“So how do you think your boyfriend is going to find Death, he better find my husband really fast, I’ll go to Hell myself and whack him in the nuts if he’s slow.”

  “Huh?! Boyfriend?!” Vera squealed. “When did I ever say that he was? You’re making stuff up because you’re mad at me for not being able to kill all those people.”

  “Oh c’mon, we say you snuggling on him during the storm, you can just admit it, I won’t say a thing to anyone—I don’t even have anyone to tell, Death wouldn’t care.”

  “I would never marry a cambion.”

  “I never said marry,” Snow teased. “Your desires are bleeding into your words.”

  “I—shut up! He’s a dirty cambion and I have nothing else to say about him! Now, piss off with the accusations, little Snow, he told us to find a friendly camp.”

  “You’re taking orders from a cambion now? After all that talk, after all that hatred, you’re gonna listen to him.”

  “I—Snow—you’re killing me here. He’s just a filthy demon and nothing more than that.”

  Snow leaned her head onto Vera’s shoulder. “Can’t hide your desires from meeeee,” she sang. “I see everythingggg, I know the blush of a girl who likes a boy.”

  “I swear to the gods, Snow, I’m gonna fuckin’ slap you.”

  “If you do, you admit I’m right.”

  The two went back and forth in accusation and denial for many minutes until Snow grew bored and started singing instead.

  “Keep those pretty eyes peeled for flames or singing, Vatanil is notorious for camps gathering outside their walls, communities that wanted to escape the Sentinels’ reach but still reap the safety they provide from the threats—they’re all friendly, a bit rowdy if you don’t follow their rules, just somewhere folks go when they wanna disappeared.”

  “How do you know so much about them?”

  “I spent a few nights with them after an argument with my dad, it became an escape for me, climbing out my window and chilling with the big bearded guys, watching them wrestle each other, betting with rations and belongings—was cool, I heard Stroke Valan tore apart the group I used to hide in, ravaged them to search for me, no idea how he knew that was my hideout without help from all of the Sentinels… I only heard about it years later. There’ll still be some hiding around in the trees.”

  Snow gave her a gentle hug. “Sounds awful. Death will kill him for you when he’s able, Stroke Valan sounds like an asshole.”

  “Look,” Vera said. “See that over there? Lanterns, I hear them singing tunes… must be more of them out here than I thought if we were able to find one so fast.”

  “If it’s them.” Snow summoned her sword and carefully hid it at the front in the event they were bandits. “We can’t summon Beion if they’re enemies—maybe it’s a great big forest orgy.”

  Vera snickered as she responded. “Not like you’d want to be a part of it, you fuckin’ virgin.”

  “Halt,” a voice called. “Steady your horses. Are you friend, or a foe?” The man was small, limping, bald, extremely old, a toe dipped into the afterlife.

  That man looks like a raisin turned human, Snow thought. He doesn’t seem like a threat… I don’t want to speak to him.

  Snow hid her face and decided to let Vera do the sweet-talking.

  “Don’t think a foe would let you finish your sentence,” Vera said to him. “We’re lookin’ for a place to stay for the night.”

  “You one of Killian’s little thieves?” he asked. “Wait… I know the two of you, heard a call-to-arms for the head of a hybrid fox, a girl with white hair and… you got a third?”

  “He died,” Vera lied flatly, holding back a smile. “Fell into the river while travelling to Vatanil, got eaten by eels, funniest thing I have ever fuckin’ seen.”

  “Right… well, no point in letting you two run in circles trying to hide from the Sentinels, you can come in.”

  “Did a black-haired guy with red eyes come through?” Snow asked shyly. “Heading towards the city?”

  “Sounds like the one Killian is hunting for… thought you said he was dead.”

  “This is a different guy,” Snow lied.

  “Haven’t seen any red eyes, sorry missy.”

  I have to find him, Snow thought. I don’t know if I can follow the orders the Beion gave… all time spent idling is more moments where something could happen my sweet husband.

  “Name’s Leafy, I’m nothing special around here, just a guy who heard your talking while having a piss, thought I’d come see what the noise was. I’ll get you settled in, the others are telling tales around a bonfire, got a special event before we all turn in to sleep… I warn you, if you are one of Killian’s little thieves or informants, we are well outside the range of the Sentinels, we don’t take kindly to snooping little rats from the city.”

  Vera used Killian’s order to hunt her like it was sovereignty from their judgement. He took them to their camp of tents and wood shacks, patting them down and searching for any letters of order.

