By noon, his feet were bleeding.
The frozen mud had given way to slush as the sun rose, but the slush concealed sharp stones. Every step was a gamble, and Cian was losing. He left a faint, bloody trail behind him.
He was limping badly, his breath coming in short, sobbing hitches. He wasn't thinking about glory or knights anymore. He was thinking about feet. He was obsessed with them. He looked at his own ruined toes and hated them.
He needed boots. He would kill for boots.
No, he thought, the memory of the Warg flashing in his mind. I can't kill. I can only run.
A harsh cawing sound broke his trance.
Ahead, where the road forked near a stagnant pond, a large oak tree stood alone. It was dead, its branches white and skeletal against the grey sky.
Something was hanging from the lowest branch.
Cian stopped. It was a man. Or it had been.
The body swayed gently in the breeze. It had been there for weeks, maybe months. The crows had done their work on the face and hands, leaving bone and tattered strips of flesh. The clothes were rags, grey and rot-stained.
But on the feet...
Cian squinted. The corpse was wearing boots.
They were tall, sturdy leather boots. Riding boots. The man must have been a highwayman or a horse thief caught by a local lord's patrol.
Cian stared at the boots. He felt bile rise in his throat.
You can't, a voice in his head said. It sounded like his mother. It's a sin. It's desecration.
Cian looked down at his own bleeding, purple feet.
"He doesn't need them," Cian whispered.
He walked toward the tree. The smell hit him—a dry, musky scent of old decay and wet leather. The crows sitting on the branch cawed angrily but didn't fly away. They watched him with black, intelligent eyes.
The body hung about four feet off the ground. Too high to reach the laces.
Cian looked at the trunk. He would have to climb.
He grabbed the rough bark. His ribs flared with pain, but he gritted his teeth and pulled. He scrambled up, his bare feet finding purchase on the knots of the wood. He straddled the branch, inching out toward the rope.
The body spun slowly beneath him.
Cian reached down. He touched the rope. It was stiff with grease. He shimmied further, until he was directly over the corpse.
He reached down and grabbed the dead man's leg.
The body was stiff, light. It swung wildly at his touch.
"Stop it," Cian hissed, tears stinging his eyes. "Just stop moving."
He fumbled with the laces of the left boot. The leather was swollen from the rain, the knots tight. His frozen fingers were useless claws. He picked at them, sobbing in frustration.
"Come on," he whimpered. "Please."
The knot gave. He loosened the laces. He pulled on the heel.
It didn't move. The flesh had swollen in the rot, sealing the boot to the leg.
Cian braced himself against the branch, grabbed the boot with both hands, and pulled with everything he had.
Squelch.
The boot came free with a wet, sucking sound that made Cian gag. He nearly fell off the branch. He clutched the boot to his chest, gasping.
He looked down. The foot underneath was... he looked away.
He did the same for the right boot. It was harder. He had to kick the dead man's leg to loosen it. He felt like a monster. A ghoul.
When he finally dropped to the ground, clutching his prizes, he didn't put them on immediately. He fell to his knees and retched, dry heaving until his stomach muscles cramped.
He sat there for a long time, wiping his mouth.
Then, he wiped the inside of the boots with a handful of dry grass. He pulled them on.
They were two sizes too big. They smelled of death. The leather was stiff and cracked.
Cian stood up. He stomped his feet. The pain was duller now, protected by thick soles.
He looked up at the swaying corpse. The bare, skeletal feet pointed at the ground.
"Thank you," Cian whispered.
He turned and walked away. He walked faster now. He was a rat in a dead man's shoes, but he could walk.