Briar groaned and went to get more water from the spring that ran to the side of the house. The cold winter air cleared her head a little, but it wasn’t an improvement, since now she could better dwell on her own foolishness. She hadn’t lied. She truly didn’t know what had come over her. It must’ve been the proximity. She hadn’t been this close to someone since Seraphina decided to leave on her revenge quest.
It was nothing. Rune himself thought it was nothing. She’d lost her balance. And her mouth landed on his. It would torture her for a while, but they’d both forget eventually. In the grand scheme of things, it was a rather insignificant incident.
The rest of the day, Briar busied herself with washing clothes, sheets, and the floor. She threw out the bath water, made the bed, and found food for the both of them. By nightfall, she was exhausted again, which was a good thing because it slowed her spiraling thoughts.
Rune refused to sleep on the bed, so Briar gave him blankets and a pillow, and he curled up on the floor. She thought she’d sleep in the other room, but he came with a very good reason not to.
“You said I shouldn’t be out of your sight,” he said.
“I do remember saying that,” she chuckled.
“I was out of your sight for a day and a night…”
“And look what happened. Yes, I agree.”
A sensible reason.
She burrowed under the covers and listened to his steady breathing until she fell asleep. She felt warm, safe, though mysteriously unsatisfied. Come morning, they woke up as two people who’d known each other since forever, used to each other’s routines, functioning in a strange, yet comforting way. They spent the day like they’d spent those three in the forester’s house, snowed in, except Briar didn’t shovel any snow, and Rune was a better conversationalist.
It was a bizarre day, dreamlike in a sense. Briar felt like she was floating. Every hour or so, her stomach would do a weird swoop. She wondered if she might be coming down with something.
They ate by the fire, talked about nothing, then she told him old fairytales she remembered from her childhood, as he lay on the floor and she stared at the ceiling in the dark.
The next morning, they slept in. The sun was up in the sky when Rune jumped to his feet so fast that he hit the bedside table and knocked over the water cup.
“What?” Briar sat up groggily. “What’s happening?”
“Screaming.”
“What?”
“Don’t you hear it?”
He fumbled with the latch on the window shutters. Once opened, Briar could hear it.
A sound that pierced the sky.
Seraphina.
Chapter Nineteen
They all criticized and held speeches about how revenge rotted the spirit.
The nuns were refusing them entry. Sister Hedwiga, in charge of the gate that day, informed Seraphina that she was under strict orders to not let her in without the Mother Superior present. Seraphina protested loudly, told them she was there to return the relic of Saint Vivia, but neither Hedwiga, nor the other sisters that had gathered to witness the scene could be swayed.
“They’re staring at you,” Idris whispered to her.
The nuns were taking turns looking through the gate’s open panel.
Seraphina let out a maniacal laugh. The sound sprung out of her, unexpected and impossible to control, born from the frustrations that had piled on in the last few days.
“A miracle, I know!” She addressed two sisters who were smooshing their faces together to see her through the grille. “My own two eyes, back in my head. And yes, I can see perfectly.”
The sisters were pushed aside by Sister Magdalena, who regarded her with wonder and crossed herself. She and Sister Hedwiga had been the ones who’d found her two years ago, bleeding in a ditch, and Seraphina was grateful to them, which made the fact that they weren’t allowing her in downright hurtful. They knew her, yet they were gawking at her as if she wasn’t the same girl they’d saved.
Beyond the closed gate, they whispered and prayed, shook their heads and crossed themselves too many times.
Seraphina paced, trying very hard to push down the anger that threatened to tear her – and everything within a mile radius – apart. Idris was concerned but knew to keep silent. Bramble hit the frozen ground with his hoof and nudged Idris’s shoulder,then lipped at his ear. He was thirsty and hungry after they’d pushed him harder than they should have, especially with the cart as heavy as it was. They’d had to leave behind two crates of food to make space for the Sentinel’s body.
