Page 39 of The Starving Saints

It’s daylight outside the keep, but Treila barely notices until she sees that the mortal inhabitants of Aymar are awake once

more, and it is easier to find her way.

Easier, but far more exposed. She wants shadows. She wants darkness. She doesn’t want this target painted on her back. It

is so much worse to flee from monsters in the light of day.

If the Loving Saint is still seeking her, though, there is no sign. She doesn’t risk looking back as she plunges into the

press of bodies before her. There are so many. They are all distracted, all with juice- and blood-stained lips, all clamoring

for sustenance. For salvation. Who they turn to changes. In one knot of humanity, it is a child, counting out beans in the

dirt, offering one out of every ten to the ravenous crowd around his feet. In another, it’s a tangle of three men, mouths

open with pleasure, flesh sticking and sliding in a mess of blood and sweat. As long as Treila presses toward the center,

and then allows herself to be pushed back out on the other side, nobody notices. Nobody cares.

But that doesn’t mean she’s safe. One moment she can see half again as many bodies, though they are thin and insubstantial,

and in the next, they are gone completely. Her head spins. The whole world tries to spin with it, but at the wrong rate, blurring

and doubling.

Unacceptable. She jerks her head once, lips curling in a snarl, and forces herself to look. The seasons refuse to progress,

time continues to unspool, but she is here and she will make sense of it, the way she has made sense of all the rest.

The world rights itself between one blink and the next.

She is, of course, not alone.

The rest of the Loving Saint’s kind are scattered throughout the yards. They look like paintings, unearthly and flat. They should be incapable of movement, but they aren’t. Their limbs, when they have limbs, slide and jerk and reconfigure as they prowl across the yard. Most ignore her, but a few look up at her attention. With hunger. Without her saint’s mark on her, they will hunt her down and eat her. She knows that, better than she knows anything.

And he will not be far behind them. She can practically feel his hot breath on her neck already.

So she ignores the damned arrayed before her and dives, instead, into the walled garden. It will lead her back inside, through

the kitchen door. Inside is safer. Inside is less exposed.

But the garden is not as she knew it.

It is less a garden and more a jungle now. Plants grow verdant and high, blotting out the sun. The air is thick with pollen

and sap and greenery, and Treila has to force her way into the thicket, into the dark. It folds around her, welcoming. The

dark of the forest, waiting for her still.

Heaving for breath, Treila squirms between the glass needle-covered vines of what looks like an enormous squash plant. At

this scale, the needles drag across her skin, not piercing, not sticking. Still, she is covered in scratches on the other

side. Her blood clings to the vine. She is shaking as she presses deeper, inside a yarrow plant ten times the size of any

natural thing, and huddles as its perfume clogs her nose, makes her shiver.

It will hide her scent, though. It will hide her from sight. It will give her a minute, just a minute, to catch her breath

and think.

The knife in her hand will protect her, if she uses it well. If she can get behind her Loving Saint, she can plunge it into

his back, and even if his fear was only mortal nerves, she can kill him all the same. But she will have to be careful. He

can take whatever form he pleases. She will need to derive some test, some way of knowing.

He is sentimental. He is jealous. He won’t trust her, not one bit, but if she offers him something he would like...

Perhaps the gap, below the castle? Perhaps that would be enough to snare his attention. Then, down in the dark, she can offer him for her freedom instead of another piece of herself. A way out, when she has won the rest of the day.

Yes. Yes, that is the best option here, and she just needs to be strong enough to take it. She just needs her confidence back.

Needs to remember that she isn’t prey.

She hears footsteps.

She is no longer alone.

Instinct makes her cower. It’s five years ago, and she’s huddled in the roots of a tree, a hollow that might have been an

animal’s burrow, once, but is too shallow to truly conceal her. She’s being hauled out by her hair, desperate hands pawing

at her, testing the meat left on her bones. No, no , she is in Aymar castle, she is hiding in the garden, and just like five years ago, she will not give in so easily.

Treila adjusts her grip on the knife. Shifts inside her hiding spot, peers through the gloom. She looks for flat white faces,

those hideous paintings come to life with sharp teeth, and sees nothing. No flashes of light, no jerking limbs.

But she does see blood.

Blood on cloth and metal and skin. The other presence in the garden is keeping low to the ground, is stalking through the

shadows. On the hunt. Treila shifts and makes out something gleaming and heavy in one of the hunter’s hands.

