An uneasy twisting rippled through my gut. They were herded like cattle to the lower left of the reach, apart from the crowds, apart from us. Druids did not penance the heathens—their blessed, albeit violent, touch too much of an honour—that duty fell to the acolytes. They would wait until every other Thromarrian bound for penance had rendered their dues, standing for turns upon turns until the last lash was struck.
I’d never lingered long enough to witness a heathen’s penance. We were permitted to return home once day sank to dusk, and only the perverse stayed beyond what was expected.
Today’s sun was scarcely halfway to its fall, its pale light whitening the highest clouds in the sky. How long until I was home in my cot? Until I might draw my sheets about me and return to before?
“A long while yet, darling girl.”
Gods…Demetri.
I fisted my skirts, stained with patches of gods only knows what, trying not to think about him: where he was in the line, or what would happen between us now that we’d been caught.
Glutton for punishment, my neck craned anyhow, eyes wandering to the backs of those farther ahead.
All women, Demetri’s curled crop of warm brown hair glaringly absent.
The one nearest, broad of hip with hay-bale hair, began to weep. What was her due? I set myself to guess their sins. Perhaps she’d sold an undersized loaf or brewed non-monk-sanctioned ale. Maybe she’d kissed a sweetheart or stolen some coin. Like the cobbler, had she laughed at a druid? Defecated in a book? Sewn another’s sleeve?
Sins in Dendra were plentiful as grain, and the Dendralis never failed to harvest the crop.
Lost in my game, I didn’t notice the crowd at first, funnelling in from the side streets and alleys. Not until the swelling of their cheers grew impossible to ignore. Some, already calling for penance, eyed our line with a fevered hunger. I avoided their covetous gaze, counting the steps of the scaffold instead.One, two, three…They were greedy. Greedy for a sliver of entertainment on a dreary First Day morn.Four, five, six…Others waited silently, lips thin and hands knotted, worry—or shame—slicking their brows.
Seven, eight, nine…Each chanced look into the deepening mass of bodies proved fruitless, my mother’s knowing eyes nowhere to be found.
Did I even wish to see her?
She’d call me a fool. I was a fool.
Oh, suchfoolswe’d been. Demetri and I believed ourselves to be so much cleverer than the rest. “Fate is on our side, darling girl. We’ve stuck to our promise, and what is but one tiny sin? You’re always so good.”
But good girls didn’t stand in the penance line; they stood there, in the crowds—wimples secured, dresses starched, hands clasped, heads down. Good girls watched and waited and endured through it all.
A young thing, ten or so paces away, half-hidden in her mother’s pale blue skirts, eyed me warily, her gaze drifting from my yellow-stained slipper to my unbound hair, no doubt knotted and wild. Around her, men and women pointed and jeered.
I smiled at her, and after a moment, she smiled back—a toothless smile, all gums, just like Adelaide’s a few cycles or so ago.
“Isolde.” Her mother sneered, yanking her skirts to shield her daughter. “Cast ye eyes away—”
Heat pricked my cheeks, and I honed in on the knot of rope at my wrist, hoping I hadn’t gotten her into too much trouble.
A hush descended upon the piazza as heavy steps echoed, and a druid ascended the dais.
Capriche?
Head snapping up, I searched for his whip, scanning his hands, waist, and back for its cruel length. That blessed numbness wavered, something far more dangerous stirring at its core, crawling beneath my skin and breaking me out in sweat.
“Have mercy! I am of Druid Tomin’s enclave, not his.” The weeping woman in front of me had rounded on an acolyte, herhands, blotchy and red like the rest of her, clasped to her chest. “I was penanced three fingers for watering the wine; he’ll take the whole hand! Or my arm!” The acolyte stared ahead, a curl to his lips, ignoring her pleas.
“Be still,” a monk hissed, blocking her view of the acolyte. “Druid Vetrius comes for the crusiax, not for thee, tavern wench.”
She whimpered, offering a small, trembling nod, her eyes flickering between him and the scaffold.
Fear, flammable as cotton, buzzed through our line. For there, astride the scaffold, stood not Capriche, butDruid Vetrius.
He was a smudge of black against the reach’s grey stone, his armour wrought of the darkest iron, swallowing the light rather than reflecting it. A shudder crept from the base of my neck to my tailbone as the truth settled once more: I was no smarter, nor cleverer, than the rest.
The Butcherwas here.
“To your knees, Dendra! For His Holiness, Druid Vetrius, commander of the crusiax, second only to His Eminence, the High Druid of Dendra! For Blood Demands Blood.”
