How?

I’d only ever been to the high temple once as a young girl, but its high walls had left a lasting impression. It would be difficult for Enosh to gain access to the temple peacefully, and impossible to get Pa out alive.

And that was not the only problem.

“They will hunt you down, Enosh.” Call upon every house sworn to protect the faith, quickly overwhelming my husband by sheer numbers. “Trap and torture you for who knows how long until you manage to free yourself. As long as the temples stand and the priests live, you won’t be safe.”

We wouldn’t be safe.

His lips pressed into a thin line, hard and ungiving against my own as he kissed me. “There is always the God of Whispers to aid me.”

“Have you not listened, brother?” Yarin asked. “I will look for a woman to wed and kill. Oh, our love will eclipse even the sun. As such, I ought not to tempt Eilam’s wrath by aiding you, for I shall need him for my woman’s resurrection.”

“You will also need me.”

“A conundrum indeed.” Yarin sunk his face into his palm. “I would have preferred sisters. Less eager to quarrel for dominance. Prettier to look at, too, to be certain.”

Which meant Enosh would be on his own against two hundred years of hatred. “What if I ride the lands with you? I could…” do the killing, “…help you.”

“I would never allow it,” he said as though he could keep me from doing it anyway. “These lands are dangerous, and immortality offers no protection from pain. On the contrary.”

Focusing on the age-old bone scattered across the lands, I let it drift together. Then, with one sudden blast, I let it clash against the maple, felling the tree with enough skill that the trunk split, groaning until it hit the ground and shook the daybeds.

“I can protect myself now.” Just like Enosh had told me that he’d been created knowing his duty and how to yield his powers, I knew it as well. Felt it deep inside me. “That rabbit hopping through the snow earlier…? I made that.”

I made that.

That word brought a smile to my face.

“Adorable.” A kiss to my head. “But the answer is still no. The high priests have gone through much trouble to prepare for a confrontation with me. I shall secure the lands so you may enjoy them… eventually. Until I can guarantee your safety, you will remain at the Pale Court or move about safer lands, if that is what you take issue with.”

The issue was that this still hadn’t ended.

It would go on, and on, and on.

And I was tired of all this suffering.

His. Mine. Everyone’s.

So tired.

I turned onto my side so I may look into my husband’s calm gray eyes and stroked the rough whiskers along his jawline. “Do you think it’s truly growing? Our baby?”

“I have no doubt, but only time will tell,” he said and, when I sensed the corners of my mouth droop, he smiled and let his forehead drift down against mine, his next word a familiar whisper. “Patience.”

Something eternity would surely teach me at some point. “As long as people pray to Helfa, our child might as well grow several inches each time they trap you somewhere. I don’t want them to hurt you, Enosh.”

He pressed a kiss to my forehead, then another, taking his time before he said, “Never lose faith that I will return to you. Always and forever, I’ll return to my Ada, the midwife from Hemdale.”

His Ada.

My heart fluttered.

“You sacrificed yourself for me once before. I won’t allow it a second time.” Would not let this world rip us apart ever again. “Let’s ride for the high temple. Together. You will spread rot and open the Pale Court like Eilam wants in any case. And if that isn’t enough for your brother, what can he do to me now? You might have promised him to abandon your revenge, but I made no such promise.”

“Ada’s crusade,” he mused, and a smug grin tugged on the side of his mouth for just a second before he shook his head. “I presume my brother ought to have placed more care into his words, but the answer is no. I will not let you.”

“I asked neither question nor permission.”

“Headstrong, obstinate little goddess.” He made a disgruntled sound at the back of his throat and pinched the bridge of his nose as though he’d just realized that no bone chain would ever not dissolve at my command. “Ah, Adelaide, my love for you might yet make me a liar.”

“My love for you might yet make me a monster.”

“We are all monsters in someone’s story, little one,” he said, then finally gave his nod of approval, “except in our own.”

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Chapter 25

OceanofPDF.com

Ada

I rode my dead horse toward the stone archway of the small temple we’d found in the forest, my beast’s hide a patchy mix between chestnut and brown, and its rump in dire need of a tail. Alas, I hadn’t inherited my husband’s creativity.

“No! Helfa, oh please!” The young priest scooted his arse over the ground, letting his threadbare black robes rip as he frantically made the sign of Helfa. “Please, I beg of you, please spare—”

With a flick of my hand, I drove a bone dagger into his belly. He gasped at first but screamed shortly after when I commanded the blade to cut upwards into his lungs. His scream lodged in time with the severing of an artery. Warm and thick, his blood speckled the back of my hand.

A hand Enosh took into his as he rode up beside me. He lowered his lips to my hand, frowned, then wiped the blood off with the sleeve of his raven jacket.

“How finely tooled your dagger was.” His lips pressed an ardent kiss to the back of my hand, then Enosh sat straight, letting our fingers intertwine. “Still, a spike through the neck is less messy.”

“Enosh, I’m a midwife.” I had worse bodily expulsions on me. “A spike through the neck is too fast, too painless. Did I ever say a word? No. You have your way, and I have mine.”

“Quite so.” Just then, he sent a volley of bone spikes into the necks of three other priests who’d tried to make a run for it, turning the temple grounds silent at once. “If memory serves, then the high temple should come into view at the end of this forest.”

For two days, we’d cantered across the lands without stopping, killing every soldier and priest on sight. Temples, we’d torn down together, sending blasts of bone dust into the structures from two sides at once.

With the rising sun flickering through the pines and the last rays of the moon disappearing behind a chain of hills ahead, we willed our mounts toward the edge of the forest. And there it was, the high temple. It had grown over the years, spanning several stone buildings clustered into nothing but a fortress.

Enosh stopped his horse and pointed at the bailey rigged with what looked like massive crossbows mounted on iron blocks. Bolts sat in the grooves, large enough to kill a bear. Several fires crackled on torches along the battlements, where archers overlooked the valley below. Walls of wooden spikes, arranged in several rows to the left and right, lined the pathway heading for the massive gate.

“To catch corpses,” Enosh said, looked behind him at our quiet army of the dead, then smacked his tongue. “It will take time to breech this and gain access to the interior of the temple.”

“They sure built this to keep a god out.” Yet one thing, they had not planned for. “But not a mere woman.”

Dutiful and obedient.

Worthless and insignificant.

Enosh frowned at the plain dress I’d bartered from an herb witch in exchange for a mortar and pestle shaped of bone. Not a single embellishment on my woolen dress gave me away as more than a woman, and certainly, not more than Enosh’s mortal wife.