Then nothing. Rustling. Stems bending, snapping. The hunter is not coming straight toward Treila, but they are coming close

enough. Treila debates staying still and quiet, or pushing farther into the green.

She is so tired of being still and quiet. Her blood is boiling in her veins. If it is another human, she can overpower them—if

they’re actually a threat at all.

If it is a saint, she won’t hesitate to strike this time.

She takes the measure of the land around her, listens carefully to judge her hunter’s path. She turns to her left, eases herself from the tangle of yarrow and between stalks of some flower that looms overhead. Petals and thorns caress her cheeks as she edges forward and left and right, weaving through the forest. The shadows are a gift. A mantle. Something to strengthen her limbs and her heart.

But when, at last, Treila reaches a small clearing, it is around a familiar stone bench.

And Ser Voyne stands across from her, bloody and beautiful in gleaming armor.

Treila’s breath seizes in her throat, and she retreats a few feet back into the shadows.

The slick sound of death in the throne room, the buzzing of bees echoing around the Loving Saint’s words, both have primed

her poorly. Ser Voyne, in armor, bloody and disheveled, pitches her straight into the painful vice grip of memory. Of nightmare.

Her father, out in the yard, upon a platform. On his knees. Begging, as Ser Voyne raised her blade. The audience: her family,

the king, every servant of her house. She’d looked away, when the sword fell. When her father’s humiliatingly desperate noises

ceased, and there was only the wet thunk , the roll of his head.

You have no time for this. She forces herself to look at Ser Voyne and remember her, weak and so reliant on Phosyne.

But is it even her? The armor she wears is all wrong, sitting strangely. This might be instead the Loving Saint, wearing the

guise best suited to hurt her. To spur her to foolish decisions. To run and fall at this woman’s feet and beg for her protection.

Beg, because Ser Voyne owes her this much, doesn’t she?

Five years. It’s been five years , and she is being a child, wanting to still play out this drama. Wanting some apology for what is done and gone.

The Loving Saint is hunting her. And this, she is certain, is a trap. It is time to cut out her weakness, once and for all.

She adjusts her grip on the knife, this time for keeps, and begins to edge around the clearing.

Treila’s halfway to her target when her foot lands on the curved shell of a snail. It cracks open before she can pull her

weight back.

Ser Voyne’s head jerks up at the sound, turns in her direction.

Treila freezes. She’s in the weeds, but not so far back as to be invisible—to anybody else. She waits for Voyne’s gaze to skip over her. Because the real Ser Voyne cannot notice her, she reminds herself. Cannot even conceive of her.

But she is seen.

Voyne’s eyes widen. Her jaw goes slack for a moment, then tenses. There’s a flicker in her eyes, like there was after her

confession, when she’d turned to see Treila for the first time in so many years: pain, and confusion, and the smallest hint

of submission. There’s none of the bewitched adoration.

It is a cunning mask.

Her flesh is blotched red and her hair, where it is not shorn off, is plastered to her scalp with sweat. It’s not the form

the Loving Saint took upon the battlements, but he’s capable of many others. He’s advancing on her now like she is a skittish

colt, one hand out low, placating.

She wishes he would just lunge and take her.

Shaking, Treila brings her knife up between them.

The saint stops. Holds up his hands. There’s a hammer in one of them. Not even a large one, made for war: it’s small, for

small work. Treila wants to laugh, it’s so ridiculous. A hammer might do as much damage as a sword, but Voyne would never

wield one. Whatever he is, he cannot get the details right of being human. “I won’t hurt you,” he says. It sounds so much

like Ser Voyne, but voices must be as easy to ape as faces for him.

“You’re lying, even now?” Treila can’t help herself. Can’t keep her mouth shut. She edges farther into the clearing, circles

around one side to get the bench out from in between them.

She wonders if he has a heart, and if it lives in the same place it does in her own chest.

“I have never lied to you.” Voyne’s eyes turn wary. The bafflement is gone.

“You’ve always only been playing with your food.”

Saint Voyne cocks his head at that.

“From the first time you saw me, I could tell what you were,” Treila says, grinning. “So hungry and desperate for personalized at tention. Nobody else could really see you, could they? Just me.”

“Calm down. Please. Just for a moment. Think clearly, Treila,” the Loving Saint says with Ser Voyne’s mouth. I’m older than you, stronger than you, hungrier than you , he does not add.

There’s something wrong with this, but Treila doesn’t have time to sort it. One of Voyne’s ears is red and swollen. And the

fingers—

No time.

