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people come from hundreds of miles just to see their pagan god. They would be lost without you.”
    â€œI would be lost without them,” Claude said, knowing it was true. Who had he been before this? A sad, scared boy who was beaten by his father. A boy who walked through the square with his head down, afraid to be noticed by anyone. A boy who cried and pleaded with Gerard to let him out of that hell house, not knowing it was always his fate to be there.
    Clemence leaned down and kissed his cheek. “I’m nearly done cooking the lamb they brought this morning for you. I seasoned it with the herbs you like,” she whispered. Then she turned back to the stove and hovered over the pot.
    Claude breathed in the heavy rosemary scent and let himself feel happy. His family was not forgotten, but he understood everything now… understood it so clearly. They had died so he could live this life. He was always supposed to be a leader, a pagan god, and if he had not shed them, he could not be what he was now. Powerful, great, beloved.
    Clemence stirred the pot, singing something to herself. He could barely make out the words at first. “Lily of the valley… pretty, blooming flowers…”
    He had a strange, dizzy feeling. He saw a flash of Lily’s face as she hung upside down. He remembered the feel of her flesh when he dug the knife in. All he could smell was the blood, and he had to swallow back the vomit.
    He rested his head on the table, but Clemence kept singing. Her back was turned to him and he felt so weak, so scared, he could not even call out to her to stop. He kept seeing Lily, blood dripping down her wrists. How her neck was swollen and pink. She was hanging upside down, staring at him with her dead eyes. But this time, when he remembered her, she spoke.
    â€œRock, fire, flood, freeze, storm, star shower, sickness,” she said, her lips pale. Then she repeated it. “Rock, fire, flood, freeze, storm, star shower, sickness.”
    He was saying the words to himself, saying them over and over, when Clemence grabbed his shoulders. “What is it? What’s wrong, my beloved?”
    She’d stopped singing, but he hadn’t noticed. He had no idea how long he’d been sitting there, hunched over the table, lost in that memory. “I saw her—the girl I sacrificed. Lily. She was sending me a sign.”
    â€œWhat sign?” Clemence asked.
    Claude put his head in his hands, thinking of the villagers he had seen in the past days. The rockslide had happened just months before. Then there was the fire raging in the woman’s village. “Rock, fire, freeze…” he said. “It’s a timeline… a warning. I’ve been sent a warning.”
    Clemence drew her brows together. “A warning for what?”
    â€œAnother sickness is coming for us.…” he said. “The plague, it has to be. The plague must be returning. What else could it be?”
    Clemence stood there, looking down at him. She covered her mouth with her hands. She’d lost her entire family to the plague as well, three sisters and mother who’d been widowed when she was young. “No. Please, no,” she said.
    But as Claude remembered the vision, he was certain Lily was sending him a sign. She was telling him what to do. “I just have to stop it before it comes,” he said. “I have to appease our pagan gods.”
    â€œYes,” Clemence said. “But how?”
    Claude stared into the fire, his resolve hardening. “There must be another sacrifice.”

Chapter Seven
September 25, 1518
    The two pagans pulled the rope as hard as they could, then secured it to one of the lower tree branches. Above them, the hunter hung upside down by his feet. He struggled, his cape over his face, his wrists tied behind his back. “Please don’t do this,” he yelled. “I’m lost. I meant no harm. I have a family who needs