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Ada
After a few hours of restless sleep, Enosh woke me by stroking a finger down the length of my nose as he whispered, “I sense how tired you still are, but we ca
Head still fogged, muscles weak with exhaustion, I nodded and sat up. “They formed a mob?”
“Nothing but a handful of fools rallied together by the town’s priest.”
“You saw them?”
He rose and extended his hand to help me to my feet and toward the chamber pot. “Through the eyes of the dead that I’ve posted around the area to keep word from spreading.”
“Good, or every follower of Helfa will be after you, trying to capture you and drag you before the high priest. Every king, every lord, every duke… High Priest Dekalon has their fealty.”
Something I’d once considered justice now proved quite the inconvenience. I couldn’t have others meddle in my plan to get the god to return to his duty. Something I’d considered laughable last night—until I remembered I had all of eternity to get it done.
“Mankind rebelling against a god…” Enosh thumbed the stubble on his chin. “A nasty habit of your kind that springs up every couple of centuries or so, doubting themselves, doubting their beliefs, doubting me.”
I limped over to the washbasin on a table in the corner. “We best avoid the roads.”
“We still need a priest to wed us. Quietly.”
“What does it matter? You have my vow.”
He slipped on his shirt and let his black jacket form around him. “I am indifferent either way—mortal customs or a promise given before a false god—as long as I receive the exact same vow you gave once before.”
I swallowed my sigh and turned to him. “I believe there’s a small temple hidden in the forest not far from here. My father once brought crates of salted fish there.”
“Very well.”
Not even a finger twitched on him as he let thin chips of bone form around me. Row upon alabaster row encapsulated me like fish scales, though matched the flow of fabric, its collar snug and high.
I lifted a brow at him. “Armor?”
Unable to walk down the stairs on my own, he once again picked me up. “A precaution. Such a terrible inconvenience at times, mortality.”
The mumbles grew louder with each descending step. Once downstairs, we faced a room where at least twenty people gathered. They stared at us from unwashed faces, but the scrutiny in their eyes landed heaviest on me.
“Your Grace,” the keeper said, hands nervously pi
Pulling me tighter against him, Enosh stepped through the parting crowd. Whispers, pleas, wails, and promises—he ignored them all and walked outside.
Wax from the candlemaker scented the air, the sky above us still gray. A small group of men stood gathered beside our horse, all armed with daggers and the occasional sword. Except for the priest, who clutched the Tome of Helfa to his robed chest as though it would help him.
He made the sign of Helfa—two fingers tapping his forehead before he lifted them heavenward. “In the name of Helfa the Allfather, I hereby demand you surrender yourself to His holy judgment. High Priest Dekalon has long ordered your arrest, so you may stand trial for your crimes committed against this realm.”
Unimpressed, Enosh only lifted me onto the horse’s back. “Leave, and you shall escape with your life.”
Metal hissed when a man unsheathed his sword, giving pause to my next inhale. Clueless idiots, all of them, though I could hardly blame them for their ignorance.
My eyes flicked nervously to those few villagers hiding between merchant stands and hides stretched on frames. Being among this many people with the god was uncharted territory for me—there was just no telling if he would spare them… or kill them all.
Fearing the latter, I addressed the townsfolk, “Listen to his warning, or he’ll—”
“Capture him!” the priest shouted. “And take the woman.”
Fool!
While most men scattered to surround Enosh, one made the mistake of setting his eyes on me. “Aren’t you ashamed of yourself, wretch?”
With one quick leap, Enosh dug his fingers into the man’s greasy brown hair and yanked him before the gasping crowd. One moment, the god’s other hand was empty and the next, his fingers wrapped around the handle of an alabaster blade.
He stabbed it into the man’s throat.
Bile rose behind my tongue.
The man clasped his hands to his neck. Blood sprayed from the gaps between his fingers with each beat of his heart, forceful at first, but then quickly slowed into trickles. His knees hit the blood-splattered ground with a thud before he collapsed to the side and twitched.
Frozen in shock, everyone stared at Enosh as he held his hand over the corpse and said, “Watch. Watch and see what happens when you cross me.” When the man’s body had only just stilled, Enosh’s voice verged a dark growl. “Rise!”
