Content Warning

The following work of fiction contains scenes of suicidal ideation, references to and overt acts of graphic sexual assault, and acts of physical and emotional cruelty enacted in the name of a fictional, extremist religion.

Chapter 1

Unexpected Visitors

The deer was perfect. It was a buck, muzzle gray with age, its many-pronged antlers majestic in the early morning sun. It picked its path delicately along the snowy trail, blowing and grunting. This late into the mating season, the odds of the buck finding a receptive doe were slim, but it continued to call, a lonely sound in the still morning. Matthias watched from the blind he’d built in a low tree, raising his bow and waiting. He’d been awake and out here since before dawn, listening to the world stretch and yawn itself awake, and trying very hard not to think.

Matthias found peace in hunting these days, peace that didn’t seem to exist within the walls of the growing town they now called Sanctuary. Peace that hadn’t existed for weeks now, not since the reality of his new life sank in. Out here, at least, he didn’t have to worry about how they were going to feed the ever-increasing population of the town for the rest of the winter, or where they were going to house the next batch of ragged survivors who stumbled out of the forests, looking for a safe place to call home. He didn’t have to think about the friction between the...