The sky over the Torne Valley had not seen blue in forty days. A rust-colored haze, thick as old velvet, clung to the pines and turned the river into a vein of molten copper. This was the breath of the Demon-Stone.
“The door was locked,” Sasha said.
Sasha looked down at her relic—the Rib. It was a sliver of calcified light, useless for miracles. She had tried. She had laid hands on the sick, blessed the fields, whispered the old prayers until her throat was raw. Nothing happened. The Church had made her a saint because they needed a symbol, not a savior. Saint Sasha and the Scarlet Demon-s Stone -v1.0...
Sasha met his eyes. For a moment, she saw something beneath the bravado: a flicker of old terror, deeply buried.
“And if I fail?”
Sasha turned. A young man leaned against the cellar stairs, arms crossed. He was handsome in a ruinous way—scarred knuckles, pale eyes, a scar that pulled his left eyebrow into a permanent sneer. He wore the patchwork cloak of a traveling gambler.
“With a cursed rock?”
And the long night began.
But Thornwell needed a savior. And the only weapon she had was a dead woman’s spectacles and a name she hadn’t earned. The sky over the Torne Valley had not
She did not touch it. She picked up the box that contained it.