The ancients built the Zorn river canal to be straight for kilometers without any bends. That was the only reason Aurie ever did her laundry there. First, it was because Maud had a habit of getting distracted and wander away, following the flow of the water. Then she had Alden and it was doubly difficult to keep an eye on them until they were old enough that she didn’t have to watch them anymore. This spot, on the actual Zorn river, where it curved around barriers of trees along rocks and remnants of ancient cities, was where she truly preferred. It was a longer walk, sure, but before she had Maud, her neighbors, Alexandre and Addelaide Kelger, were more than happy to let her cross their land to do her washing.

  She would bask in the sun and listen to the sounds of the rushing waters, often joined by Addie for some friendly gossip. The old woman always had the best wine and gossip. They would sit on the very rock that Aurie was dangling her bare feet into the water from and talk about the other wives and women in Talkro. For a time, even Leta joined them. Addie made sure Sadie kept their husbands busy on small projects around their house so they would be undisturbed in their talks about their husbands’ stubbornness, their bad habits, how much they wished that small irritating things they did would fix themselves.

  It wasn’t only gossip about their husbands or the village, but also advice from an old woman who had lived twice their lifetimes. About sex, about how to manage a man’s temperament, how to run a house properly. Gardening and cooking were always Aurie’s favorites to go to Addie about. Everything she knew about cooking had come from that woman. The old woman who lived in the house now possessed by a holy warrior. She was the mother that Aurie never had. Someone she could go to when the kids were sick. Someone who knew how to deal with the absurd things they got into. How to weather the chaos of everyday life.

  Just over a year ago, mid-season, Aurie remembered, Addie was finally too weak to leave the house without someone to hold onto. Her husband, Sadie, had passed a couple years before that. Not passed–was killed. Along with Balor’s father. She never cared about what had happened to the two, along with a few others from the village, but the way Addie went from being an iron-willed woman she wished had been her mother to the frail elderly woman felt too sudden. Leta couldn’t bear to see her when she was too weak to leave her own bed on her own. Aurie kept by her side to the last.

  “I need to tell you something, goldie,” Addie had grabbed her hand and pulled it over her heart, youthful brown eyes looking up to her from a face of wrinkles and laugh lines. Her skin had been pale, sallow. It was the first time Aurie was reminded that the woman she was looking at had lived seventy-seven years.

  Aurie set the rinsed linen in the basket and leaned back on her hands with a glance over her shoulder. Maud had finally crested the hill to the other side. What had brought these memories back to her? It was what she had said to her that day, in between her naps and moaning pain of her body coming to absolution.

  “If I had been able to bear children,” Addie had said, “I’d still wish they were you and Leta. I love you both so very much. You needn’t worry yourself for me, goldie. My golden flower and her curious little minion, my dark rose. My two roses. My time is here.”

  Aurie had cried into her arm, wishing for anything that could heal her, for her to leap to her feet and say that the months of her slowly fading toward death had been a jest of some sort. She pled for Addie to stop talking like that, to concentrate on getting better, that she had to stay. That she needed her. But Addie only smiled.

  “No,” Addie had gripped her hand tighter, still barely a squeeze. “You’re stronger than you know. I’ve always seen it. From the day Balor brought you home, I knew. There’s a strength within you, deep inside you, and it is good. Don’t let that foolish husband of yours make you waste it. You will—no, must—let it out, my dear. My darling daughter. You were meant for more than this simple village and its simple problems. There’s always a reason we meet people, always a reason that things happen the way they do. I was meant to meet you, to have someone to watch grow and love, a reason you were brought to me, and one day you will know that reason, as I have finally understood why you are mine now.”

  Aurie ran her fingers through the water. A reason. Is this the reason? This fight for her family’s lives, this barbarian holy warrior who now lives in Addie’s house, this moment of calm in the center of a raging storm?

  Aurie looked over her shoulder again. Still no sign of anyone. She reached for the last linen. Maud better return soon. There was no way she would carry both baskets over that hill and up the next herself.

  Something took hold of her hair.

  Her head jerked back as she was dragged from the rock. From the river. Her heels scraped dirt and gravel. Sharp rocks tore at her dress. She reached. Nothing but air. She screamed. Silence. She shook her body, desperate to tug away. She kicked.

