They left the horses at the edge of the village.
Delara insisted.
“The ground beyond the first stones belongs to the dead,” she said, dismounting with more grace than the road deserved. “Let the living step carefully.”
Sera almost asked whether the dead had ever cared how carefully the living stepped. The words did not come. Her mouth had gone dry, and every breath tasted faintly of wet ash and pine. She stood beside her horse with one hand still tangled in the reins, staring at the broken road that led down between the ruins.
It had been wider when she was a child.
No, not wider.
She had been smaller.
That correction hit harder than it should have.
The first house on the left had belonged to the baker, a round-faced man who smelled of flour and cinnamon and used to sneak honey cak
