Page 4 of The Sacrifice

Sisters give up their souls at death and become banshees to protect the Borderlands. For where a banshee wails, a monster has pierced the Veil, we’ve all grown up learning the child’s rhyme.

Numb to the core, I stare down at my hands, coated in blood. Sarai’s blood, a pre-born babe’s blood. Blood of mothers and fathers, sons and daughters, brothers and sisters. Enough blood over my brief twenty years to fill a lake. My eyes settle on the tangle of willows nearby with their bark weeping more blood tears and their roots cradling the sac. Other than Qora, blood on my hands is the one time I feel anything. If only it didn’t feel like burning thorns under my skin.

“If the Brothers catch us here...”

Sarai doesn’t finish. We both know what will happen if the Brothers discover what happened. The pregnancy alone was dangerous. If they learn about the miscarriage, Sarai will be bound for the Sacrifice. As it is, Rylinne and Darya must wonder where I am.

A little out of breath, I wipe my hands on the ice until the blood sluices off the skin and stumble to my feet. Before Sarai can escape, I hand her the black wool dress, content with my long coat.

She eyes the dress and sighs. “Thank you, Quinn. You always know what to do.”

“Of course, I do!” I lilt and sweep the back of my hand beneath my chin in a carefree gesture. “Don’t you know I have the wisdom of the god-eater?”

Sarai rolls her eyes as we make our way down the hill, keeping to the far side of the cemetery. Most of the corpses have returned to staggering around the nearby fields, but some linger near the treeline. Their groans linger like smog thickening the air.

“But not wise enough to stop playing with malevolent ghosts.”

Yes, Sarai is not fond of my Shadow. My eyes lower to the ground as if a gray weight has fallen on my shoulders. It lasts all of a few seconds before I catch the familiar silhouette sweeping across the area, pausing now and then before the ambling corpses.

Qora is always curious about other ghosts on Hollow Night.

“She’ll never hurt me. Not really,” I brush off the notion. “Qora is harmless.”

“You have strangle marks on your neck, Quintessa,” my friend chastises me and prods me in the chest.

Qora drifts before an older corpse, more skeletal than the others. When she tilts her head and curls her shadows toward the lifeless creature, I have to believe she can see some things.

With the gray weight lifting, I touch the fresh wounds on my throat and shrug. “She stopped before I passed out. That’s progress!”

Sarai drops her jaw and shakes her head. “You’re mad.”

I loop my thin arm around her plump one, sidling against her warmth as we bypass the ghosts, uninterested in us with no blood spilling. “Raving mad,” I tilt my cheek onto her shoulder, my gray hair mingling with her rich and spicy brown. “Whatever will you do with me?”

Qora wisps toward us, hissing a little at Sarai. I blow her a kiss as if to say she has no reason to be jealous.

“How long, Quinn?” wonders Sarai as I stroke my thumb across her knuckles.

“The escort comes at sunset,” I say softly.

“You say escort like armed Brothers are not coming to take you away.”

“I’ll have Qora to protect me,” I tease her and glance back at my Shadow.

“What a comfort.”

Just as we arrive at the little strip of woods bordering my family’s property, Sarai and I duck behind the nearest tree. Muscles strain in her neck, shoulders tight from the procession of white-hooded figures on their making their way to the Wailing Woods border. A thrill chases up my spine at the sight of the Brothers with their bone-breaker swords on their backs while they ride their capayllia mounts: stronger horses bred from an ancestry of Waste and Borderlands equines. Twice the size of the average horse, capayllia may only be ridden by the Brothers by command of the Borderlands Governor under the direct law of the god-eater.

On regular horseback, a gathering of Sisters follows them. Judging by the pack wagons they are carting and the stench of rot and iron blood drifting closer, they are bringing the slaughtered livestock to lure the lower monsters and corpses to the west side of the border, so the girls of Sacrifice may be escorted to the east of the Wailing Woods. Chills engulf my nerves at the thought.

I will soon join them.

When Sarai stiffens next to me, narrowing her eyes upon a mounted Brother with hair like silver and sunlight, a rugged jawline, a proud nose, and high cheekbones, I touch my friend’s arm and ask, “Is that him?”

Sarai swallows but nods. Brother Lyam Gunt. I glower at the man, a little too familiar with him. Memories of him pounding me outside the convent against their far sanctuary wall. He’d caught me after I’d visited the Sisters to help with the birth of twins. A safe passage toll from the convent to my home that he forced on me.

“Want me to send Qora to his room tonight and scare the sacrilege out of him?” I ask since Qora will be visible by nightfall.

Sarai shakes her head and lowers her head. “I just want to go home.”

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