Sarka spent a thirsty night alone in the house, too afraid to approach the window to see whether the cat still lurked without. When dawn came, she pushed aside the curtain, her body cold with sweat.
Outside, the cat's paw prints looped and whorled across the dusty ground. The prints were as large as her hand. It must have paced the entire night.
Was it gone?
She couldn't know, so she licked her dry lips and stayed inside.
Around midday, there came a knock at the door. It jarred Sarka so badly she dropped her sewing, cold fear flooding down her back and raising gooseflesh along her limbs.
But wildcats did not knock. When Sarka looked up, it was Norbon's face in the window; he was squinting, trying to see inside. She bent down to retrieve her sewing from the floor and went to the door.
Norb looked no different than he ever did-tired and dimly amused-but she knew something had happened. Something had to have happened for him to have come all the way out here.
He glanced down at the sewing Sarka had in her hands. She had cut the pattern from the old curtain. The pieces were just beginning to to take shape as a child's dress.
"No need, Sarka," said Norb.
"What?" she asked.
Norb nodded his head at the sewing. "Widow Marlish. Her li'l girl. She's dead."
Sarka clenched her fingers, clutching the dress. "What?"
"Last night. Dragged off by the cat. Did you hear it?"
"No." Sarka looked past Norbon at the paw prints scrawled across the yard in endless, starving circles.
Norb followed her gaze. She knew he saw through her lie, but he didn't call her out. Instead, he said, "We're going after it."
"Who? You and I?"
"No, woman-Kort and I." He gave her a crooked grin, apparently amused at the thought of Sarka chasing down the wildcat. "I wanted you to know. Today, while the sun's high. I'm meeting him presently."
"I should go to Widow," Sarka said. "Comfort her."
"There's nothing on the the Blessed Queen's earth could comfort her now," Norb said.
Sarka met his eye. They exchanged bitter smiles at the thought of the queen and what had become of her earth. Sarka had just been a seed in her mother's womb, but Norb had been a boy of six or seven. He had seen the Cataclysm himself.
Sarka could almost see the glints of the flames and the haze of the ashen rain reflected in his eyes. He had told her fragments of the story a hundred times.
"Be careful," she said.
"I will. I'll expect a hero's welcome when it's dead." Norb winked at her and turned away.
...
Kort brought back his body the next afternoon. The story inched its way through the town in whispers: Norb had stepped on a poison snake. There would have been nothing anyone could have done for him, so Kort had stayed with him so he wouldn't be alone.
Maybe Norb had been a hero, but that didn't matter. Heroes all end up dead.
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Song of Ashes
الخيال (فانتازيا)A jealous, vengeful goddess. A ruined land. A woman alone, desperate to survive. When the goddess Kogoren was betrayed by one of her worshipers, she took out her rage on her realm. In her righteous anger, she shattered the continent, raised razor-sh...
