Page 17 of Devour
The hair on my arm rises, and I don’t even know why.
“So, they’re—”They’re coming back for us, is what I was going to say, but…
“—hunting us,” she says instead.
And it’s those words that sink their teeth into my soul, robbing my mind of rational thought. Instantly, my heart is racing. My mind spinning, unable to stop.
I close my eyes and try to control the emotions rolling through me.She’s not psychic, I remind myself. She just… knows things. She can be wrong.
She has to be wrong.
My chest begins moving up and down too fast. I can’t get enough air in through the cloth covering my mouth and nose. I press my eyes closed so tightly it hurts and force my mind to obey.
Some people believe the death cult is good. Some believe they will be treated well inside their walls. Many refugees seek them out in these desperate times.
But Astella has made it clear they are anything but good. And Lucca’s screams echo through my mind, the priestess’s laughter. The stomping of their boots.
They terrify me.
One look at the panicked expression in Astella’s dark brown eyes and my spinning thoughts instantly clear.
For a long moment, despair washes over me. She told me I was blessed. She promised that one day, we’d be safe.
I want to cry. I want to fall to my knees and scream into the void. I want to rage and throw things, destroy anything.
But I don’t do any of that.
For her.
“It’s okay. It’s okay.” I grip her arms tightly. “Astella, look at me.”
She obeys. Her big eyes searching mine, filled with tears. Right now, she looks like a little girl. Not the brave girl who distracted a death cult yesterday. Not the sorceress who protected us from the shadowscelp.
Right now, she is a child that I must protect. “We—we just need to get to water.” It’s my first thought. I have no real reason to think it will work, but it doesn’t much matter. We need something to do. A goal to reach. Panic will do neither of us any good.
“They’ll lose our trail if we can get to water.” My voice is far more confident than I feel.
She nods rapidly. I grip her hand.
“We do not give up,” I tell her. “If this world takes us, so be it. But while we have life, we have hope. And when we have hope, we fight for it.”
I’m moving before I even finish my sentence. I pull her with me, up the small dune to our right, and across the barren plain between us and the forest.
We run as fast as we can. I know my steps are likely louder than they should be, but I can’t think past the fear.
Astella doesn’t correct me or tell me to hush, so I take that as a sign that speed is more important than stealth.
Soon, the half-rotten branches are over our heads, blocking the hazy sun from view.
A raven caws. Astella gasps, but I don’t stop.
We cross one path to another, farther from the desert, toward where I know the wild stream meanders. I know the maps of this part of the world well, but with the shifting tides of the desert, the stream could be a mile west, or it could be ten.
After only a few minutes of running through the forest, I hear the gentle rush of water. Hope floods my veins, and I pick up speed despite my exhaustion.
But as we turn the corner, the stream just in sight, I realize it was always a fool’s hope.
Just before the stream, a man with a hood and mask is waiting for us, his axe still crusted with blood.