  The horses were given shelter, the wagon left with them. Vera locked it; Snow gave Esroh a gentle pat and a kiss, also bestowing the other unnamed horses with a hard scratch and a carrot.

  “The boys’ll feed your horses free of charge,” said Leafy. “We have a surplus of hay and apples.”

  Snow was suspicious of their hospitality, keeping her sword in her grip while she walked and jerking her chin towards every man that had a weapon of his own.

  “Relax, little Snow,” Vera whispered. “I’ve stayed at a camp like this when I was a tiny girl… they’re men with daughters of their own, wives of their own, they won’t lay a finger on you.”

  They joined the toppled logs around the bonfire that hosted a horde of babbling men. They cheered with their tankards at the new additions to their camp and brought them ale.

  The speaker was a young lad, keen on the idea that he’d seen a spirit of the Voiceless One, a lingering vengeance trapped deep in the Void.

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  Snow raised her hand like a student at a school and waved her hand wildly. “Who is the Voiceless One?” she asked.

  Her question brought a few laughs, not of mockery, but joy, they loved telling the story of gods no matter how many times told.

  The Voiceless One was a mortal man with a gift from the Void, a connection to the afterlife that let him call forth the voices from the beyond. He was a Valan man, of course, hence the worship. No one knew his age, some guessed he was around before kings became kings, when the mountains were pebbles. They say that a desperate man filled with hatred came to him during a stormy night, begging to hear the voice of his wife just one more time.

  The mortal searched the Void for her soul and found nothing. ‘You took her!’ the grieving man claimed. ‘You’re hiding her from me!’

  The grieving man then ripped out the mortal’s tongue with only his fist, stabbing him until his lungs filled with blood. The storm raged and screamed, thousands of thunderous booms and strikes every second. The sky bled into a deep crimson, the stars burning a hole into the clouds to witness an unforgiveable sin.

  And thus, the mortal became the Voiceless One, trapped in an endless cycle of summoning his own presence back to Valan with a voice he didn’t have… some claim he takes the form of ravens, some claim pigeons, but the common agreement amongst man was that if you saw a black owl with black eyes, death was coming for you, and if they had yellow, the Voiceless One was trying to communicate with you, tempt you into service. He became a god.

  How did they know this? Well, the grieving man didn’t weasel into freedom. Judgement loomed with a heavy gavel, a jury of spirits found him undeniably guilty of stripping the world of a pure soul who only ever wished to guide others through their losses.

  Black owls haunted him in his sleep, black eyes peeping through the slits in his curtains and scraping their lawful claws against the glass to remind him he was a sinner. The once lush trees surrounding his home died and became bare over a single passing of the moon, the owls hissed at him from the highest branches, circling him even as he travelled into two to trade.

  And then yellowed-eyed owls took flight, just not to grieving man they tormented. Across Valan, many experienced the calmness of submissive owls hopping to their feet, gentle eyes, purring. The warriors sensed their summons from nature, sharpening their axes, donning their armour, and set out to follow where the world was calling them to go.

  One marching man became two, then two became ten, then ten became an army—four-hundred raging knights bashed their fists on the door of the grieving man, ordering him to explain why every owl had converged upon his home.

  The grieving man fell to his knees in front of them all, admitting his crimes and begging for his life. He pleaded. He cried. He pulled a letter from his dead wife, claiming it was all for her.

  A single owl from the trees flew down and squeezed their eyes shutting, then opened, revealing eyes blacker than the night itself.

  The Voiceless One chose death.

  Strung up to a tree, each man plunged a knife into his flesh to honour their calling. When done, each man was greeted by an owl at their feet, bowing, offering them a gift to hear the voices of their loved ones, and some even returned home to find their ill family had sprung back to health, some even returned to find their freshly dead friends or relatives had dug themselves out of their graves before the maggots ate their flesh.

  ‘A miracle,’ the men claimed. And so the tales carried of the god who gave orders without a tongue; a god who can cure illness; a god who can revive the dead, only if one is fast enough; a god who can do all of this, if you do his bidding.

  “It can often be simple,” the speaker said to Snow. “He doesn’t like the people from Vatanil, we don’t know why, he gifts us with pleasant dreams of those we’ve lost when we sacrifice those that deserve punishment in those walls.”

  He pointed behind Snow to a cage dangling high atop a tree, kept there by a thick rope. On the cage, a black owl, dark eyes, blinking at Snow with a curious tilt of the head—inside it, a man starved to a skeleton, gasping for breaths, arms tied behind his back. Below it, a square pit dug metres deep, filled with snakes, scorpions, anything venomous they could find.

