Page 76 of The Starving Saints

Voyne hesitates. She doesn’t know what she should feel. Anger that he would ask? Horror?

Shame, that she can’t simply sayYes, they could have all ofme?

It’s the last, and it sweeps through her like a wildfire. “This is why he gave you Aymar,” Ser Voyne says.

Leodegardis gazes back at her without response, merely swaying where he sits. He’s in pain, now, where he wasn’t before.

And what of Cardimir? He hadn’t made this sacrifice. No, he’d fed off his own household. He was supposed to protect them. He was honor-bound to lead, not to ravage.

How long had he been so cretinous inside? So useless on his throne?

No. No, she cannot give him any more of her time. He no longer has any claim to it.

She returns her focus to Leodegardis. “Do you regret it? At all?” Voyne asks. “Now that you can think clearly again? They took this from you, like they took my loyalty. We should have—we should have fought back. Like we were trained to.”

At that, Leodegardis ducks his head. His brow furrows. “I have no regrets,” he says, slowly, choosing his words with care. “I have no regrets because how can I regret feeding my people? Even if...”

Even if they will all still die tomorrow.

How much of their minds are both still clouded, she wonders. And for how long?

Or is it that they are seeing clearly, freed from the shackles of logic and causality? When she thinks to the starving battlefields she has fought upon, she knows that, if she were offered the chance to go back, to feed her men with only pieces of her flesh, she would have ransomed every inch of herself to get them home safely.

It just wasn’t feasible, so she’d fought instead.

“They deserve salvation, not merely an extension of their suffering,” she makes herself argue. She must focus on the long term, not just immediate protection. Otherwise, they will be trapped here indefinitely.

“They do,” he agrees. “But I’m not sure I can win that for them.”

“I swear to you that I will do it,” she says, reaching out one hand to grasp his.

He doesn’t let her. “Always swearing the impossible, Ser Voyne,” he cautions. “No, I think it is too late for all of us. Haven’t you heard them? The gates are open now. They are coming.”

“Etrebia?” she asks, mouth dry at the thought that the original threat does still exist, still waits for them to falter. But Leodegardis shakes his head. He looks to her left.

They aren’t alone.

Ser Voyne tears her gaze away from Leodegardis to find the room has gone dark, even though she is certain the sun was at its zenith only a little while ago. The room has few windows; they are thin, tall things, designed to be defensible. But they still let in enough light to see by in midday, even in a storm.

Unless they are blocked.

Unless bodies curl against their slanted sills and press into the gaps, covering the sun and air almost completely.

Only a little light filters in, enough for Voyne to make out an arm, a leg, the curve of a hip.

The glimmer of eyes.

There are eight window niches in the room, and every single one of them is occupied. She jerks away from the table, on her feet andreaching for the sword that isn’t there. Laughter erupts from every side, and she backpedals, closer to Leodegardis.

“Do you remember,” she asks him, the words rasping in her throat, “where they took my blade?”

“Itook it,” he reminds her, and she does remember it, at last. Him kneeling at her feet, and her surrendering her sword, her armor, as the Lady looked on. “They would not touch it. I placed it... I placed it by the throne, where it belonged.”

And then his brow draws down and he seizes her with his remaining hand, hauls her close. “You must swear to me two things, Ser Voyne,” he gasps out against her ear.

“Name it,” she says, trying desperately to give him her full attention while keeping her eyes fixed on the prowling shadows.

“Trust in Phosyne,” he says. It sounds like stone grinding on stone. He is fighting everything in himself. But the words catch the tinder beneath her ribs and ignite, burning bright. She hangs on to him and to his every word. “And protect the people.”

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