Page 13 of Children of Fallen Gods

We did not need to speak. Slowly, we slid from our horses. When we pushed through the thicket, every footfall was carefully chosen to be utterly soundless.

The noise grew louder. It was, unmistakably, a voice. Saying what? I couldn’t string the sounds into words.

“Suh-tah-nah…gah…Suh…”

Another two steps.

All at once, I realized.

“Satagana,” I breathed. “They’re claimingsatanaga.”

Satanaga, a claim of help, of sanctuary, mutually understood and accepted between all Houses… and called upon only in the most dire of tragedies.

Siobhan’s eyes widened. She whirled around, caution discarded in favor of urgency. “Speak!” she bellowed. “We announce ourselves! We are Sidnee Blades! We hear your claim!”

She leveled one mighty strike through the blanket of thicket and we pushed through to a clearing of swamplands. And I drew in a ragged gasp.

Laid out before us were bodies.

A dozen of them, if I had to guess, or maybe more — sprawled out in the swamplands in a macabre, bloody trail. Male, female, a few children. None moved, except for the one closest, a copper-haired male. One hand was outstretched, as if trying to claw himself farther. The other clamped around his middle, covered in violet blood.

His face lifted, just barely enough to meet our horrified stares.

“Satanaga,” he whispered.

“Mathira, are they dead?”

The words flew from my lips before I could stop them. I dropped to the man’s side, kneeling beside him while he gazed up at me with glazed-over eyes.

He shook his head, weak but desperate.

“Get back to the Pales,” Siobhan barked. “Go to the base, bring help.Now.If these people aren’t dead yet, they will be soon if no one intervenes.”

She was already knee-deep in water, yanking bodies out of it. I began to stand, but shaking fingers clutched at my sleeve. I looked down to see the auburn-haired male, clearly fighting to stay conscious.

“Take— me—”

“I’ll come back,” I said.

“Please,” he rasped. “They must…see.”

Is that really what he thought? That the people of the House of Obsidian were so cold, so heartless, that we would not help them unless we saw his entrails with our own eyes?

I could not bring myself to leave him behind.

So I straightened, grabbed the little tube of steel that hung around my throat, and whistled for Rhee. When she galloped through the brush, I — as gently as I could manage — lifted him out of the dripping swamp. He was trembling so violently that he nearly slipped from my grasp, the hot warmth of his blood soaking through my clothes. There was so, so much of it.

“I’m sorry,” I murmured, as I hoisted him onto Rhee’s back while he let out a little, gurgling groan. When I climbed up after him and urged Rhee into the fastest gallop she could manage, I tried to press my body against his to keep him as stable as possible.

We flew through the trees. I peered down and noticed the distinctive cut of his jacket, a high collar finished with bronze thread and a triangle sigil at the back of his neck.

The House of Stone. A small but respected House, and Obsidian’s closest neighbor, though it still sat miles away. My brow furrowed.

Did theydragthemselves here?

“Who did this?” I whispered. We broke through the forest. The wall came into view, and beyond it, the sleek darkness of the Pales. “What happened?”

I did not expect an answer. My companion was now slack against Rhee’s neck, his blood soaking all three of us. But his face turned, just enough for me to see the edge of his profile, a sliver of green iris.

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