A loud rumble answered, along with the salt of the sea that seasoned my tongue each time I groaned in pain. I forced myself onto shaky legs, taking a quick assessment of my state. My cheek burned something awful. Cuts painted one of my arms crimson while the other hung limp and somewhat displaced from my battered shoulder. Dislocated.

I walked toward the deafening boom until my feet met the edge of the cliff. Below, violent waves threw themselves against ungiving rock. Seagulls drifted over the water where something bobbed on the surface…

A man.

A corpse, to be precise. Everyone knew a merchant ship had succumbed to a storm a winter ago, clashing with the rock before the current ripped the sailors asunder. Trapped them there to wiggle on each full moon.

Enosh must have called them to his aid.

My heart clenched and my legs threatened to snap underneath me. Calm. I had to stay calm and think. Panic would get me nowhere but onto a pyre, and Enosh couldn’t die.

But he could suffer.

No, I couldn’t think of that now.

Breathe. Breathe!

I knew where I was.

We called this place Beggar’s Bay, and that name lifted some of the pain. Hemdale wasn’t far from here, easily found if I followed along the cliffs before I cut inland toward the east. Ugh, the pain returned twofold. Hemdale was no safer than any other place out here, perhaps less so. Shouldn’t I return to the Pale Court? But how?

The Blighted Fields lay… what? Half a day’s ride away? Walking there would take me three full ones. I lifted the heavy bone train of my dress and cringed at the blooming bruises.

Make that four days.

I glanced over the quiet fields from which I’d escaped, spotting neither my husband nor a soldier. Still, who could tell what I would run into if I went back there? Enosh had sent me away for a reason.

Bile soured my tongue.

I was just as hunted.

Between the threat of running into soldiers—likelier having my throat cut by vagabonds before even setting eyes on the Pale Court—and a few hours to potential safety with Pa, the choice was simple.

After a quick glimpse at where the sun reflected from behind dreary clouds to make certain I would follow the cliff in the right direction, I looked down at my dress. Aside from the fact that bonemail would earn me suspicion, it was too damn heavy. Beneath it, the lined leather dress remained intact.

I ripped one of the splintered bone scales away from the sleeve, then cut through the strings of leather that held the rows of chips in place so I might slip out of it.

Turning toward the corpses, I gave a few shooing waves at them. “Go away. Or… I don’t know. If you follow, just don’t make it so obvious.”

They followed.

And groaned…

Devil be damned, they stomped behind me for a while as I headed north with a slight limp in every other step. Toward home… or away from it?

My throat narrowed.

It didn’t matter.

What good was keeping a promise if I died trying to fulfill it? A mule and provisions. A waxed, hooded cloak. A scarf to hide my face for good measure. That was all I needed to prepare for my journey to the Pale Court. Maybe three days of rest for my shoulder—

Thud. Thud.

Thud, thud, thud.

I turned back.

Panic surged, freezing my legs in place as I stared over the motionless corpses littering the ground.

They’d captured Enosh.

Crouching behind barrels, I waited in the shroud of darkness, listening to the once familiar bellow of Hemdale’s night guard as he called the hour and lit the few oil lamps. His voice faded into the thick fog lingering between the buildings, making room for the rapid ba-boom of my heart.

Three.

Two.

Now!

I slinked around the barrels and hurried steps carried me up the cobblestone. It changed into seashells crunching beneath my thinning soles as I snuck around my home and hushed into the shrubs beneath the window.

Snores came from behind the shutters. I pushed a twig through the gap and disabled the lock behind them. Hinges creaked when I opened the shutters, and I reached up in search of hold on the window’s frame. Since my arm still hung limp and numb, it took several attempts to reach the sill. Once I did, I wiggled myself inside, ribs grinding along hard wood before my hip caught on it. I hit the wooden planks a breath later. Pain flared to life across my body once more, putting the ache around the blisters on my feet to shame.

Still, the snoring continued, and I patted the table down for a candle. Red embers guided me toward the hearth, where I lit the wick, letting a flame cast nervous flickers about the room. My handloom took up a large part of it, and I carefully worked around it toward Pa’s bed.

My nose caught a whiff of musty straw, so foreign after two months of the softest pelts keeping me warm. Something inside me revolted. Everything smelled wrong; the air I breathed so void of the familiarity of ash sprinkled over snow, it sunk my heart. Would they burn Enosh at the stake?

My head shook on its own.

There was no point pondering it.

In the end, Enosh would be alive.

Though I might not end so lucky.

I kneeled beside Pa’s bed, palm suspended above his mouth in case he screamed. “Pa.” When he smacked his wrinkled lips but otherwise didn’t rouse, I tried again. “Pa. Wake up. It’s me… Ada.”

He shot up with a groan, clutching his patched-up quilt. I hadn’t needed to worry about him screaming. He pressed the quilt to his mouth, letting the wool muffle a violent cough that shook the tousled white strands at the top of his head. With it came the scent of blood, like a rusty nail warmed between one’s fingers.

I brought the candle closer, letting the dim light cast across the many dark red spots that dappled the linen atop the straw. My stomach hardened.

It had gotten worse.

So much worse.

“Ada…”

Pa’s voice, muffled beneath layers of bloody phlegm, brought my eyes to his. “We have to be quiet or the night guard will find me.”

“Oh, child…” His blood-stained lips trembled, his eyes glassy. “Where have you been? What happened to your face? For days, we sent riders to search for the mule, but they never… never found you, and…” When his eyes narrowed on my neck, I suddenly remembered that I still wore my collar. “What in the name of Helfa is that?”

“Shh, I’ll tell you everything.” Even if I didn’t know how. “First, I’ll heat some water, then get a rag and strong alcohol for my wounds. But…” I peeled my shredded dress away from my badly bruised shoulder, “I’ll need your help with this. You have to push it back, like I saw you do once with William.”

His lips pressed into a thin line as he struggled age-stiffened bones from the bed. “Your cheek needs stitching, and even then, it’ll leave an ugly scar. Where have you been, Ada? Why have you not sent word? So stricken was I with grief and guilt, but the mule, it… There was nothing I could do to hold him.”

I shook my head, not knowing where even to begin. “No, Pa, there was nothing you could’ve done. But listen, I can’t stay in Hemdale. Stitch me up as good as you can, and I’ll try to explain while you do.”

The silence grew pregnant while I heated water in the kettle by the hearth, stacked the fire, gathered needle and yarn. How could I possibly explain all that had happened if I could barely straighten my thoughts or overcome this hollowness swelling beneath my ribs?

Keeping my voice low lest the night guard might grow suspicious, I told Pa everything. Well, almost everything, leaving out the parts that would make any god-fearing man draw the sign of Helfa to his ashen forehead.

“We married in a little temple,” I eventually concluded.