  Aurie’s back slammed hard against a tree, upright. Her feet were off the ground. The back of her head was twisted by her hair being tied around the tree.

  She raised her arms to untie herself. Her wrists were pressed into the tree, bound by an unseen force. Kicking was the same. Impossible. She tried to think but it was a void of struggling to move. Struggling to unbind herself.

  “He is clever, isn’t He?” A dark-haired woman stood before her with a head leaning curiously to one side.

  Aurie’s heart was drumming. She struggled harder.

  The woman stepped toward her, a sword of dark metal glistening with sunlight on its worn and jagged edges, her dress worn and tattered to toss revealingly in the wind. Then, she stepped into the shadows of the trees. Horns, feathered wings, birdlike legs, and glowing red and yellow eyes.

  Lilith.

  “No,” Aurie tried to say. There was nothing but air from her lungs.

  Lilith was a blur at her. The sword dug through her. She felt it drive deep into the tree behind her. Her head rocked forward. Lilith’s bone thin fingers gripped the handle as blood spilled over them, thick and dark. Her other hand lifted Aurie’s chin so their eyes met. She gasped for air as her lungs squeezed all the air from within her.

  “I was wrong all this time,” Lilith smiled, fangs glistening. “Lucky for her, pity for you.”

  Draka saw the boar before he saw Maud. He didn’t need the True Sight to see what it was. To see the fur matted in dripping ichor, the tusks like upward curving saw blades, the hooves black as night. And once again, Draka silently cursed at himself, he forgot his weapons and armor. Just his shirt, trousers, and boots. Not even his bow.

  He lowered himself to behind a tree. The boar was on the other side of the road, the Abbey side. It was between him and the house. The house that no longer had anyone around it. No Monastics to aid him. The weakness and exhaustion from last night still gripped him, even with the cleansing of his body and prayer for revitalization. If he faced the beast, he would die…quickly.

  Maud came into view. Blood pumped through Draka’s veins. She was running right for it, nearly as fast as Vigora could gallop.

  Vigora! He could whistle for her, perhaps distract the boar long enough for him to get Maud to safety. Where were the others? The boar didn’t seem to notice her yet. It sniffed the air. Thank heavens the wind was going toward the river and not the house.

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  Draka moved as fast as he could. He leapt onto the road, landing with his hand over Maud’s mouth and his arm wrapped around her waist.

  He pulled her off of the road and into the cover of the trees. The boar was sniffing the air again.

  Her eyes were wider than he imagined possible. Trembling ran from her into his arms as he held her against the tree while covering her mouth. He put a finger to his lips for her to be quiet.

  She nodded shakily. He lowered his hand from her mouth and looked toward the boar. It turned toward the river.

  Only a toss of leaves were left by the boar’s leap back into the shadow of the forest, out of sight.

  “Ma,” Maud mouthed with a nod toward the river.

  Draka’s eyes followed. Too dangerous to go for Aurie with Maud. He could lose them both. Far more dangerous to go for the boar. He needed to choose. One or the other. Not both. Not unless…Draka grabbed Maud’s hand and tugged her into a sprint toward his house. Toward his spear. And toward the only way he could ensure she was safe while he faced the demonic boar.

  Faster than Aurie was able to see, Lilith pulled the sword from her gut in a splash of blood in a spin. Her blade parried another. A Monastic knight had charged her.

  Aurie’s feet hit the ground. She doubled over. She was able to press her hands tightly against the gushing wound. Her blood and more poured out of her no matter how hard she pressed.

  Lilith met every attack with ease. She was faster than him. His head fell beside his collapsing armored body. She couldn't breathe, but she found herself looking into the eyes of the head that rolled to her feet. She saw the blinking horror stop and life fade from them.

  Three more leapt in a line between Aurie and Lilith, who sneered. Two more jumped over their heads with spears stabbing for her.

  Aurie leaned against the tree. Sliding down, pressing back. Away, she thought. Hold it in.

  Her knees were numb. Her head spun. Her arms were becoming too heavy to move. She was helpless.

  Lilith took to the air and came down on the line of shields. They raised their wall over their heads, bracing as she landed on them with a twisting reach. One touch and the knight she barely brushed collapsed to the ground with lolled eyes.

  Without hesitation, one of the shield bearers slit his throat. Not more than a few steps from Aurie. She was sliding down the tree and he only ignored her to launch himself at Lilith.

