buzzed furiously.

They set upon me in a swarm, and all at once they buried claws and talons into my arms and legs. I screamed.

Nola breathed out a ball of flame and cast it at the creatures. Fire caught in the overhanging canopy of a spruce tree, and the tiny garm scattered. Ruchel rescued me, yanking me to my feet out of the wood splinters. One of the flying creatures dug a barbed talon into her cheek. Yelping, she swatted the garm down. Black smoke billowed, the fire spreading.

The buzz of angry beating wings grew to a roaring drone. Darting beasts gathered en masse to circle back between the trees.

“Get in the water,” Ruchel shouted, sprinting for the lake.

Nola hit the waves first. I dove in behind her.

I wasn’t much of a swimmer, but the cold against hot, stinging skin was an instant relief. We cut across the lake, searching for a new path to follow, and—thank the Crone—the beasts gave up on us. They swarmed in the air between the lake and fire, spitting water on the blaze, fighting to save what remained of their home.

Ruchel and Nola floated their heavy packs beside them as they swam. The water was shallow, or my satchel would have sunk me. Wading along behind them, I stubbed my toe on a rock and repressed a groan.

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