Page 35 of The Starving Saints

This time she does not scream.

She stands entirely still. Her lips curl just a fraction. This might just be her mind, fracturing at last from the strain bowing her shoulders, but she doesn’t think so. Above the smell of damp earth and stone, she can smell a metallic tang, too, like the inside of the smithy. It cuts through the lingering stink of shit, replaces it entirely as she breathes deep.

If this is not just a desperate imagining, then perhaps it is a new road.

“And who are you?” she asks, now trembling with eagerness. With a flash of desire. Down here, in the crowded dark, she feels likeherself, truly herself, so close to how she’d felt when she’d dangled that fruit in front of Phosyne but oh, so much sweeter than that.

It’s time to escape, but not to give up.

“A friend.” The voice is growing firmer, louder. It’s still just a whisper, but it sounds young. Boyish, perhaps. Pleased. She fights the urge to light the candle again, press it into the gap to get a look at the speaker’s face.

“A friend? And how do you know that?”

“Because I’d like to help you,” the voice—the boy—replies. “If you’re lost, I can help. I know where you are.”

A thought occurs to her. Her brow furrows as she flattens herself against the gap, standing straighter. “Are you a sapper? Sent by Etrebia to find a way into our water? Did you foul it yourself?”

He laughs, delighted. “Look down,” he says.

She does. She sees only the faint glow of the water, running into the crack. Into the...

Oh.The well shaft is between her and the encamped army. From here, the water flows out toward the cliff edge. There is no way the enemy could reach here,wouldreach here without spilling up into Aymar itself first.

Fear twists in her at last. He cannot be Etrebian, and he cannot behere, because there’s nowhere for somebody to come from.

“You see,” he murmurs, still pleased. “Oh, you are clever. I like you. What is your name?”

Treilais a common name, and she’s never lied about it. She’s too possessive of her own identity, even transformed as it’s become. But fear makes her hesitate. She’s too cautious to answer straight out, no matter how harmless the question seems. She turns the question around, barbs out. “Tell me yours, first.”

He laughs again. He doesn’t answer. “I’ll just call youclever, then,” he says instead. “Are you frightened? You sound a little frightened. You don’t need to be.”

Treila doesn’t speak.

“I know the way out,” he says. “To freedom, and green grass, and the bounty of summer. I can give it to you.”

Her stomach cramps with longing. She closes her eyes and imagines it, fleeing once more into the woods, but this time in a better time of year, with more skills at hand. She would stay close, she thinks. Watch the castle from afar. Wait to see if it falls, or if Ser Voyne emerges, scarred but ready to be pursued once more. She can reset the calendar, try again.

Or maybe leave. Walk away. She suspects she could find a home in Etrebia’s camp. If they lose, she could follow them across the border. If not, she has some knowledge their leaders might find valuable, and perhaps one day she’d sit in her childhood home once more. Be the traitor they accused her father of being.

“What are you dreaming of?” the boy asks.

Home, she almost says.

“Your breath sounds melancholy,” he adds. “Do you long for it so much, then?”

“If you’re going to do it, then do it,” she snaps in challenge, suddenly too raw, too delicate to be pushed further.

He hums, but offers nothing else.

He also doesn’t retreat. She can feel him, through the narrow gap. Patient. Waiting. She thinks of Phosyne on the floor of her workshop. “Or tell me what you ask for in return.”

“That’s more fair, don’t you think?” he asks.

“It is the way the world works,” she concedes.

“A touch.”

Treila blinks, confused, unable to form any response, question or otherwise.

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