Rope winds around my wrists again. It bites deep, cutting into already broken skin, binding me to the pole with no space left to move.
I gasp, my breath shaking.
The trap still hangs from my leg, heavy, streaked dark with blood that has begun to dry.
No one looks at it. No one looks at me.
They step back, one by one, leaving me bound there in the centre of the square, the shadow of the church looming behind, the sky wide and merciless above.
Popa Dorin steps forward.
The crowd stills around him, murmurs folding inward as though drawn by his presence. I try to steady my breath.
This will stop. Someone will speak. Someone will laugh, perhaps. Tell me to step down. Tell me I have misunderstood. This cannot be—
"We have witnessed," he says, his gaze passing over the crowd before settling somewhere near me, not quite on me, as though I am already something else, something set apart. "What has been revealed among us."
The words reach me as though through water. My head feels too light, my body too far away. Faces I have always known blur, then resolve.
Elena stands among them, her hands clasped tight before her chest, her mouth trembling, her eyes fixed somewhere near my shoulder. Radu is beside his father, jaw set, gaze lowered now, as though he cannot bear to see what he has helped build. Doamna Marica presses a cloth to her lips, eyes wide, breathing shallow. Others lean forward, intent, fearful, curious.
Ilinca and her mother are not there. A small, fragile relief settles into me.
Popa Dorin’s voice continues.
"Such darkness does not come unbidden…" The rest slips from me, words breaking apart before they can form meaning. I catch fragments. "…sin… allowed to take root… corruption… spreads…"
My eyes drift.
Mama stands at the back.
Her shoulders shake, her hands clutching at Elena’s sleeve as though she might collapse without her. Tears run freely down her face, catching in the lines of it, but she does not lift her gaze. She does not look at me.
"Mama," I try, but the word is swallowed by the cloth at my mouth.
"…we do not act in anger…" Popa Dorin's voice drones somewhere above the sound of my own pulse. "…but in the name of order… of cleansing…"
The world tilts again. I try to hold onto something solid—Mama's face, her voice, the way she had touched my cheek that morning—but it slips, just out of reach.
Radu’s father steps forward when the priest’s voice fades, his presence firm, grounding the words that have been spoken. He nods once, deliberate, his gaze sweeping over the gathered villagers.
"It will be done."
The finality of it lands heavier than anything before.
The crowd shifts. Someone crosses themselves. Another lowers their head. A child begins to cry.
I lift my eyes again, searching, hoping—still hoping—for something to break this, for someone to step forward, to say it has gone too far, that this is not right, that they remember me—
No one moves.
The sky stretches wide above, pale and indifferent.
I see it happen before it reaches me, as though the world has slowed just enough to make each movement unbearable. The priest’s assistant steps forward, his face eager, his hands too careful as he brings the torch to life. The flame catches slowly, then steadies, a small, trembling thing at first, no larger than a breath.
I shake my head. My body jerks against the ropes, instinct breaking through what little strength remains in me with a desperate movement that does nothing but tighten the fibres further into my skin. My wrists burn. My shoulders scream. I twist anyway, pulling, pushing, trying to find space where there is none. My broken leg tweaks uselessly, the iron clamped to it grinding against itself, sending flashes of pain that barely register beneath the rising terror.
No.
