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Back The Starving Saints Save as PDF
Chapters (57)
  1. Cover
  2. 1
  3. 2
  4. 3
  5. 4
  6. 5
  7. 6
  8. 7
  9. 8
  10. 9
  11. 10
  12. 11
  13. 12
  14. 13
  15. 14
  16. 15
  17. 16
  18. 17
  19. 18
  20. 19
  21. 20
  22. 21
  23. 22
  24. 23
  25. 24
  26. 25
  27. 26
  28. 27
  29. 28
  30. 29
  31. 30
  32. 31
  33. 32
  34. 33
  35. 34
  36. 35
  37. 36
  38. 37
  39. 38
  40. 39
  41. 40
  42. 41
  43. 42
  44. 43
  45. 44
  46. 45
  47. 46
  48. 47
  49. 48
  50. 49
  51. 50
  52. 51
  53. Acknowledgments
  54. About the Author
  55. Also by Caitlin Starling
  56. Copyright
  57. About the Publisher

And that is new, and unexpected, and it rouses her just a little. She opens her eyes. She rises onto her hands and knees. She inhales, deeply.

She smells growing things, algae and muck, and damp stone, and shit: the same smells that rise from the well. But the well is several hundred yards away, through so much stone. This is something else. Something different.

Treila presses her palm to one of the flagstones. It does not budge. But the one up and to the left of it does, just a little, rocking in its seat, and the one beyond that a little more. Treila crawls to where the floor meets the wall, shoving detritus out of the way, and wedges her fingertips into the mortar, wiggling just a little.

It crumbles. The smell thickens.

By dawn, when she’s forced to retreat and dress for work, she’s made a little hole, barely large enough for even a small rat to squeeze through.

But it is something.

It is salvation.

4

4

Phosyne prods the rotted lump of flesh with one slender piece of bone, fashioned into a polished pick. It is a small bit of flesh, received in her rations three weeks ago. She thinks it was ox, at one point. Now it is furred and pitted, oozing a riot of colors that combine into an unpleasant, sticky black. It took a lot to get it there, as it came to her well-dried, not fresh at all, in a controlled rot instead of an active one like this. But now it is exactly where she wants it, the pinnacle of putrescence. Perhaps putrescence can be reversed into fecundity; the two concepts are clearly related, after all.

She prods the flesh again. The lump shudders, the puddle of ichor around it spreading another hairsbreadth. Its stench lessens, just a little, and so Phosyne leans in, spears another little grass seed with the tip of the bone, gently nudges it into place. Encouragement. A pattern for it to follow. New life, please; the rapid growth of seedlings, woven now into flesh.

The sun is on the verge of setting, just the slightest shift in light through her tiny window. She sees the furred layer of tissue move a little, ripple slightly, and then the pits of it are winking, opening, closing, respiring, and she holds her breath. She squints. Rubs her eyes.

Mutters a string of syllables that might be curses, and then rocks back on her heels.

The sun is setting, and the shifting of the light is throwing shadows. The damn thing didn’t shudder at all; it’s only her exhausted eyes, her desperation to satisfy the king. She sets down her tools and stands.