Page 42 of The Starving Saints

Ser Voyne lies dead in the garden.

Her hair remains dark. Her face is slack and unchanging, no sharp teeth revealed by her parted lips. Beestings pock her scalp,

gnarl her hands. Nothing at all marks her as anything but a mortal woman.

And Treila has killed her.

“I didn’t mean to,” she says to nobody. Her voice wavers. Her eyes pulse with unshed, unbidden tears.

Didn’t you? her own thoughts whisper back.

She did mean to. Of course she meant to. But Voyne being dead was never the point; the point was to see her suffer. To cause her suffering. And instead, Treila didn’t even know who it was she was killing until it was too late.

That’s it. That’s why she’s crying now, finally, unable to stop herself.

It’s not because it felt so good, kissing her, that she’d almost forgotten the knife entirely.

She’s still huddled by the body when, minutes or hours later, she hears movement from the other side of the thicket surrounding

them. Not footsteps, not quite. It sounds more like plants being pulled over one another, a sort of cyclical shushing almost

like waves on a shoreline. For a moment, Treila is frozen. She doesn’t want to leave Voyne’s side, doesn’t want to lurch back

into motion again.

By the time she remembers to panic, it’s too late to grab the knife, even if she could bring herself to touch it. She slides

back into the shadow of the greenery and watches, empty-handed, as the saints emerge on the other side of the clearing.

The Loving Saint is first. He’s not bothering with any mask of civility; he’s still the hungry thing from the stairwell. His head moves from side to side as if he’s scenting the air. Scenting her, scenting shame. But if he is, the whole clearing is dripping with it; there’s no way he’ll be able to pinpoint her.

She thinks.

At any rate, Voyne’s corpse catches his attention in the next instant. His lips part. His brows draw down.

“Well,” he says, “that answers a few questions.”

“It raises a few more,” his companion says, his voice shivering through several notes at once. Treila’s head throbs, the ringing

that had faded as she grappled for her life kicking up once more.

The Absolving Saint comes to stand over Ser Voyne’s body, disgust twisting his silvered lips. His attention fixes upon the

handle of the knife where it protrudes, unmoving, from her throat. There’s so much blood, spilling out beneath her, painting

the dirt.

The Loving Saint recognizes the dagger. It’s the only explanation for the way his lips twist, for just a moment, into a feral

grin. But he doesn’t say anything. Only looks up and scans the closest shadows—for her, no doubt.

Treila does not breathe.

He’s proud of her, she thinks. Or proud of himself. What a tangle he’s made of her (or has she made it of herself?).

“I’ll tell the Lady Her pet is dead,” he says.

And then the Loving Saint flits out of existence. A blink, and he is gone.

Assumptively alone, the Absolving Saint crouches beside Voyne. He does not touch. Not her skin, not her armor, not the blade

itself. That disgust is louder, now. He looks almost ill. “What a waste,” he murmurs. Treila doesn’t think he’s referring

to the death.

After that, he is silent, and she is hollow. The quiet wraps around them both. It is strangling. It leaves no room for her panic or her sorrow, only dull attention. It’s too risky to leave, but she doesn’t want to leave. She doesn’t want to be parted from Voyne, not any more than she’s already managed. She knows she should go to Phosyne, tell her what has happened. Tell her they still have a way out. Tell her about how afraid the Loving Saint is of iron, of how much its mere appearance disgusts the Absolving Saint. There are so many threads to tug on that might lead the way to victory or, at least, safety.

They all feel so limp in her hands. She’s not quite sure who she is now.

She feels unmoored.

A part of her hopes that when the Loving Saint returns, he appears just behind her. Close enough to bite the shell of her

ear, whisper a greeting, and then tear her own throat out. But when, at last, he does rejoin them, he comes on foot once more,

from the direction he came before. This time, the plants part and stay parted. They form a path.

And once more, he is not alone.

With him are, of all people, Edouart and Simmonet. They’re too small to lift Voyne’s weight alone, of course, so there are

others too—but Treila can’t look away from them. She watches as they take Voyne’s shoulders, indifferent to the gore, indifferent

even to who they are dragging away. She remembers a night that feels like a lifetime ago, when she played dice with them and

listened to them wax poetic about Ser Voyne’s strength. Her glory.

They don’t care, now. It’s all been washed out of their brains. Ser Voyne is just an object in their hands.

No better than meat.