*COMING JUNE 1ST *
Greta is gone.
War has broken out.
The Goddess wants Judith to bring order to chaos- but all she wants is to bring Greta back home.
*This is the sequel to Unholy
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The entire city was rubble, dust and smoke.
It was hard to see the destruction through the thick, gray haze that coated everything. But it was there. I knew it was there. Quietness was thick throughout the open space, something that chilled me even more. I had never seen war, never seen a city be brutalized and burned to the ground, but still— I thought that, if there were people left, they should be making some sort of sound.
It was silent.
"Judith."
I felt a hand on my shoulder, cold against the warming late spring air. It was meant to help me, I thought.
It felt like I couldn't breathe. Even if I gasped, I couldn't find the air. The entire world was spinning, collapsing on itself.
"I'm sorry." The voice said again. It was Imanthi, and although I always thought the most of her, I couldn't help but snap at her.
"You said they wouldn't kill that many people. You said they needed the blood— that humans were too valuable to waste. Where is everyone?"
"It's unlikely that the entire city has been killed." she said. "That would be incredibly foolish of them."
"I don't know if the other option is any better."
I thought about it- about all of the girls from my convent. I didn't know if they were dead, enslaved, or worse. I thought about them, huddled together, chained and scared.
I thought about the elderly butcher and his wife who I would buy meat from in the early mornings. Perhaps they were dead. Old people weren't as useful, after all. They couldn't do as much hard labor, they couldn't make as much blood, and—most importantly— they couldn't make more humans.
I heard shuffling against the dusty stone road. By the heavy steps, I knew it was Ayla.
"Everywhere I've checked, there is no one." She said. The bewilderment was evident in her voice. "Only a dozen or so bodies as well. I've never seen anything like it before."
My throat stung, but I managed to hold back the tears.
"How can an entire city be gone? How could they take so many?" I said. "Thousands lived here."
"It's likely that a lot fled as well, perhaps to a nearby town." Imanthi said.
I pulled myself up from the ground, brushing some of the dirt from my skirt with my gloved hands.
"I want to go to St Meredith's." I said. "I need to see."
"Are you sure?" Imanthi asked.
"I need to see."
And so we went.
The convent was smoldering, not quite on fire, but filled with a thin layer of smoke. The beautiful stained glass windows had been smashed, bits of glass littering the ground all along the edges of the stone building. Brutalized. I thought that was a good way to describe it. The building had been brutalized.
