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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 slides one finger into the stone. She waits to feel skin, or scruff, or fabric.

Instead, she feels teeth. Wet lips closing around her. A tongue curling around her joint, sliding along her nail.

Treila shouts and draws back, stumbles, nearly falls. She loses a strip of flesh in the process. Blood oozes from the open welt as she clutches her hand to her chest.

“Come back,” the voice entreats. “Come back, or the deal won’t be satisfied.”

“You said a touch!” she cries, shocked, horrified, confused.

“I’m hungry,” the voice whines, louder now, loud enough that it echoes around the little cavern.

Treila can’t stop her bark of a laugh. “Join the club.”

“You understand,” he counters. “You know what it is to starve.” And she does, but she has never—would never—

Except she has. Just not like this. Not so openly, so baldly, and she remembers Voyne in the garden, disgusted and overwrought. Nausea rises in her.

“Can you even free me?” she asks.

“Oh, yes. Just satisfy my hunger.”

“I have food,” she says, swallowing the bile down.

“I don’t want your food,” he says. “This is the price of freedom: one finger. You can even choose it.”

She shudders.

When contrasted against her stores, though, it’s not so heavy a price. Strange. Unthinkable, almost. But not heavy, and for a moment, she even thinks to pay it. That only lasts as long as it takes her to ask, “What kind of man wants a girl’s finger?”

He only laughs in reply.

No kind of man, she realizes. Not even a starving man would ask for a finger.

With shaking hands, she grabs up the pillar of wax again, finds the little jar of powder. She fumbles for the pin she left in the hem of her skirt, pricks her fingers and dips them, whistles out the note.

“What are you doing, clever?” the voice asks. He sounds curious, not afraid. Treila doubts, but pinches the wick anyway.

The flame springs to life once more, and she jams it into the crack. Nothing looks back at her. No teeth, no lips, no tongue. Not even an eye, peering out at her, watching.

“You’d hide from me?” she hisses.

There is no response. The scent of metal is gone. And Treila, for the first time since she doused the candle, feels like she’s alone again.

Perhaps Phosyne’s bargain was worth something after all.

Treila leaves the candle burning, stuck between two stones just before the crack, and she retreats back into the castle by touch.

17

17

Morning comes with the blare of trumpets.