Grave Mercy by Robin Lafevers

attempt to discourage Mortain from casting His gaze on their households, since it is believed He will go to great lengths to avoid His own reflection. Those that are too poor to afford that small protection hang hazel twigs, in the hope that He will mistake them for the real bones He has come to collect.
    The road is empty except for a handful of travelers heading to market in some nearby village. They carry bundles on their backs or push small carts. All of them step aside when they hear our horses coming.
    There is little enough to distract my thoughts from circling back to Duval.
I am painfully aware of him riding in front of me, solid, commanding, angry. No matter where I steer my mind or my gaze, they always come back to him.
Mistress. The word whispers through me, taunting, beckoning, laughing. That I will have to pose as such is almost more than I can bear. And that I shall do so in front of half the Breton nobility is laughable. I pray that a messenger from the convent will come galloping up behind us to tell me it is a cruel jest and that Annith will go in my stead. But all I hear is the drip of the heavy mist as it falls upon the leaf mold on the forest floor, the creak of our saddles, and the faint jingle of harness.
Near midafternoon we reach a small wood. The thickness of the trees forces us to slow our horses to a walk so they may carefully pick their way through the branches and brambles. Under the canopy of leaves, it grows cool. I pull my cloak closer, but it does nothing to warm me.
It is not that kind of chill.
Death is nearby. I feel it in my bones, the way an old sailor’s aching joints warn him of a brewing storm.
"What?” Duval’s voice breaks through the shroud of quiet. He has noticed my distraction. His hand moves to his sword hilt. “Do you hear something?”
“No, but there is something dead nearby.”
His eyebrows shoot up and he reins in his horse. “Dead? A man? A woman?”
I shrug. This has never happened to me before and my own ignorance frustrates me. “It could be a deer, for all I know.”
"Where?”
“That way.” I point off to the side of the road, through a faint opening in the trees.
Duval nods, then steers his horse over and motions for me to take the lead. Surprised that he gives a hunch of mine so much weight, I move ahead and let my sense of death lead me.
The trees are closer here, their soft, delicate branches waving overhead like rich green feathers. Just past an ancient standing stone, its surface mottled with lichen and moss and corroded by time, the sense of Death grows stronger. The freshly dug grave is well hidden by dead branches and a scattering of leaves, but I could find my way to it blindfolded. “Martel,” I announce, certain of who is buried there.
I begin to dismount and immediately Duval is at my side, helping me. He reaches up and puts his hands on my waist. I bite back a gasp of surprise as the warmth from his hands seeps through his gloves and my gown to my skin, driving away some small portion of the chill Death has brought. He lifts me from the saddle and as soon as my feet touch the ground, I pull away from him. I am all business, as if he has not just touched me more intimately than I have ever been touched in my life, and I head toward the grave. “This must be where Crunard’s men buried Martel.”
Duval follows me and stares down at the freshly turned earth as if he would will Martel’s secrets to ooze up from the ground. “On the battlefield,” he tells me, “they say a man’s soul lingers for three days. Is that true?”
“Yes.” A plan is already taking shape in my mind, an idea that might remedy one of the mistakes of which I am accused.
"Would that you could speak with men’s souls,” he murmurs.
I glance up at him sharply. Has he pulled the very thought from my head?
He looks at me in surprise. “You can speak with souls?” he asks, as if the words are writ plain on my face.
while I do not like that he can read me in such a