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My gaze shot to a nearby maple, its crown bare, and all the thin branches and spindly twigs did was bend to the wind. Nerves. Nothing but nerves, and it wouldn’t get better if I wasted more time.
The moment I turned toward the stables, my nose scrunched at a sour whiff. What had started as an unpleasant but faint smell three weeks ago now wafted around the few houses and stores, so gagging it put the stench of fish and manure to shame.
Rose stood at the corner of an empty merchant stand, watching how a man wheeled a corpse on a handcart toward the cellar. Another man squatted over the open hutch, yelling something at whoever was down there with the corpses.
Against the quiver in my stomach, I walked up to her. “What’s happened?”
“By Helfa, so many times I told Sigward to shovel the shit from his pig’s sty.” Fanning her face, she jutted toward the cellar. “Now they found a corpse somewhere in a ditch. The moment they opened that hutch to toss him in there… Oh, that stench! I’ve never smelled anything like this before. What is it?”
All blood drained from my face as I inched toward the cellar, my muscles so stiff that my lungs struggled to expand. Good thing they did, because the stench turned more nauseating the closer I came, yet the foreboding twitch of a smile tugged the corners of my lips. No, this couldn’t be…
A man emerged from the cellar, a rag wrapped around his mouth and nose. He shook his head and hiked his shoulders in nothing short of shocked disbelief. Across his arms lay a small body, its spindly arms speckled in dark patches of… of…
I froze.
Had he truly…?
“It’s the boy!” the man shouted, muffled through the fabric covering his mouth as he lowered the child to the ground, stepped back, and shook his head yet again. “Devil be damned, that stench. I’ve never seen anything like it. The bloated belly, the black fingertips, the… the green and gray on his skin. By Helfa, what is this?”
A whisper escaped me. “It’s rot.”
Tears swelled behind my eyes as I breathed through the heart-splintering sobs that built inside my chest. I’d seen enough rot that I could tell that this child had decomposed in there for a while—likely from the moment Enosh and I had left the Pale Court.
I heaved through an onslaught of warmth in my chest. Hating Enosh seemed impossible right then. Perhaps I even loved him in that moment, where my worth took on the shape of a rotting child. He’d stood by his word. All this time, children had been at rest across the realm, all over a vow of ‘til death do us part to my husband undying.
Rose hesitantly walked up beside me. “What is this?”
“I have no idea,” I said and turned back toward the stable, while more villagers poked their heads out of their homes, watching the commotion. “I have to speak to Thorsten.”
Had to return to the Pale Court and stand by my promise as Enosh had. No more delays. No more doubts. Pa hadn’t raised a daughter who broke vows, yet standing by it ever so faithful had never seemed as right as it did now.
Somewhere, a bell rang.
I found Thorsten just as he emerged from the stable and leaned a pitchfork against the filthy wall beside the muck heap. “What’s all this about?”
“Just the corpse of a child. A sickness, maybe. Who can say?” I unhooked the basket from my arm and reached it out to him. “I’ll take the mule saddled, with all these things stored in properly stitched saddle bags if you have them. If not, a harness will do. Just make sure it’s secure.”
He folded his arms in front of his chest and cocked his head. “You have the coin?”
“Something worth more than the coin you want.” When he took the basket, I glanced over my shoulder to ensure nobody was looking, then fingered the stone from my pouch. “Bring the mule to our hut, watered, fed, saddled, and ready. Do this, and you’ll get this stone.” A glint came over his eyes, but the moment he reached for it, I dropped it into my pouch. “If anybody sees me with this, I’ll have my throat slit around the next corner. You’ll do well keeping it to yourself until you take it to Airensty and sell it there for more coin than any militia would ever hand over for a mule.”
He pursed his lips for a moment, and his head tilted from side to side as he considered my proposal, but he eventually gave a curt nod. “Before the sun stands at its highest, I’ll bring him up to your hut. You better still have the stone then, or I’ll keep the mule and all your—” His attention shifted to something behind me. “And then I’ll sell the mule straight to them.”
I turned.
The blood stilled in my veins.
A robed priest led a black donkey toward the courthouse, while another sat on its back with a bell in his hand, letting itsca-lank-ca-lankresonate through Elderfalls. Everyone came together in earnest, torn between the gossip about the odd corpse and the shouts of the magistrate calling for order and silence.
Not good.
“Are you quite alright, Elisa?” Thorsten asked. I didn’t notice the sway in my legs until he gripped my elbow and steadied me. “You’ve gone ashen.”
“I’m fine.” The scratch in my voice betrayed too much fear. “You know what? I changed my mind. Toss a saddle on the mule and bring him here. I’ll do rest on my own.”
His brows knitted, but he turned away and disappeared into the stable, leaving me with my heart clanking against my esophagus. Damn it to hell and back, I’d waited too long. One wrong move, one flicker of suspicion, and they would be on my tail.
“Good people of—” The priest leading the mule turned to the other, exchanging mumbles before he returned his attention to the gathered crowd. “Yes, Elderfalls. High Priest Dekalon issued the capture of a woman. Fifty pieces of gold—” At the communal gasp, the priest raised his arms in an appeasing manner. “Yes, yes, fifty gold pieces shall be rewarded to whoever arrests her and brings her to the nearest temple, a priest, or any loyal servant of Helfa. Preferably alive.”