  Lilith tore through him in an instant and rushed the new break in the shield wall.

  They were nearly fast enough.

  Draka kept hold of Maud’s hand, glad she was a runner and could keep up. The house…where were the Monastics? Where were Balor and Alden? It didn’t matter at this point. He needed to get Maud to his bible. It was the only thing with blessings still strong enough to give her a small aura of protection. A small aura.

  He pulled her up the porch and inside. Good, his spear and sword were leaning beside the door. Not anointed, but ready.

  “What is going on?” Maud tried to pull her hand from his as he pulled her to the board to below the floor. He threw it open. He grabbed her and lifted her up as she cried out, “Wait, no, don’t leave me! Don’t leave me! Draaaakaaa!”

  He dropped her in and pulled his bible onto her lap. Then he dropped the board over her wide-eyed confusion.

  Whistle, spear, sword, and he leapt from the porch toward the river.

  Vigora sprinted from the direction of the village and he was on her back.

  Vigora galloped her fastest. Draka held tightly with his legs. One hand held the spear ready to throw. His other held the sword, his sheath dropped somewhere on the road behind him.

  Aurie’s wrists shot upward. She was lifted from the ground and slammed against the tree. Bound again. Everything had become wet, slippery, foggy.

  Lilith touched another in a spin to parry his comrade. They were the last two. The one she touched fell with his eyes rolling back.

  Aurie was too weak even to struggle against her invisible binds. All she could do was watch as the touched one rocked his eyes back into place.

  He charged Aurie with a thrust of his spear through her chest. There was no breath. There was no muscles left to move. Only pain. Crippling, searing, unimaginable pain. Her assailant was smiling. Not his smile, not a natural smile, but one that made his mouth tear itself wider than it should.

  The last standing knight pressed against Lilith with a flurry of blades and his shield bashing Lilith from taking to the air.

  He dodged back from attacking her to send his blade through the back of Aurie’s attacker, of his own brother. In the same movement, he met Lilith with his shield and a quick parry. This one was faster than the others, stronger. Like Draka. Only…

  Not as skilled as Draka.

  His sword arm severed from his shoulder. His head fell like a tumbling ball into the river. In one swing, Lilith’s blade disarmed and beheaded him. Lilith growled in irritation. And she was on Aurie with her blade to Aurie’s throat.

  If Aurie could blink, if she could do anything but hang against the tree with blood pouring down her legs to pool beneath her feet, it would have been longer than how quickly Lilith came for her. A glance toward the hill and Lilith sliced her throat with a jerk.

  Lilith shot her a winking smile and disappeared in a cloud of smoky tendrils.

  Aurie was released from her binds and grasped at the flow from her sliced throat. She fell to the ground. She didn’t double over. She didn’t try to catch herself. She tried to breathe.

  Darkness was the blood splattered leaves beneath her fingertips. There was nothing else. Pain...

  Bleeding...

  Air...

  Nothing.

  Draka threw the spear as hard as he could back toward the house before leaping from Vigora’s back.

  He landed on the ground running for her. He was already praying. Calling for God’s aid.

  He dropped to his knees in a slide through gored leaves to her side, between the knights who had died defending her, reaching. Blue light burst from his hands before he pressed them onto her stomach and over her bloody hands gripping her neck.

  Her lolling stopped. Her wide blue eyes were on his, her face full of horror and awe.

  He lifted her into his arms and ran for the road ahead of Vigora toward the house. Vigora knew what to do. She galloped for him, ducking as Draka leapt as high as he could while carrying her. Vigora caught them on her back and carried them toward the house.

  Draka kept praying. As he pulled the spear from where it stuck from the road on the way, he prayed. Prayed that Balor and Alden were still safe.

  He felt Aurie’s eyes on him the entire time.

  When he arrived at the house, he carried her in, set her on her feet, pointed at the board to below, and left her there. In a leap, he was on Vigora again. Only, as she rushed down the hill, he was searching for them. Any sign of them.

  “Almighty God, I beg you to lead me to them,” Draka prayed.

  There was no answer.

  Vigora sprinted. He leaned, his lips trembling and his eyes beginning to burn with frustration. With confusion. With fear.

  “Please, Lord, I need you. I can’t save them on my own!”