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The smell rolls across the clearing a second later, warm bread and sweet fruit tangled with spoiled meat, fermented wine, and the thick sweetness of decay.
I cover my nose, but it’s already coating the back of my throat.
Ripe.
Rotten.
Ripe again.
The Harvest hasn’t preserved the feast.
It has trapped it in the same fucking cycle as everything else.
I gag.
Mariah covers her mouth. “Nope.”
The crowd forms a circle around the table. Hundreds of people but nobody speaks. Then the dead Brides emerge next from the corn and dirt, one after another weaving through the guests. All with red ribbons around their wrist and mouths stitched while roots drag behind them.
They surround the table and bow to me.
“Stop doing that.” I command but they don’t listen.
The Harvest raises one enormous hand.
The ground answers.
Four chairs push through the dirt beside the table, roots peeling away from their legs as they rise into place.
Three together.
One across from them.
I know that arrangement.
So does Ezra.
“No.”
The word leaves him quietly, but when I look at him, every trace of color has drained from his face.
“It’s starting.”
“The Communion?”
“No,” Malakai says.
There’s something in his voice that makes me turn.
His eyes are fixed on the chairs.
“The Sowing.”
Cold spreads across my skin.
“But you said that hasn’t happened.”
“It hasn’t.”
