“I will eat as I walk,” I said and dismissed them, leaving my room for the great hall, finding the foyer quiet and cold. The doors of the palace were open and overlooked a raging fire. For a moment, my stomach soured, thinking that perhaps they’d begun to burn bodies in the night, but there were no corpses in the flames.

As I entered the hall, I halted in my tracks, and my earlier relief about the fire evaporated. Nearly half of the wounded were gone. Those who remained appeared to be villagers who had only been scratched or hurt themselves fleeing the aufhockers.

“My queen,” said a voice, and I turned my head to find Isac standing nearby. He bowed and moved to stand beside me.

“So few are left,” I said.

“Many were bitten.”

I swallowed hard. I had been bitten too, and I was still alive though very much changed.

“Was there no hope for any of them?”

“Aufhocker bites infect fast,” he said. “There comes a point where there is no coming back. Perhaps if the battle had not lasted as long…”

His voice trailed away.

“Where are the bodies?”

“The last of them were just moved to the sanctuary,” he said.

“Is Lady Ana there?” I wondered how she was doing, knowing she had been the one to administer the poison that had taken their lives.

“I believe so,” he said. “She must prepare them for burial.”

I thought it was strange that Ana had the task, but perhaps she had insisted.

“Thank you, Isac,” I said.

He offered a small smile. “Of course, Your Majesty,” he said and bowed. “I am glad to see you are well.”

He had no idea how much guilt his words would create within me, but as I left for the sanctuary, it only grew.

The sanctuary was technically part of the castle, though only accessible from the outside. It was from Dragos’s reign, back when the old gods were worshipped, though it had been clear Asha was the center of worship within. Initially, I’d been surprised to learn that the space still existed within Adrian’s castle, given his contempt for the gods, even Dis, who created him, but Adrian had seen that no iconography dedicated to the goddess of life remained within the cavernous room. It was merely a quiet place to mourn the dead with no allegiance to any god.

I paused outside the doors of the sanctuary. They were slightly ajar, and I hesitated, choosing to peer through the small opening into the cavernous room. There were no windows, just great, arched alcoves where paintings of the old goddesses once hung. Clusters of tall, wax candles provided pockets of dim light, enough to illuminate several still bodies that rested among the shadows of the floor.