The Saintess walked between the ruined houses, looking into every doorway that remained open.
"Can anyone hear me?"
Her voice carried through the village.
She stopped beside a collapsed roof and listened. Sir Luke stood close behind her, his gaze moving over the wreckage.
No one answered.
She bent to look beneath a fallen beam. There was enough space for someone to have crawled under it.
An outstretched hand lay in the darkness.
For an instant, she leaned closer.
Then she saw the rest of the body.
Her lips pressed together. She straightened slowly and moved on.
With every few steps, there was another death to discover. A man beneath a cart. A woman against a broken wall. Farther ahead, bodies hung from the spikes rising through the road.
Her eyes stung.
She had seen terrible injuries before. But there had usually been something to do. A wound to close. Someone whose breathing she could ease.
Here, she kept reaching people after there was nothing left to save.
