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I grinned. “She can try.”
I slung the woman’s limp arm across my shoulders. I gave a heave and a ho, but it all added up to no avail and the woman slumped back to the ground, the back of her head whacking against the cobblestones . . .Oops.
“Out of the way, muscles,” Kaleb teased as he gathered her with ease. His blue eyes settled on me, a shit-eating grin saddled proudly on his mouth as he drawled, “The things us men have to do for you women folk.”
I rolled my eyes—knowing full well he was just teasing, trying to get a rise out of me. Kaleb was incredibly respectful of women; Ezra wouldn’t have raised him any other way. Still, his words required a response. With the mighty strength of the Goddess of Storms, I powered up my flicker finger and unleashed its wrath against the tip of his turned-up nose.
“Ouch,” he exclaimed, wiggling it from side to side.
“Come along, peasant,” I instructed as I began to walk.
“Yes, your hein-ass,” he replied, voice etched with sarcasm as he caught up to me, his long strides slowing a hair to match mine.
When we were out of the village and back in the comforting embrace of the woods, Kaleb cleared his throat. “Why do you watch them?”
I plucked at my bottom lip as I worked over his question, my stride slowing but not stopping. “To be honest? I don’t know. Maybe I’m just like the others who stand there and watch. The Cleansings are horrible, yet I can’t look away. And neither can they.” It wasn’t a lie. Icouldn’tlook away. Time after time, I had proven I was as useless as everyone else—a bystander. No, worse—an accomplice because I did nothing to stop it. Nothing to stop the disgusting pillaging of innocent life.
I was just as bad as the soldiers I had come to hate.
“I don’t think that’s true. You’re not like them, Sage.”
He was not wrong.
I wasnotlike them.
In fact, I had more in common with the girl they burned—that is, if she was indeed Cursed. I glanced at the middle-aged woman Kaleb carried bridal-style. He made it seem almost effortless, but the light sweat just above his brow hinted otherwise.
The mossy ground cushioned my knee-high leather boots as we walked silently among the whispering trees. A quartet of crickets played their rhythmic tune, and once in a while, an owl would chime in. In the far distance, the wolves howled, and although the sound was far enough away, it was still close enough to make the hair on the back of my neck raise—a standing ovation for the high-pitched, haunting notes.
Tucked safely underneath the woodland canopy of ancient oak trees, our humble log cottage stood. The stone chimney puffed out gray billows of smoke, scenting the air with the heavenly smell of burning birch.
“Kids? Is that you?” Ezra bustled out from the bushes, her spindly fingers plucking a twig from her unruly gray hair. Her cane tapped the ground, bobbing from side to side as she walked towards us. She wore her usual hand-patched garb—old, yet colorful, the tattered ends cut off at her thick, knobby knees, exposing her bony, bowed legs. A handmade satchel was slung across her wilting torso, most likely filled with various herbs, berries, or plants. And probably a few rocks.
She sniffed the air, her milky white eyes aimed at the sky. “You three smell of ash and despair. Three?” Her eyelids closed and she sniffed again. “Three,” she confirmed with a satisfied nod. “Who is the third?”
“A lady from the village. She’s unconscious—she has a lump on her head,” I responded before Kaleb had a chance to rat on me. Despite the lack of details, it was the truth.
“Oh, I see,” Ezra replied as she cracked a smile at her own overused joke, her prominent chin tipped to the sky. Moonlight filtered through the swaying branches, illuminating her laugh lines and crow’s feet, handsewn by time. “Bring her in and I’ll take a look.”
She started to make her way to the cottage door, but before she entered, she turned and pointed the barren twig accusingly at me. “And you, child of half-truths, you are lucky I don’t cut outyourtongue.”
I shivered. The vivid memory of that bloody knob twisting in the girl’s mouth surfaced. I pressed my tongue between my teeth, reassuring myself it was still there.
Kaleb offered a halfheartedI told you soshrug.
I squinted at him.
He chuckled and followed Ezra inside, careful not to knock the woman’s head against the doorframe as he passed through—not that I could say he provided the same care when it came to her foot. He gawked at me, looking to see if I had noticed. I had.
“Whoops,” he mouthed before he continued inside.
Taking a moment, I inhaled, my lungs drinking their fill of burning birch mixed with woodland night air, before I followed them in. I ducked my head under the arched doorway, the familiar smells of cinnamon and peppermint and wood wafting towards me—the smells of home.
What the cottage lacked in size, it made up for by being cozy. The entry was small but open to the comfortable living room and humble, messy kitchen. On the far wall, a handcrafted ladder, more crooked than straight, slanted against the wall, leading up to the loft which sat overtop of two rooms. The first was Ezra’s, and the second was a tiny bathing room—if you could even call a bucket of water and a porcelain basin that. As we did not have the luxuries of plumbing, the latrine was outside, and the bath was the lake.
This place—this small cottage with its arched doorways and foundation of wood—was the only home I had ever known.
Kaleb placed the woman carefully on the settee, his six-foot frame returning to its full height as he straightened. He crossed his arms and turned his head to the side, surveying the slumbering female. I glanced at her, pegging her to be in her early forties.
