Snow was restless; Vera was not. Whilst the fox snored soundly, she laid on top of the wagon in the cold, tossing an orange into the midnight air and catching it over and over.

  She heard the rest of the camp snuff out their fires and promptly enter their own tents. The groans, coughs, and even louder snores spread quicker than a desperate worker in a brothel.

  I miss Death, she thought, sucking the tears back into her eyes. I need to find him and command him to never leave me again. I want to make him proud. He must’ve left because he was disappointed in me and my devotion. I will do better. Gods, please, give me a sign of where he is… anything will do.

  She raised a hand to the crescent moon above the trees like it was a god to be worshipped. “Please,” she whispered. “Anything.”

  Snow returned to the inside of the wagon after no god answered her call. She threw herself onto her bed and entered a sulk, her weeps waking Vera.

  “Gods, you’re a fuckin’ river tonight,” Vera mocked. “Wah wah, I miss Death… ooooo, I miss him so much.”

  “I do!” she exclaimed. “How would you feel if you lost someone like him?”

  “Duh, I did lose someone like him.” She joined Snow in her bed and tapped on her shoulder. Snow turned. They faced each other and spoke in whispers. “And I feel like such an idiot for taking my eyes off of him.”

  “Me too…”

  “But we’re gonna get him back. We’re a team, Snow and Vera, the best team in the whole of Valan.”

  “You’re just trying to cheer me up.”

  “Is it working?”

  “A tiny bit.”

  A tiny knock came from their wagon door. It sounded like a rat trying to claw its way in… Snow climbed over Vera and unlatched it, slowly opening it to see an empty forest, no one in sight. She looked at her feet and saw a yellow-eyed owl waiting to be picked up.

  “The Voiceless One,” Snow whispered. “Are you here to guide me to Death?”

  “What?” Vera yelped. She scrambled to the door and saw the owl. “No. Can’t be. It’s just one owl.”

  It was not one owl. Hundreds of others hopped into the light of their wagon’s candles. Black eyes, all of them, blinking slowly.

  “Death!” Snow exclaimed quietly. “It must mean it wants to lead us to Death!”

  Vera was on edge at what she was seeing. “You heard the same tale as I did… I don’t think the Voiceless One is speaking in riddles through mister Death… I think it wants us to kill.”

  “Huh? Kill who?”

  Vera counted the owls, losing track as she got over two hundred.

  “All of them,” she thought.

  The owls joined their song to one hoot. Snow felt sick, excited, the two emotions battling each other—she summoned her sword to her hand and exited the wagon.

  “Snow!” Vera yelped quietly. “What are you doing?”

  “The Voiceless One will reward me with what I want,” Snow said sinisterly. “If I slaughter this camp… it will show me where my sweet husband is.”

  “Fuck it.” Vera summoned her daggers. “They follow his will. They would want us to do it, probably, maybe.”

  The first they killed were the ones who didn’t snore. They put a hand over their mouths, slicing their throats and ensuring the sound of spraying blood didn’t wake the snorers. The second they took were the patrollers of the camp; Vera was the one who took them on solely. She stabbed them in their hearts before they saw her, cutting their throats as they spasmed on the forest floor.

  Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel.

  For their third, Snow took out each snorer one by one. Voices began to yell from the bonfire of the camp; some had stayed to tell tales around the fire—she feigned tears, throwing herself into their arms and claiming they were under attack, then struck them down as they turned their backs. The final one she struck down was Leafy. She didn’t feel any remorse, only pride.

  If only Death could see how much better I’m getting with this sword, she thought. He would give me such a big kiss.

  “What have you done?” a woman shouted. The owls circled above with judging hoots. “What did we do?”

  Snow mimicked one of Death’s boasting cackles, then dropped her sword. I want to use this one to test something… she thought. To summon a weapon or a beast… I must feel them in my soul, I must connect to it…

  She raised her bloodied hand and entered a hum. The remaining woman, the final one of the camp, was horrified. She tried to run but met the tip of a dagger.

  “Nuh uh,” Vera whispered. She saw Snow doing something and decided to give the kill to her. “Don’t you see the owls? Your god says you’re not allowed to run.” She punched the woman and threw her in front of Snow.

  “Golus,” she yelled. She imagined her hand was a signal for a barrage of arrows. “I call upon you!”

  A blue strike of lightning announced the arrival of the golem. It slammed down onto the woman and crushed her, a bloody explosion that left nothing but a red pile of dirt below the golem’s feet.

  It roared to the moon, head snapping in every direction—it was confused, seeing no enemies.

  “Good boy… good girl? Good golem!” Snow hugged their head and gave it more praise. “Oh… I can’t believe you’re mine. I feel you in my soul.”

  “That’s everyone.” Vera cleaned the blood off her arms. “That Voiceless One better give us something good for doing all of that. It must such being killed by your own gods.”

  The golem curled up into a sulking boulder, angry that Snow had summoned him when there was nothing to fight. “Aw, no, don’t be like that,” she begged. “I just wanted to test out how to summon you, that’s all!”

  The golem ignored her.

  “I promise next time I’ll have someone for you!”

  The golem gave one growl of acceptance.

  “Just like Death,” Vera joked. “It’s obvious he’s the one who sculpted the big rock… they’re the same.”

  When Snow had calmed from the adrenaline of killing all of the camp, she pondered on what she had felt. At every kill, she felt a sensation of fire in what felt like her soul.

  “I think the people I kill go to Death,” she said.

  “What?” Vera squeaked. “Say that again?”

  “I linked our souls… I think if I kill people, he gets the strength from it?”

  “Nah. You brought that dragon down from the sky and he didn’t get shit from it.”

  I know what I felt… I’m sure of it…

  An owl hopped to Snow’s feet.

  “Looks like he has a reward for you,” Vera said enviously.

  Snow picked it up. Instead of a voice like from the tales, a vision popped into her thoughts—a view of Vatanil from the eyes of a bird, Death being taken into Keep Blacksteel.

  Enraged, she uttered the words to summon Beion after releasing the owl into the forest.

  Beion strutted out of a portal with crossed arms. “I told you that you couldn’t summon me while I’m trying to find him.”

  “The Valans have him,” Snow said angrily. “ I’m gonna kill all those pigs for thinking they can take him away from me.”

  “Woah—that’s what you saw?” Vera asked. “Snow, if Death has been taken by the Valans then he’s lost.”

  Beion also seemed displeased by this news. “I have to agree with the fox. I’m sorry, Snow. I can’t help you.”

  “You teleported into Vatanil once, do it again!” Snow begged.

  “Through the same portal,” Beion explained. “The Sentinels will detect me and stop me from forming portals. I only did what I did because I was able to do it in under three seconds.”

  “Then grab him under three seconds!”

  Beion was patient with her frustration. “I don’t have a scent to be able to… I was struggling to find him within the gaps of the city Sentinels. I was too late. If he is in their dungeons, I would only be able to get him if I knew exactly which cell he was in, they have hundreds down there.”

  Snow pointed to the owls above. “The Voiceless One,” she said. “He could help us.”

  Beion looked up at the owls staring down at them. “Peculiar. I assume this how you know of his whereabouts. Tis not often I see a fabled god in the flesh. Very well. If he shows you the cell in which our friend Death is kept in, I shall collect him—until then, try to save your summons of me until you need me. I do not need to answer your calls; I would hate to hear about your demise should you abuse my friendship.”

  “It’s nice to see you,” Vera whispered. “I think about you a lot.”

  Beion was taken aback by her sudden words. “Little fox, I think about you a lot too—now find where he is. I am having my own troubles in Hell. Ta-ta.”