A horn call. Desperate, loud. Cara jerked. Her eyes found a place on the wall where a Ghoul, feral, snarling, had climbed up. It lashed about, driving the exhausted defenders back. The other undead took the opportunity to climb. The horn blew again as that section fell back, in danger of being overrun.

The safety of the entire wall teetered on the brink. It just took one spot and the dead would flow over the wall. One spot and—

A man leapt up the stairs. He swung his longsword in a two-handed arc and brought it across the Ghoul’s neck. Cara saw a head fly. She heard a cheer.

Lord Lantal visibly panted for a second before he and his small bodyguard picked up the Ghoul’s body and hurled it down over the wall, knocking the other climbing undead down. Cara heard more cheering as people shouted the [Lord]’s name.

Lord Lantal Afiele. She stared at him from afar. Cara had not known him before the siege. But she thought she knew him now, and her conclusion when all was said and done was this: He was a good man. He had listened to her confession and not done any of the things Cara might have done in his place. Lantal could have—should have—imprisoned her. Executed her for allowing this to happen. For all the deaths Cara had brought about, however accidentally. But he hadn’t.

“A better person than me, at least.”

Cara felt her shoulders aching, as if her sins were actual weights. She was tired. It felt like she’d done almost everything wrong. It would have been better if she had never left that tomb. If she had never met Dalius—he would still be there. The tomb would have been sealed.

She wished she had never come to this world. Cara was no champion. She looked at the undead and couldn’t imagine herself fighting one. She was just…an actress. A young woman who’d never so much as butchered a rabbit. She couldn’t fight monsters.

——

Cara didn’t watch long. She had seen the same mesmerizing battle for three days straight. It was a waste of time to spend watching when she could help.

Even if you didn’t fight, there were things she could do. Ironically, her status as pariah meant that no one had press ganged Cara into working any of the jobs. So she looked to help where she could.

A woman was hauling a basket filled with wet linen up from the kitchens of the keep. Freshly laundered; washed with a bit of soap in a cauldron by the fire while food was being cooked for the warriors on rotation. Everyone else was on half-rations. Cara saw her struggling up the stairs, panting.

“Here. Let me.”