"My children, we have been tested," his voice rings clear. "And in our weakness, we have been tempted."
His gaze sweeps the crowd; I feel it pass over me like a hand.
"Greed," he continues. "Pride. Curiosity. These are the cracks through which darkness enters."
Candles flicker. Shadows leap along the walls.
"We must answer with humility. With prayer. With obedience. God has shown us death today—not as punishment, but as warning."
Heads bow. Hands fold. I follow them.
Still, my thoughts slide, unbidden, back to the pasture—the darkened wool, the two small marks. Back to the woods, to the clearingwashed silver by moonlight, to the weight of stillness before the night moved again.
Red eyes.
A wrongness that did not belong to men.
My stomach tightens.
What if—
The thought barely forms before fear smothers it.
What if they were right? The travellers. The man. The word he spoke. What if something else has already crossed a line?
My pulse races. I imagine myself stepping forward, opening my mouth, trying to explain. I imagine the questions that would follow. The looks. The way the air would change.
I would have to speak of the woods. Of night. Of being alone where I should not have been. Of knowing things I should not know.
Mama’s hand closes around my arm, making me flinch.
Her face is set, eyes forward, lips moving steadily with the prayer. Her eyes shine with tears she does not let fall. She nods once, as if to steady both of us.
I am wrong, I tell myself. The travellers unsettled me. Their words, their ways, their warnings—they stirred my thoughts, led me astray. They planted fear, and fear grows wild if you let it.
Prayer will set it right, as it always does. Everything will settle back into its proper place.
When we rest at last, my knees are aching, sore from hours pressed into the ground. Mama’s voice still drifts through the house as I lay awake beneath my blankets, the darkness shaped by her holy words.
Outside, the wind has risen. It rattles the shutters, worries at the roof, whines through the gaps in the wood.
Inside, my hand slips beneath my pillow, the silver of the dagger cold when my fingers close around it.
I hold it tight and do not let go.
Chapter Seven
My body rises without deciding to.
The house does not stir as I swing my legs over the edge of the bed. Mama’s prayers have finally fallen silent. The fire is reduced to a dull, watchful glow, embers breathing slowly beneath ash. The storm has moved on, leaving only the soft drip of water from the eaves and the distant, exhausted murmur of thunder retreating into the hills.
Nothing stops me.
My feet find each rung as I descend slowly, as though lowered by something gentler than gravity. The house sighs once, as if acknowledging me, then settles again.
The door waits. The latch lifts easily beneath my fingers, lighter than it should be. The door opens without a sigh, without a whisper of complaint, and the night welcomes me back as if I never left it.
Everything lies quiet.