The man stood in an instant and turned toward Enosh, struggling to lift his head where the blade must have injured sinew and muscle, yet he snarled, “What’ve y-you done?”
“Witchcraft…” the word mumbled from many mouths at once. “Dark magic!”
Enosh tossed the bone blade to the man—who caught it with ease—before he gazed over the crowd. “Seek me out, mortals, and you shall end like him.”
No sooner had Enosh spoken the words did the man thrust the blade into his belly. He stared down at himself, screaming frantically, stabbing himself so many times the air soon reeked of shit. His tattered cotton trews darkened as urine trickled down his legs, pooling by one foot.
Screams, prayers, curses… Chaos descended upon the town as its inhabitants fled into their homes—as did the remaining men, leaving the priest stammering a prayer.
I pressed a finger against my trembling lips as Enosh mounted behind me, my stomach convulsing in a never-ending cramp. I was no whimpering thing who fainted at the sight of blood, but I’d had about enough for one day.
At the horse’s first step, bone chips fell away from around me. They piled on the ground in a cacophony of clinks and clanks, like snow crystals hitting a frozen lake in the depth of winter. What remained was another dress of feathers, a soft yellow this time.
“I sense your unease,” Enosh said.
If he expected me to tell him that caging those men behind bone would have ensured our escape just the same, then he underestimated my resolve to see all people rot in the ground.
I wasn’t a fool.
Over time, more such incidents would follow once Enosh rode the lands again, undoubtedly ru
I might have all of eternity to get Enosh to do his damn job again, but I’d prefer another month, maybe two. Whoever he killed during that time would serve a higher purpose, right? He had warned them; Enosh didn’t kill indiscriminately.
No, he didn’t.
“Just tired,” I said when he left town and followed a prattling creek toward an old mill. “I know I should probably have asked this last night but… once you rot John, can you give my father a message? Only that I’m well and that I don’t want him to worry.”
“You are correct, little one. You should have negotiated it last night.”
My shoulders slouched, but I could hardly blame him for my own stupidity. “How powerful are you, truly?”
“How do you mean?”
“You can spread rot and remove it, dull pain, alter flesh, and command bone. Sometimes the ground shakes. It did last night, twice, and the windows clattered at the tavern.”
“You have not even seen a glimpse of my power, mortal.”
What a terrifying thought. “Have you ever altered anything on me?”
“I have mended you, have I not?”
“Beyond that.”
He glanced down at me. “You have ten and two scars on your body, and I trace them while you sleep. Your heart does not beat as it ought to—it’s like a symphony to my ears that I could single out over the span of towns.”
“My mother died giving birth to me because of her weak heart.” Or so Pa had told me. “Where are we going?”
“To A
My fingers clenched at the unexpected answer. He remembered her name?
The horse hadn’t come to a stop when Enosh dismounted near the mill and pulled me down. “This will be quick.”
He a
Shrouded in dimness, figures shuffled, wood moaned, and a woman shrieked. It took my eyes a while to adjust. A
His hand slowly wandered to a knife protruding from a chunk of dried meat. “What is it you want with us?”
Enosh glanced around, his fingers digging into the feathers of my dress as his eyes landed on the musty corner. There, on a mat of straw, cowered the man’s wife, one eye swollen to little more than a red slit, the wounds on her neck glinting red against the sparse light from the dying embers in the hearth.
A
Something inside me broke at the sight.
Enosh must have noticed because his thumb brushed along my arm as he carried me over to them, lowering me between a corpse and a woman only slightly more alive. Her jaw, the side of her neck, her collarbone… God’s bones, she carried more bite marks than I wanted to count.
“How blessed man is in his ability to surround himself with family,” Enosh said, reaching for the woman’s face but pulled back as she flinched. “You didn’t lie when you threatened to beat her close to death.”
“Turn her around if her ugly mug irks you,” the man sneered. “Sorn her arsehole all you want, then begone. We don’t want you here and that… black magic of—”
He choked on the rest at the sight of a corpse stepping into his home. Not just any corpse, but the man Enosh had killed earlier, his gaze now abandoned, his soul gone.
“Make a wrong move, mortal, and my servant will eat you alive.” Enosh broke the ropes around A
I dragged myself over the floor behind him, crooked legs kicking to propel me forward. “Where are you taking her?”
“What is he doing to my A