Pressure flattened my stomach before someone fisted my skirts. I squeezed my eyes shut tighter.
“Our moral faults, however, are entirely our own, as this laurel will come to learn. For Blood Demands Blood.” He threw them down, back over my legs, the fabric sticking to sweat-stricken skin.
I knew the urge would pass, but still, I wanted to die. Right now, on this table.
Other, kill me quick. Let me die. Now. Smite me now.
He wouldn’t listen, and perhaps that’s why I felt emboldened to ask. Eventually, I’d be released from the binds, and this would be over. I wanted to see my mother. Gods, I wanted my mother—wanted to be held by her, touched by her, soothed by her.
“She may have fainted.” A clammy palm pressed to the expanse of my temple, testing its heat. I tensed my eyes shut again, hoping no one would demand they open.
“Drop her to the cell, and I’ll amend Druid Capriche’s Book of Turns. No need to alert him this eve…not if you value your head or your rations. The Blood God hath blessed him in fury as well as prophecy.” Murmured agreements accompanied the flapping of leather as my limbs were finally freed.
I snapped my legs shut, swallowing the urge to vomit as olive oil trickled from between me, dripping down my thighs.
Don’t look.
Don’t look.
Don’t look.
I kept my eyes closed the whole way back to the cell, fighting a wince each time a monk righted me with their hands. The world felt…altered, somehow. Bars clanking shut, I traced the walls with both hands, lowering myself to the straw.
Eventually, I opened my eyes, if only to cry.
By the Other, how I cried. Those deep, wracking wails that leave you gasping for breath, face red, eyes puffy.
Yet, for all my noise, the cell beside mine remained silent.
***
Doors of Judgement were plentiful in Thromarra’s capital of Dendra, guarding the entry to every enclave’s chappellum. My mother would try to make me look at them during our Third Day walks through the city, collecting commissions for the guild. Despite her relentless pointing, I never did—blurring my eyes or fixating on the tips of spires and stained-glass windows instead.
Sometimes I’d chanced a look, if only to regret it. Never a phase passed when every door didn’t bear some festering limb speared to the wood: tongues, ears, hands, eyes…wombs.
The Reach of Atonement, however, there was but one of those.
Led by acolytes, flanked by monks, I, alongside others who’d awaited First Day Judgement in the bellies of chappellums, marched down the cobbled streets. There was an art to it: dodging the emptying of chamber pots from above and the mischief of hungry rats at our heels. Beamed faces of houses and shops leered over our procession, each of us destined for penance, countless eyes casting their silent condemnations through latticed windows and the hatches of doors. I stared ahead, the people, buildings, and colours all curdling into one watery smear like owl shit. A hollow numbness replaced the hysteria of yestereve; I had cried enough tears to fill the River of Galae, running dry well before dawn. By the gods, I was thankful for it. I could only hope it would endure the scaffold, the crowds, thewhip, and worse still, the knowing eyes of my mother. Step faltering, my slipper dunked into a rust-yellow puddle.
How fortuitous.
I trudged on, trying—and failing—to ignore the squelch of my left shoe.
It appeared after nearly a full turn. Framed by towering pillars of Ovidian rock, a wooden scaffold, erected against the southernmost reach-wall of the Grand Templum, the spiritual home of the Dendralis.
The Reach of Atonement.
It loomed over the vast piazza, absent of its usual market stalls. Before me stretched a long line of souls readying to ascend its bloodstained steps, each awaiting their turn to render their dues—be that by limb, lashing, or scorching.
I rolled my shoulders, trying not to imagine how it might feel between them after Capriche delivered his blows.
A metallic peal rang through the air, startling a murder of crows from their crumb-pecking. Wings flapped in panicked flight as I ducked, narrowly avoiding a score of talons soaring overhead. Amongst their cawing, a barn owl glided, silent and patient, unlike the rest.
“Make way! Make way! Heathens bound for penance! Let not their profane touch defile ye!”
Assisted by paxiams—armed guards of the Dendralis—an acolyte tolling a bell passed us. In his wake, a dozen or so dark-haired men and women, leashed by collars of hemp, were dragged towards the scaffold.
I couldn’t help the way my nose wrinkled as their bare feet slapped the stone. Heathens were not permitted use of the hot springs for bathing, nor rivers or wells,or to wear shoes, for that matter.