“I am thinking clearly,” she returns, grinning. “I know the rules of this game as least as well as you do by now.”

That makes the beast in knight’s clothing hesitate. About to argue that Treila can’t fully comprehend, or afraid that she

might?

“I’m not here to hurt you,” he says, and casts the hammer into the nearby brush. She gets a better look for just a moment;

his fingers are swollen and red as if stung by bees. They look like hers did, five years ago. Why? Why would he do that?

To boast that he is no holy thing, either?

There’s a flicker of doubt in his eyes. He’s a better liar than that, though. Something’s wrong.

She makes another snap judgment. Should she soften under his words, his vulgar apparition, so that he’ll get closer, or stand

her ground? She has so much practice pretending to be what she is not.

But she’s tired of it, and the one good thing he has given her—that this whole mess has given her—is the freedom to shrug

off her disguise.

Treila takes another step closer, blade shining in the dappled light of their little world.

“Funny,” she says. “Because I’m here to hurt you.”

She throws herself at Saint Voyne, lips peeled back in a snarl, and catches him around the waist. In Voyne’s guise, the saint

is far more solid, heavier and more thoroughly muscled, and if not for Treila’s dagger, could no doubt just absorb the blow.

But the blade glints in the garden’s filtered, shaking light, and Saint Voyne dances back, sidesteps before Treila can strike

home.

Treila falls forward, spins, rights herself. Gets her footing.

Voyne’s mouth is hard now, and it’s harder to see the Loving Saint in her. Her eyes glint. She is menace and power and skill.

Treila darts forward again.

This time, she is lucky; her blade catches Voyne’s armor, and it should glance right off, but instead it sinks in, slides

home. It’s just Voyne’s arm beneath, but it draws a cry all the same. Draws blood. Voyne roars and swings her fist; her knuckles

slam into Treila’s side, send her sprawling.

Treila tumbles in the dirt. Rolls to her feet. Gets back up, grinning even as she gasps for breath.

It’s just like their old sparring matches, except that back then, they both had swords, and Treila obeyed the forms drilled

into her. Now she is a wild thing, scrapping for survival. She slashes out with her blade again and when that strike is dodged,

she grabs at hair, at clothing, at flesh. If Saint Voyne gets close enough, Treila will tear her throat out with her teeth.

She doesn’t get a chance. Voyne sends her crashing to the ground again, this time with a knee to the gut. Treila loses her

grip and the blade goes flying, hitting the dirt and skidding into the undergrowth.

“Don’t fight me,” Voyne spits, all her weight on top of Treila now. “Don’t be afraid.”

“Does it make the meat sour?” Treila hisses back.

Voyne flinches.

It’s enough. It’s enough that Treila can squirm out from under her, can pitch forward, toward the knife, and—

And then she is struck in the back, borne down hard against the bench. Voyne’s fist is around her throat. Treila thrashes,

manages to get onto her back but no farther. Voyne is between her legs, and Treila can’t help but laugh at that. Even now,

this is the Loving Saint’s nature. He is lust and hunger and temptation.

She has, perhaps, three heartbeats left until the saint begins his feast. Voyne’s form is strong and heavy, and Treila can

only writhe between him and the bench.

The only mercy is that the ringing in her head has, finally, gone silent.

“How will you have me, then?” she snarls. “Now that you’ve got me here at last?”

That drags a wicked laugh from him, and he leans down closer, so that their lips are almost touching. He looks into her eyes, and still, there’s some shred of desperation there. Some question. He didn’t want it to pan out this way.

Voyne didn’t want it to pan out this way.

It doesn’t matter who she’s talking to, not now. It’s both of them together. If the Loving Saint wants to devour her in Voyne’s

skin, then he will take the brunt of all her combined rage, all her spite and vitriol.

“You never knew me. You will never know me. That core of me you were so keen to take the measure of, you’ll choke on it before

you get the smallest part of me. You’re weak, pathetic, hungry, clawing after scraps, too afraid to rule yourself.” When Treila

grins, she knows there’s blood coating her teeth. “What you wouldn’t give to be in charge, but you’ll never have the strength.

Too busy aching in the shadows. We’re the same, the two of us. You’re just desperate to be seen. So desperate you’ll kill

for it. Die for it.”

The Loving Saint falters, finally. Stares down at her, brows drawn together, fist loosening around her throat.

It’s an opening. It’s the last opening she’ll ever get. It’s action or death and, above all else, Treila refuses to die.

So she arches up and kisses Voyne’s split and bloodied lips.