“Why so pale?” Mihály said, an amused glint in his eyes. “The gates of Silgard don’t open directly into oblivion, regardless of what the self-righteous here think.”
She wasn’t naive enough to think so. The land outside the city was still under the banner of the Immaculate Union, bound to the same practices and laws. But people were only there because they weren’t good enough to be here. And surely Mihály would realize what he was asking of her.
“If I go, they won’t let me back in.” That was what she’d been told and what the finality in Elder Abe’s eyes had promised. She was no demon, but anyone let into the city had to be proven pure. She was nothing, pure or otherwise.
“Then it’s very lucky you’ll be traveling with me.” He gave a smile that would be impossible to argue with, and it lit a flicker of confidence in her, even as the iron gate swung closed behind them with a crash. She should have taken some holy water or dirt from the cathedral grounds, a small physical token of where she belonged.
Csilla turned her head one way and then the other, drinking in the frightening expanse of land unshadowed by walls. There was almost nowhere inside the gates you could run full out and not risk hitting brick or body or both. Even the indulgent gardens kept by those wealthy enough to devote space to nothing more productive than beauty weren’t so large.
“How far is it?” she asked, eyeing the dark woods in front of them, breathing deep of the unpolluted scents of dirt and dry grass. The area directly around the city was cleared to make it easy for farmers and loggers to move in their goods, but the bare trees ahead had stripped silver branches with peeling bark that clawed what light there was out of the sky. But it wasn’t all grim. On the branches that stretched towards the clouds there were buds that promised spring, same as there were on the weeds that forced their way through cracks in city stone.
It didn’t feel any different, standing on ground that wasn’t blessed.
But the knowledge of it made all the difference in the world.
“Not far. Maybe an hour?”
An hour? An hour with his long legs was far more with hers. Her feet preemptively ached.
She hummed, sang, and answered Mihály’s questions about growing up in the church to pass the time. She kept her own questions to herself lest he take offense and leave her in the woods. There was no sign of travelers or any bandits, but every twig snap and rustle made her start until she relaxed to the beauty in the winter-ravaged wood. The vast, cool peace was how she had always imagined the eternal to be, and a part of her wanted to step off the road and sink into the quiet tangle of the briars.
“You’ll catch flies in your mouth if you keep staring like that,” Mihály teased, and she scowled, which did at least close her mouth. “You really haven’t been outside before? You’ve never seen a tree?”
“You know we have trees in Silgard.” But not many, and not tall. Csilla had always been told how lucky she was to have been born in Silgard and given a graced childhood in the holy city. The words had been a comfort when she was sharing a bed with two other girls and their sharp elbows or when she was last in line for what was left of breakfast. But the forest had its charms. Even the birds seemed happier than the fat crows and ever-molting pigeons who had thrown their lots in with the humans of Silgard, and their spots of rosy breasts and warm brown wings in the bare trees were as pretty as any festival decor. The world hadn’t been made in brick and mortar but wood and earth and flesh. This was as close to paradise as one could visit, nature before the creation of humanity soured it.
She was so busy with her gaping that she nearly walked into the dark slash on the road. A black scorch marked the dirt, angry like bubbling tar.
“What’s that?”
Mihály walked over it like it wasn’t even there. She blinked for a half-second, wondering if she was hallucinating.
He turned, eyebrow raised. “You haven’t seen a sealed demon before? Of course not, blessed thing that you are.”
Csilla touched her mark at the mention of the Severing. The world had gone dark for three days, and then no more angels or demons walked among them.
“There’s a demon in there?”
The damaged surface of the road was glassy, but as she peered over, she couldn’t see her reflection. The black sucked in every hint of light and color that touched it. It wasn’t so much looking into darkness as it was looking into a hollow nothing, and a deep, animal terror crawled up in her. It was once said that the birth of humanity was a crisis that became the world. That somewhere in the north was a hellfire maw that was never extinguished, where the worst of all sinners would be cast. Here was proof. Not burning, but dark enough to take even her breath.
“It’s perfectly safe. The Servants of the Road take care of them, and if one popped out right now, I’d banish it for you.” He tapped it with his foot, and she cringed, imagining Shadow-born flesh reaching through, inhuman hands grasping his ankle.
There were hundreds of years between her and the creature trapped in there, and it suddenly didn’t seem enough.
“You could do that? Banish a demon?” The notes she carried and what she’d seen Ilan researching burned hot in her mind.
He tilted his head and looked thoughtful, scratching at his beard. “Maybe? I’ve never tried, but I suppose I’m holy enough.”
That was an endorsement she had no desire to test. Csilla stepped carefully around the edge of the tainted ground, but as they made their way farther into the forest she kept glancing back over her shoulder. No matter how far they walked, the black spot lingered on the horizon.
“Here we are,” he said as they approached an old logger’s stead. There was a solid-looking, if small, house with broken windows covered in faded and drooping cloth, and a thick-planked barn much larger than the living space. The well was covered, but freshly split logs in the woodshed showed the lot hadn’t been abandoned. Everything else was dire. The roof had a recent patch that was just a board laid across at an awkward angle. A gust would send it careening.
“Who lived here before?” The porch boards looked so worn Csilla was sure her foot would plunge through. It was practically spongy in places and a wonder Mihály hadn’t broken the whole thing with his weight.
“The family here had plague, I think,” Mihály said without the slightest hint of concern. “I found it on my way to the city last year, thought it might be useful. Space is quite the commodity in Silgard.”
Csilla shuddered, remembering the last outbreak. Mothers with aprons dotted with bloody phlegm begging sanctuary for fevered children, delirious victims claiming to see angels with hundreds of eyes or demons with the foaming-mouthed heads of rabid animals. The cracks left in the faith made the city ripe for a preacher like Mihály who could offer hope. With the Incarnate away for longer and longer stretches, people were starved for a connection to the divine.
“Don’t be afraid,” he continued. “I’m here all the time, and I’ve never gotten sick.”
Mihály’s nonchalant tone made her skin tighten. He hadn’t been through the worst of it. The miasma of illness could be stirred with the dust at their feet, or soaked into the wood like mold spores, or carried in her clothes to people who might not be blessed with her health. He should know that.
He led her to the barn. Inside was dim, even with the doors open. A few lamps hung from rafters—clearly salvaged, no two matching—carefully positioned away from anything that could catch fire. Mihály lit the oil with a long starter stick.
As the fire flicked, doves flew from their roost, and Csilla startled at the gray storm of wings and the dust they cast down.
The light revealed a long table covered in tarp cloth that looked like it had once served as part of the barn floor. Brown could have been the original color of the cloth or just as easily manure residue. He paused, hand light and hesitant on the wood.
“I’m sorry, this isn’t the kind of thing a delicate girl should see.”
Csilla gave a little huff. He didn’t know the work the mercy crews did if he thought her delicate. And she was still the girl who’d at least considered killing an angel.
But when he pulled back the cloth, her hands flew to her mouth to prevent a scream.
The table was covered in animal corpses.
There were squirrels, their bushy tails frozen in unmoving question marks. Little chipmunks lined up in a row, black eyes shriveled in their balding heads with tufts of brown fur around them.
A fox with one mangled leg drawn up as if his black-tipped paw still caused him pain. At least a dozen doves with wrung necks set out like game in a butcher shop. No wonder the roosting birds had panicked.
