Unbound

Chapter Eight Hundred And Fourteen – 814

The streets stank of rain and blood.

Jeneve knew both of them well. Amaranth was often afflicted by southern rains, enough that the streets often ran like rivers in the wettest of months. As for the other—her father was a butcher, and she was a helpful girl.

“Come, dear one,” her father urged. “Only a little farther.”

Her arms were tired and her legs ached, but she plodded along behind his larger boots. A rucksack hung heavy from a single thin shoulder, filled to the brim with food and a few pieces of spare clothing. The burlap dug into her skin with every swaying step, especially when she walked around the large puddles that soaked the cobbled streets. Jeneve refused to complain, however—it was nothing compared to her father’s burden...and she was a helpful girl.

The streets were filled with folks and their belongings. Carts, wagons, and packs piled high with all that they could carry as everyone Jeneve knew hurried toward the shelters. The midmorning sky was bright, though it was a flat gray that threatened more rain, and it shed light into even the darkest allies—but that only made people hurry faster. It was as if those narrow lanes no longer existed, for all that she had played in them for years. People passed them by, red-rimmed eyes staring straight ahead and hands locked around their precious cargo.

No one wanted to linger over the bodies of betrayers.

“Don’t mind them, Jeneve.” A gentle hand pressed against her back as her father scooted her closer to himself. “They embraced the Night and paid for it.”

“I see the Culvers—”

“I said don’t mind them.” Her father’s voice hardened, as it did more often than not. “They wouldn’t listen to the Lady’s law and reaped what they sowed. We must—”

A hush rippled through the crowd as everyone slowed their maddened pace. It was like they’d been trapped in tar or waist high water, save that all of their faces were turned—fixed on the narrow join between two storefronts. Not a street nor an alley; barely more than a crack.

A shadowbeast slipped through and into the blessed daylight.

No longer blessed.

Her father had said that before, after the sun had gone dark. When they’d lost...she shook her head. Jeneve was positive her father hadn’t noticed her there while he cursed at the heavens, nor for days afterward as they dealt with the aftermath. Nothing had been the same since then.

The shadowbeast moved down their street. Jeneve clutched her rucksack tightly, crushing a hard loaf of bread against her chest as if it could shield her from the thing. She knew it was unwise, but she couldn’t help but stare. The monster had flesh like black oil, and though its form looked like a prowling hound, it had twisted, half-formed wings sprouting from its back. Lumps like tumors rippled across its body, shifting with every step, and its face angular, like the head of an axe.

Not a hound. That's a beak!

“Malformed monstrosities," her father muttered. "Come, Jeneve, we mustn't tarry. The Priests won't wait forever."

The two of them hustled forward, and it was like a spell had been broken upon the street. The crowd moved, shifted forward in the direction of the shelters, all of them trying valiantly to avoid the beast. Every adult she spied looked away, studiously studying the ground, the air, or the backs of their fellows before them—anything to avoid looking at the shadowbeasts. Jeneve's eyes couldn’t be torn away. The thing was anathema to the Pathless, and yet it prowled the city. She still couldn't understand why.

"Will they truly protect us from the Fiend?" she asked.

"You heard it as well as I did. The old gods—" Her father grimaced through his mustache, and his voice croaked like an old frog's. "The Shining Lady has declared them her allies. For now.”

“But you said they were liars and—?”

“Quiet!” his hand clamped painfully across her mouth. His voice dropped to a low rumble. “They are treacherous and foul, but her declaration was clear, dear one. We can do naught but believe her holy word."

"The Fiend comes for us!"

"The Ruin—!"

Countless voices lifted around Jeneve as they joined a crushing mass of bodies, all of them straining to enter the shelter a half-block distant. It was madness.

"The sky—it’s torn—!"

She turned, trying to see, but her eyes were still too bleary with tears.

ENOUGH.

The howling went silent. Jeneve blinked, unsure where the voice had come from, but no one else seemed to notice. Their voices were still raised, their limbs outstretched toward the alabaster columns of their salvation. Golden doors hung before them, each twice the size of a normal person, and carved with strange, confusing shapes. All at once they slammed open, and it was like thunder cut across the world.

The crowd hushed.

Crimson-armored paladins marched from within the dark, stomping out until they lined the thoroughfare, hemming in the crowd and calming even the most panicked among them.

"The House of Alabaster welcomes you all. Enter, and leave the worries of the heavens behind."

Her father sighed. "We've made it, Jenni. We'll be safe."

Jeneve swallowed, the ringing finally fading from her hearing, but her heart still pounded. She didn't sense calm from the Paladins.

They're more scared than I am.

The crowd pressed closer to the gold and white doors, her father holding her aloft along with what remained of their supplies. His large hands hugged her close, squeezing a touch too hard on her thin shoulders.

"Jenni, I—"

"Move along," the nearest Paladin shouted. "All faithful are welcome within."

Her father started, and she realized he had been staring up into the sky.

"Fear not, Jeneve," he said, taking a large, unsteady breath. "The Lady holds fast the very heavens themselves for us."

Jeneve loved her father; she trusted him with her life. Still, she couldn't help but blink back her tears and look up—up where the clouds had scattered, where the shadowbeasts still stared, and where five moons had once decorated the faded blue.

Then what happened to the silver moon?