Page 10 of On Burning Paths

From the very beginning, I was aware of her beauty. That was the easy part. Beauty is simple to catalog and set aside. I've met beautiful women before and felt nothing beyond the initial observation.

Nyx is different, and it took me longer than it should have to understand why.

It's not the way she looks. It's the way she thinks. The way she threw herself into these Trials for her sister without a single useful weapon or a day of real combat experience, yet somehow she's kept pace with vampires and berserkers through sheer stubbornness and a mind that never stops working. It's how naturally she accepted Fenric into the group, how she faced Valtor with nothing but a flower in her hand, and how she spent hours sitting in that freezing river, talking softly to a man who couldn't hear her because the silence was worse.

Every time I think I have a complete picture of her, she reveals another side I wasn't expecting.

And the more I know her, the worse it gets. The more drawn to her I am. The more I find myself watching her when she isn't looking, tracing the line of her braid, the loose tendrils at the back of her neck, the curve of her waist. Even covered head to toe in dirty fighting leathers, thinking about her does things to me that no woman has managed before. Not like this. Not with this particular combination of wanting her and genuinely not being able to predict what she'll do next.

In the middle of the Trials. In a cursed forest.

I don't know whether to be irritated or resigned.

We break fully away from the trees, shaking me out of my thoughts and leading us to the edge of a massive flat clearing. Dusk continues to fall, lavender skies turning to a deep purple and giving way to the oppressive, flat night this area is known for. In all the times I’ve competed in the Trials of Souls, I’ve not once ever known the comfort of starlight in the darkest hours of the journey.

“Gods,” Nyx whispers, coming to a stop beside me, “I hate how suddenly things can change here. It makes me feel like reality is warped.”

Reality is warped. Even just standing here, it’s clear to me that this area is magicked. The stuff oozes up from the ground, as potent and stinging as a poisonous fog. Though it’s a clearing in the forest, the ground isn’t clear. It’s dotted with small, jutting stones lined up like falling dominoes.

A cemetery. That can’t be good.

Fenric continues moving, like he might walk right past me, and I reach out my arm, stopping him in his tracks. His chest connects with my arm, which doesn’t move, and with him this close I can feel the radiating heat from his body. The guy just burns and burns—heat, energy, whatever—constantly. Today was the first day it seemed as though he’d actually gotten enough to eat.

"Careful," I warn, staring out at the cemetery before us. This place is cursed. I feel it down to my bones, a steady pulse echoing through me like a cosmic signal. Maybe I've simply learned to recognize the wreckage my father leaves behind, or maybe it's part of being a demi-god, but I've always been able to sense cursed places.

Fenric doesn’t step forward, and I lower my arm. Slowly, carefully, he kneels down and touches the closest gravestone to us, running his fingers over the text. It must be written in the berserker tongue, not a language I know how to read, but Fenric goes unearthly still. I can still sense his heartbeat as it slows almost dangerously before speeding up again.

What is on that gravestone?

“It’s the gravestone of a child,” he says slowly. “A berserker child.”

What would the grave of a berserker child be doing here? My mind starts turning through the possibilities. This could be a ploy. Something intended to set Fenric off. Or, it could be something even more sinister.

Nyx takes a slow, careful step forward, reading a different marker. “This one is from a human. Near where I grew up. Also a child. Just a baby.”

“What is this place?” Fenric asks, as they both step back, and I wonder if they can feel the weight of the curse.

Fenric doesn't step forward, and I lower my arm. Slowly, carefully, he kneels and brushes the dirt from the nearest gravestone, running his fingers over the inscription. It must be written in the berserker tongue because his expression goes utterly still.

Nyx crouches beside another marker. "This one belonged to a berserker child."

I scan the rows of stones. Different races. Different kingdoms. The same date carved into every one. A date I recognize.

My stomach turns.

"The victims of the Slaughter of Innocence," I say, my voice low. "We've all heard that day spoken about. This is a collected graveyard of everyone who was lost."

“But…why?” Nyx asks, looking pale, almost queasy. Before, when we came across the swamp that sucked the life clean from that knight’s body, she’d turned around and gotten sick. Now, she looks like she might crumple. I watch her carefully. “Why wouldn’t they be buried elsewhere? With their families, or at least in their home villages?”

Fenric frowns. “I’m just confused. I know I heard about it, but I can’t quite remember which horrible thing the gods did that time…”

"The Slaughter of Innocence," I say, and even saying the name aloud leaves a bad taste in my mouth. "Valtor and Aqualis were at war. When it came time to face each other directly, both of them took children from their own homes, hundreds of them, and used them as a barrier between their armies." I pause. "Neither god stopped. They simply used their armies to cut through them to get to each other."

The silence that follows has no good response.

The Slaughter of Innocence began as a simple disagreement between Valtor and Aqualis, which quickly ramped up into an all-out battle. When Aqualis killed one of Valtor's favorite warriors, he retaliated by pulling one of her children, a demi-god, into the fray and slitting the child's throat right in front of her.

Aqualis had raged at the sight of it, and the battle ceased to be a war between the gods' armies. At first, they slaughtered only demi-god children. Before long, though, even that wasn't enough. The two gods began pulling children from random villages, summoning them into a war they had no part in. It became a massacre.