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“We’re safer here than anywhere in Hungary,” I said. “Besides, you won’t have to. I’ll be watching.”
He opened his eyes at that. His gaze was soft and distant, but he was there.
“You always are.”
I handed him the flask—just enough water to wash the vile syrup down—and waited until he swallowed. Then I sat beside him, my back against the cold stone wall, and let the silence of the room settle around us.
Someone hummed a hymn in the corner.
Sparrow whispered with Egret across the nave.
Eszter slept already, curled in her blanket like a leaf folded in on itself.
Farkas lay beside her, his eyes wide, his gaze fixed on the ceiling. I doubted he saw much. He looked lost in thought—or some dreadful dream.
Thomas’s head tipped as he fell asleep. He didn’t speak again.
He didn’t have to.
We’d made it through day one.
By grace and grit.
And tomorrow, we would walk again.
51
Thomas
Thehillshadneverfelt taller. Not when I’d been younger, not in the war, not even limping through occupied towns under the weight of lies.
Now, with every step, they felt insurmountable.
We reached the crest of one just before dusk, the kind of rolling rise that would’ve been picturesque in spring, but now, under the bleak iron sky, it was just one more damn hill to survive.
Will walked beside me again, slower than usual, trying not to let me catch him watching.
But he was. He always did.
I knew the rhythm of his concern—how he glanced sideways every seven paces, how he shifted his pack to position himself between me and the road’s edge.
I hated that he could see it.
The truth of it.
I was done.
There were no more painkillers, no more antibiotics, no more clean bandages. Only the same re-wrapped strips that now smelled of iron and damp linen. The wound throbbed beneath them like a second heartbeat, every pulse sending a whisper of heat up my neck. I didn’t think I was running a fever again, but in the cold of our journey, it was hard to tell.
I’d been hiding it. At least, I thought I was hiding it.
But now my knees betrayed me, stuttering every dozen steps. Sweat broke across my brow despite the cold, coated my back, soaked through my undershirt. I kept my right arm folded tight against my chest, cradling the shoulder beneath its makeshift sling. The weight of the cassock clung like chain mail.
The pilgrims, an amoeba-like mass, with bumping shoulders and staggering gaits, lumbered along. Many of the older travelers struggled nearly as much as I had, yet none dropped out of the caravan. Their faith sustained them, even when their bodies rebelled.
Ahead, out of the rolling expanse of nothingness that was the Hungarian countryside, another church appeared. It was little more than a box of whitewashed stone, a sloping roof patched with timber and prayer, and a squat bell tower that looked like a chimney. Smoke rose from a stove inside, and I could already hear murmured voices, the rustle of straw being spread out in the nave.
We’d arrived at our next waypoint, but I couldn’t bring myself to move another step.