Under their attentions, we sang like blackbirds, our transgressions stripped bare by the Blood God’slove.But Ashara was no sin, and thus, not even the Blood God’s hand could coax her name from my throat, nor knowledge of her letter from my heart.
Esioul never spoke, at least not to them, not in Thromarrian anyway. They’d penance her heathen tongue again and again, and often she would pass out from the pain long before the sun had yet to set, its dwindling rays visible through the metal grate above. Ingenious, really. Something I wished I’d thought of.
The rest of us were busy handing them the evidence for our own confessionals, a neat little justification for our executions when the masses began to question why the Blood God’s chosen were to die at all, even though He had supposedly spared us. It was all rather clever.
The acolyte stepped down from the stool with the Book of Dendralis tucked beneath his arm, glazed eyes drifting over our hanging bodies. A red tongue darted between even redder lips as he fiddled with the straps attached to the slab, the great bulk of stone beneath the grate, squatting in the centre of the cell. We would be prostrated over it sooner enough, one by one, for the questions that really got them hard: the ones about Ashara. I chewed my lip harder, steeling myself for another dose of His love, in hopes that mine would be stronger than His. That my love for her could rival a god’s.
The door groaned, and another entered the cell, crossing the threshold to the slow tap of leather soles on wet stone.
“That one first, Freddor. Mind yourself. We normally gag her. She bites.” Another acolyte, this one with a monk at his shoulder.
Freddor, a pale, slight thing, no more than sixteen or seventeen cycles, reached to unclasp Esioul’s manacles. Her dainty face stretched into a grin, mouth open, teeth bared.
“Ahh. By the Oth—” Freddor clutched his wrist to his chest, an angry crescent already rising on its surface.
“Mind your tongue, monk.” Every hair, from the tip of my head to my balls, stood on end.
Through the ajar door slipped Falstaff, his twin points preceding his skeletal frame draped in black.
“Ye blaspheme in a templum? Thou knowest the price for such talk. Release her.”
Esioul cackled whilst Freddor wrestled with her the second time, muttering pleas for forgiveness under his breath.
With the help of the others, and a linen strap round her mouth, they hulled her onto the jutting rock. Used as a table, or rather, a stage, the rest of us had a front-row seat to the Blood God’s affections, and this day, Esioul would be the first to feel the sharp sting of His love.
They bound her limbs with clunky chains and leather straps, welded to the stone by metal rings. Above, attached to the grate, hung an iron chandelier, the wax from the tapers dripping in thin, hot lines, their glow brighter than the latticed sun, shaded by the mesh.
Falstaff’s pointed helm glided past us. He approached Esioul from the base of the rock. “Acolyte. Retrieve the Hand of the Blood God.”
From the corner, an acolyte crept forth with a weighty leather satchel grasped in his claws, the imprint of a cupped hand branded onto its cover. He laid it between Esioul’s bare feet, unbinding its straps with considered care.
“We shalt spare her the fingers and turn straight to the thumbs. The heathen requires a firmer touch this day.” Sliding metal from suede, the acolyte presented the Thumb of God to Falstaff with a flourish. The druid lifted the tool, turning it slowly as he inspected its edge. I entertained myself with the memory of Ashara spitting on his veil, of the glob of it wetting the chain.
He held it to the light.
The Blood God’s Thumb was no mere appendage, but a rod of steel, the thickest of the set. Though not as wide as an actual thumb, it was a nasty fucking thing. All His fingers were—each as long as a forearm and speared at the ends, sharpened for the primary purpose of piercing flesh and puncturing bone. They entered with unsettling ease, His touch brutal but merciful in its efficiency. It was the leaving that hurt. Gods, ithurt. Tiny barbs lined the metal’s edge, angled down, ensuring that one remembered His loving touch long after His finger withdrew.
I winced despite myself, hoping Esioul didn’t notice and my face remained lost to the shadows. By now, we all knew what it felt like to be at the mercy of the Blood God’s hands, though the acolytes rarely used the thumbs.
“I deem, heathen, the acolytes have put the same questions to thee as I. Yet I am told thou refusest to speak unto them in our Lord’s most gracious tongue. I have come to purge ye of the bile and venom and to make thy speech as pure as honey and milk.”
“Odi te. Odi te. Odi te.” Esioul’s dark eyes widened, fixed on the patchwork of light above. Wherever or whatever she was losing herself to, I prayed to the Other she’d stay there. Anywhere but here.
Falstaff’s gloved, bony fingers grasped the thumb tighter, his knuckles as pronounced as its barbs. He rounded the slab, aligning himself with her middle.
“How dost thou know Ashara Laurel, the seamstress of Dendra?” She’d been asked this before. Countless times. Her answer was always the same. Always the truth.
Silence.
Falstaff’s free hand reached for her palm, turning it over to rest face up on her lower stomach. Esioul remained pliable, allowing him to manipulate her however he wished, eyes still intent on the light.
“I’ll ask ye once more, heathen. Let it not be said that the Dendralis knoweth not patience.” He twiddled the thumb, stroking it in an upward motion with slow fingertips.
“How dost thou know Ashara Laurel, the seamstress of Dendra?” Her name on this tongue was profane, and I longed to rip it from him. Instead, I had to make do with biting my own.
“Odi te.” Her letters barely carried over the expanse of the cell, just a whisper.
His hand shot to her face, fingers pitting her cheeks with trembling force. “Speak not another cursed vowel of that damnable tongue, or I shall bid an acolyte carve it from thy mouth and have it boiled in blessed water.”
