Page 4 of These Immortal Truths
From the front of the crowd, the town priest’s voice booms. “Speak no more lies, foul creature.” Anna recognizes him as the same one who screamed she was at fault for the crop’s failure—God’s punishment for harboring a foreign heathen touched by the devil. He turns to the crowd. “How else would a lone woman survive in the woods if not without the help of the devil? How else would she hide away the villainous whore who brought death to our lordship? How else—”
The blood roaring in her ears, the cold ocean wind stinging her face and tangling in her hair, drowns out the rest. She stares unseeingly at the stretch of beach behind the crowd and remembers the feel of sifting sand under her bare feet when she first arrived. It’s almost fitting that she lose her life on the same shore she lost her freedom.
A flutter of movement in the deadened tree across from her catches her attention. Perched on the pale, wind-worn wood is a raven, its intelligent eyes staring into hers.A bad omen, Fanny used to say,a sure sign that death is not far behind.There are a few faces Anna recognizes in the crowd, but the old cook’s isn’t one of them. She wonders if her raven has already flown or if she’s merely theone person who doesn’t wish to watch her burn. She hopes it’s the latter.
A torch is lit, its flames a drop of color in a sea of gray. Beautiful and deadly, not unlike the stranger that sealed her fate. The kindling at the base catches, the flames grow higher, licking the straw at her feet. She screams, the sound muffled only by the swelling in her throat and the cloying smoke in her lungs.
She can’t watch. She can’t let the last thing she sees be the snapping of fire at her feet and the blistering of her skin. In her last moments, she wants beauty. She looks past the sneering faces, eyes searching for a glimpse of the raven through the smoke. Instead, sitting on the same lower branch, is the stranger she saved. She holds a finger to her lips, eyes full of hope and warnings.Trust me, they say.
Anna looks down, sees the flames licking at her skin—eating at the hem of her dress and traveling up, up. The pain is terrible, but her skin doesn’t blister. Doesn’t blacken. At her back, the rope binding her hands singes and frays until her knees give and the fibers snap. Her scream is swallowed by the roaring in her ears until she’s not sure where one begins and the other ends.
When she rises, the town has left. Ashes streak her bare skin, clotting in her hair. She stares at her hands, her body, dirty but whole, and feels her breath come faster.
A cloak settles on her naked shoulders, a whisper in her ear. “Did I not tell you, Anna? Death will not come for you.”
CHAPTER TWO
Doubt is a cumbersome thing; a sickness. He feels its cold fingers creep up his spine, hears its whispers in his ear. A mistake, it croons, she will be the end of you.
THEMEADOW
1185
She doesn’t know how long she sits there, knees buried in the same ashes she should have become, but it’s long enough for the sun to dip below the horizon. Anna shivers, the ocean wind tugging at her cloak. She pulls it tighter against her body, but it only does so much to ward off the chill.
A set of folded clothes lies in front of her. “The tide is coming in.”
Anna hears her, understands the implication, but she’s more focused on the graceful hands than the clothing. “The designsare gone.”
There’s a moment of pause, then a grudging respect. “Observant.” She regards her fingers, shrugs, and gives a flick of her hand. The artistry reappears as if it had never left. “Sometimes I forget the details.”
Anna swallows, licking her lips and tasting salt. They should be cracked and dry—bloody ashes—and it’s just another testament to how terribly, wonderfully, impossible her existence has become. “You’re not human.”
She sits on one of the rocks protruding from the sand, the winds whipping at her silks. Somehow, her hair doesn’t move with the same force. “No.” Her eyes flit to the folded clothes between them. “But there will be time for questions later. We shouldn’t linger here any longer than we have.”
Anna pushes her chestnut hair from her eyes, a small truth taking root in her heart. She can feel it slowly blooming into panic. “I have nowhere to go.”
She can’t risk going back to her tiny shack in the woods. Can’t risk being seen alive by the same eyes that watched her burn.
A wave of her hand, another dismissal. “Impossible. The world is too big for nowhere.” She rests her chin in her cupped palm, dark eyes bright despite the fading light. “Dress.”
It’s either a suggestion or a subtle command. Maybe both. Anna heeds it, reaching for the clothing. It’s just a simple long tunic and a leather belt, but it’s clean and made more finely than anything else she’s worn. Beneath it is a pair of shoes that look like they’ll fit her far better than the worn-out pair that burned.
She turns her body toward the ocean, dressing beneath the heavy cloak on her shoulders. The tide has just touched the edges of the scorched sand. Another few hours and it will have washed away all the lingering ash that proved too heavy for the wind to take.
When she finishes, she turns to find the stranger’s spot filled by another. In place of sun-kissed skin and bright silks, of graceful curves and long dark hair, is a man. His hair and eyes are just a shade lighter, but his complexion is light. He could have been anyone from town.
He tilts his head, and the motion combined with the intensity ofhis gaze is so similar to the woman that sat there only moments before, it’s staggering. “There’s more than one way to be invisible.” He stands, gesturing to the path leading off the beach. “Shall we?”
If it weren’t for all the other impossibilities she’s faced today, Anna’s not sure she would believe it. Ashes and sand sift beneath her feet, the tide kissing the soles of her new shoes. Right now, impossible feels as distant as nowhere.
Anna doesn’t know where he’s leading her, but she follows blindly and without complaint. Even when the road gives way to uneven terrain, the forest she called home a shadow at her back. Moss and rock slips away into soft, open fields she’s never known.
He leads.
She follows.
What other choice does she have? Her old life is in ashes, and imagining the future is like trying to see through smoke. Perhaps the shapeshifter knows, because he doesn’t try to lure her into conversation until the sun dips behind the horizon and they make camp.
