“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 running into religious fanatics and the soldiers sworn to defend their cause. I’d rather him kill them than see the god captured again, sparking such a rage inside him it would take another two centuries to abate, ruining all my efforts.

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 Anna.”

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 announced himself with a kick against the door. Rusty hinges howled as it swung open, the stench of filth behind it nauseating.

Shrouded in dimness, figures shuffled, wood moaned, and a woman shrieked. It took my eyes a while to adjust. Anna’s father stood leaning with his hands on the table, something unreadable coming over a face wrinkled by hardship.

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.

Anna leaned with her back against the wall, still again, neck and torso tied to the brick with filthy ropes. They stood in stark contrast to the new bow she wore atop her immaculate braid, red like the ribbon on her fresh dress.

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 Anna with one finger and picked her up. “I’ll return for you in a moment.”

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 Anna?” Her mother helped me to my feet and, together, we left the musty home.

Shaky arms and unreliable legs carried me toward the ancient oak beside the creek, where Enosh stood with Anna lifeless on the ground beside him.

The woman wept, sinking to the ground, and tearing me down alongside her, but the noise faded under the shk-shk of a bone spade shoveling soil. My mouth turned dry.

Was he…?

Something moved beneath my sternum at how Enosh lifted out a grave, the very act of it going against everything I thought I’d known about this man. No grave was needed for him to rot Anna… but still, he dug it anyway.

Once the hole was deep enough, he lowered Anna into her grave and covered her with dirt. Then, a moment later, poof, the soil collapsed.

Beside me, her mother whimpered, “What happened?”

“It’s rot,” I explained from the little I’ve seen of it. “She’s at rest now.”

“Thank y-you,” the woman whispered, her filth-crusted face rubbing over my feathers, streaking them brown.

We left her by the grave and rode off, a whirlwind of emotions raging at my core as I glanced back at Enosh. “Why did you do this? Why make a grave?”

Seconds ticked into eternity as he remained silent until, after a heavy swallow, he said, “Because I do know the sorrow and agony of losing a child.”

OceanofPDF.com

Chapter 15

OceanofPDF.com

Ada

My heart shriveled inside my chest. “You had a child?”

“Not truly.” Enosh’s gaze went adrift somewhere in the distance. “I only got to enjoy the cadence of her heartbeat for a little while before Mertok took her away. My daughter died in Njala’s belly when the commander slit her throat.”

There was that pity again, shifting beneath my ribs as if it rearranged them right along with my perception of this man. More than just the loss of a child lingered in his tone. I heard the agonizing loneliness of his existence, the monotony of an eternal life committed to duty, and the lament this had caused him.

As someone who’d prayed for a child many times, I understood the gnawing ache of its absence. If someone took my child from me, chances were, I’d call them wicked, too.

Or worse… vow revenge.

I glanced up at Enosh, the stubble on his usually pristine face so unlike the chiseled perfection he’d maintained for over a month. “I didn’t think gods could sire children. Why was your daughter not like you? Immortal?”

“Who can say?” He shrugged too stiffly to carry his usual aloofness. “Among mortals, not all children inherit their father’s curses, do they?”

My ears twitched at the dismay in the undertone of his voice. “So you consider your immortality a curse?”

“Ever since I stood over the body of my dead child…” His eyes took mine captive with their unguarded openness, as though he allowed me a rare glimpse of the man behind the mask. “Wanting to follow her, but duty-bound to remain here for eternity, left with nothing but the memory of her heart’s cadence.”

Everything stilled inside me, giving resonance to his words and the pain they held, almost like an echo of my own. “As far back as I can think, I’ve always wanted a child.”

“Yes, your love for children is evident. I have no doubt you will be with child before long.”