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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

She loses all sense of time as she inches forward, down, following the whisper of air. She leaves one stocking first, then the other. Her cap. Her girdle. Her smalls. She does not find any branch, not really, a few gullies that are only the depth of her shin and then stop. Her stomach grumbles, and she thinks of food, and how she should go back, loot her cache, bring food with her, but what if she edges forward just another step, squirms through one more gap barely large enough for her to pass, what if she—

And then there is light.

Light.

Not daylight, but the thin blue of night, and she has not been down here so long at all. She makes out the shadows of footholds, descending a steeper section. She sees a ledge below her, drops her dress down first, then follows after.

She emerges into a room.

No; not a room. This was not made by human hands. It’s a grotto, an underground stream, and she can hear the water moving now. The stink of human waste presses in, and she knows she has found the water that feeds the well. She falls to her knees and wants to kiss it, but knows better.

But the light . . .

The light is coming from the water, and Treila frowns down at it. Then she lifts her head and peers around, and sees no crack in the stone, no way for moonlight to filter in. Confused, she rocks back on her heels. She looks up and down the length of the faintly glowing water, looking for how it enters, how it exits.

She can’t see anything. The water passes through gaps that are so minuscule she cannot see them, or perhaps just appears, as if by magic, through the stone. The water will not help her.

She makes herself stand, makes herself feel for the breeze.

There.

It’s coming from a narrow fissure in the wall, barely visible. It might have been impossible to find without the thin light that throws strange shadows on every surface. Treila approaches, slides her fingers into it, but it’s not wide enough even to admit her hand. She presses her face to it, nose and lips in the gap, and breathes, breathes the first fresh air she’s had in months (because she does not count the air in the lower yard, not even if she can see birds flying above, because she cannot leave).

But she can’t leave through here, either.

“Are you lost?” the crack breathes against her lips.

7

7

Ser Voyne takes to sleeping in Phosyne’s room, across the doorway. She is a better block than the old haphazard stacks of detritus. Nobody comes in, and nobody goes out.