  “A sacrifice,” the speaker said. “That is one of Killian Entrail’s little thieves… he is a non-believer, as are Godwin and Harren, the only one of the Valans who acknowledge the power of our god is Stroke Valan, he should be king, he should have power, that must be what the Voiceless One wants… but we can only guess.”

  “Cool,” Vera said. “My mother believed in the Voiceless One.”

  “Then your mother was a good woman,” the speaker said. “Is she with us?”

  “No,” Vera said in shame. “She was… killed by someone who lived in Vatanil.”

  “Death to them!” the group chanted. “Our new friend, if they are still alive, the Voiceless One pays his dues always.”

  Vera felt sick to her stomach, holding Snow’s hand firmly. The group continued to share insults to the ‘killer’ of Vera’s mother.

  “I think it’s time!” Leafy yelled. “Gather around the sacrifice, the Voiceless One is flapping their wings!”

  Leafy grabbed a plethora of thick sticks taped and glued into a very long spear, a tiny shard of glass stuck at the end using sap. He jabbed it into the bare cheek of the prisoner.

  “Wakey wakey, sinner,” sang Leafy. He stabbed the prisoner in the armpit. “Here comes the Voiceless One.”

  No one could hear his pleas. “Please let me go,” he said to the owl. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have taken orders from Killian Entrail. I will leave you alone. I have a family.”

  The owl hissed and flew away.

  “The Voiceless One has spoken!” one cried out. “Death to the follower of Killian Entrail!”

  A ring of figures formed around the pit with authoritarian fists raised in a unanimous vote to execute him.

  Snow was excited to see the man die; she liked the tale of the Voiceless One, whispering prayers to him to guide her to Death and give her a miracle.

  “Follower of Killian, do you have any rebuttal to the accusations of which you are found guilty?” The speaker didn’t wait for the man to respond before continuing. “I invoke the wrath of the Voiceless one to trap your spirit in endless suffering, may you never find peace or calm. May you repeat your death endlessly in the afterlife. Pass me the stick, my friend, I shall cut the rope.”

  “Gods, please save me,” the caged man wheezed. “Oh mighty Rennus. Mighty Rennus, God of Redemption, I bid that you save me from my cage… please, my life shall be yours.”

  He called upon several other gods, and none of them answered his call—why would they? Pledging his life to multiple gods at once without care of their feelings, such an act of whoredom.

  The shard of glass cut through a rope securing the bottom of the cage. With all his strength, the prisoner tightened a weak fist around the squares of iron, squeezing hard. Crimson worms peeked from his palm, travelling from finger to feet and dripping to the snakes below. They tasted his bleed, launching upwards like snapping crocodiles trying to reach their snack.

  Leafy took the long spear and jabbed the prisoner with the glass. He held on firmly, still begging. “Let’s give it to the newcomers!” one yelled. “Give them the honour!”

  A small lad approached with a bow and a singular arrow. He offered it to Vera, however Snow was quick to snatch it. She aimed; she nocked; she pulled the arrow back.

  This is a lot simpler than killing a dragon, she thought. I have little experience with bows… but this is an easy target, Death would be so proud of me.

  Vera joined the chanting in support of Snow’s arrow.

  She put the arrow right in the middle of his chest, piercing the windpipe and forcing a cough of blood out his lips. He looked up at his hand then at the arrow, using the last of the air in his lungs to curse the Voiceless One.

  He fell into the pit with a thud; the others, Snow included, rushed to the edges and erupted into vehement clapping and cheers.

  The snacks dug, sinking their fangs into his neck, his face, all he could do was wiggle his head to try throw them off. Legs snapped at the knees, arm twisted the wrong way, the owls circled above with happy hoots.

  “We will get good dreams tonight!” Leafy yelled. “Our god is a happy one! Rejoice!”

  The young boy took the bow from Snow. Her breathing was hard and heavy through her nose, a smile on her face, eyes wide and shaking from ecstasy and stuck in a trance of bliss.

  “You look happy,” Vera whispered teasingly, putting a hand on Snow’s waist. “It really is a pity you are so obsessed with Death, a night like this can only be finished one real way.”

  “I want more,” Snow said firmly.

  “Hm?” Vera smirked.

  “I want more,” she said again. “I want to kill more; I want to kill any that threaten Death’s plan… I need it.”