“This man,” he repeated, lowering his sword until its point needled the wood, “dared to seek comfort in a heathen deity, renouncing the Blood God as his creator and master.”
Ignoring the boos, the last soldier fixed his gaze on something far beyond the angry mass of Thromarrians. Rotating, I followed it. Behind us, Garnet Mountain reared above Dendra, its westerly ledge scarred red from the first of the plagues—Ferrovia—where the First had succumbed. He stared, blind to all but the mountain.
I returned to the scaffold, eyes straining against the fresh sunlight that had finally burnt through the clouds. Vetrius’ helm angled down to his sword, its three polished points jutting out to the crowd. I could smell it now…the iron.
I shouldn’t look.
But today, I was alone, with no one to stop me, with my mother at home or lost to the crowds and Demetri waiting somewhere unseen. Try as I might, nothing could tear my eyes away as he gripped the hilt, preparing for one final blow.
An acolyte wormed his way to Vetrius’ side, pressing his face close to the helm, as if to whisper through the mesh that guarded his face. Vetrius stilled his sword and leaned away, forcing the acolyte onto his toes, crimson robes rising to reveal skinny ankles. A thin hand brushed the druid’s arm, the acolyte trying to right himself. I shuddered at the memory of an unwanted touch, just as the Butcher recoiled from his.
Not a breath later, he was dead.
I struggled to piece together the scene on the scaffold.
It was not the crusiax’s body, but theacolyte’s, that lay at Vetrius’ feet, blood oozing from his severed neck, mingling with the rest.
What had hesaid? Blasphemy? An insult? A threat?
“Don’t look. Don’t look, darling girl.”
The Butcher’s cape trailed through the mess as he stepped over the body, still twitching, towards the final bound soldier. The crusiax remained lost to the mountain, unperturbed by the acolyte’s death. Despite the now glaring sun, there was no mistaking the faint, small smile that ghosted his lips.
Hands shielding my face, they did nothing to mute the last swish of metal. Then, a single thud, not two.
Parting my fingers, I peered from their frame. Druid Vetrius stood, like the Blood God Himself, gazing down upon the ruins of flesh. Not one head, but two, decorated the wood at his feet.
The shorn head of the acolyte glistened like a ruby, and the matted hair of the soldier faced away from the square.
In a graceful sweep, the Butcher returned his sword, orcleaver, to the sheath at his back.
Wordlessly, he descended the dais.
“To your knees, for His Holiness, Druid Vetrius of the Dendralis!” an acolyte squealed, scrambling forward, his herald tardy. But the points of Vetrius’ helm had already vanished through the colossal doors of the reach, not bothering to check whether we’d lowered ourselves to the ground.
We had. Every last one.
Gaze sweeping over the kneeling piazza, I landed upon the little girl, hunched in the mud with the rest of us. She stared straight at me. In that moment, it was impossible to determine which was more disturbing: the limbs scattered like offcuts across the scaffold’s weeping planks, or her wide, toothless smile.
I shuddered.
The smile.Most definitely, the smile.
Chapter five
Ashara
The Penance
It is a lie on thou’s tongue to claim a penance is greater than thee can bear. -4:13–14 - The Book of Dendralis
The whip’s tail cracked, splitting the air, a wet smack proclaiming its kiss upon Demetri’s back.
It is a lie on thou’s tongue to claim a penance is greater than thee can bear.
I clung to the small passage from the Book of Dendralis, repeating it over, and over, and over under my breath until the words drowned out the sounds of the whip parting his skin.
Tied to a post not five paces away from where I was bound, Demetri’s penance was well under way, both of us reunited on the scaffold. Strips of flesh lay in tatters down the curve of his spine. Blood, flowing in thick rivulets, puddled beneath him, adding to the crimson stains and urine already seeped into the wood.
