AllFreeNovel
Share Us
CHAPTER 50
The full moon has arrived. She brings death with her.
The ceremonial grounds are somber; the pack hasn’t seen an execution in centuries, let alone one of this scale. Every adult pack member is in attendance, gathered on stands erected around the open curve of the ceremonial building. Nathan struck down the condition that every member attend. He felt there was no reason for children to view the carnage of the proceedings.
The mates of the condemned are squeezed into a separate set of risers, a box constructed below the observation balcony. They have to watch. They need to see what their mates’ treachery has wrought. And they’ve been positioned where the rest of the pack can see their anguish. Where everyone will watch them watching their mates die.
I spared our parents. They won’t have to watch Clare die.
Nathan, Tara, and I are the only ones who look down from the mezzanine, though Tara’s chair is behind and slightly to the right of mine. It keeps her from viewing the grounds She doesn’t need to see our sister executed. She did nothing wrong, and she’s as destroyed by Clare’s betrayal as I am.
Nathan sits to my left, close enough that he can hold my remaining hand if I need the support. It’s cold comfort, considering I’m about to watch my sister die. But at least, I know someone is on my side.
The monoliths to Fenrir and Lupa are covered with blood-red cloth, as if to hide our actions tonight from their gazes. But Lycaon’s stone is wreathed in garlands of wolf’s bane and anointed with blood. The pack is certain to feel his favor now.
I hope. Because at this point, Nathan and I need the gods on our side.
Acolytes move around the circle, swinging their censers and filling the night air with plumes of incense that carry our intentions to the moon, and to Lycaon in the spirit world. They’re dressed in red robes and wearing black gas masks; the Wolf’s Bane they burn will poison their human bodies.
The Hierophant is likewise masked, but wearing black robes embroidered with glimmering purple aconitum flowers. He asperges the circle with water flicked from a bundle of aconitum in his gloved hand.
A round scaffold stands over the pit where the ceremonial fire usually blazes. To compensate for the lack of light, shallow bowls of burning oil hang from posts around the perimeter of the huge circular platform.
The executions will take place before Lycaon’s Banquet. The air is charged with fear and anticipation as the condemned are led into the circle. I expected cries of grief from the women in the stand below us, but there are none. I do note the way the heads of the condemned turn to seek out their mates; one man mouths something I believe is, “It’ll be all right.”
How terrible it must feel for one’s last words to be a lie.
I think about Clare. I wonder if Julian lied to her in the same way.
If I start to feel sympathy for her now, I’ll never survive the night.
There’s shockingly little ceremony involved in the actual killing. Death is an unnatural thing to werewolves; we’re so used to living for centuries, enjoying good health, and rarely falling victim to accidents. Maybe this ritual is so short because we don’t want to confront the truth of what will happen before our eyes. We will see death take those we once counted as pack members.
Nathan gestures to the executioner, a hooded thrall whose face is also hidden by his gas mask. The hulking figure takes an impossibly huge sword, practically a guillotine’s blade, from an acolyte as the first traitor is marched to the block. There are no final words. No moment of reflection. The thralls force the man to his knees, his head into the cradle of the block. They hold his arms clear, and the executioner brings down the blade. It’s that simple. In one stroke, the deed is done, and the headsman whips the blood from his sword.
The first one stuns me. Someone’s decapitated head rolling around, their blood spraying from their neck, quickly slowing to the chug of wine from the mouth of a spilled bottle, seems fake. It’s incomprehensible. Heads don’t come off.
The second one hammers home the reality, as one of the mates below us screams when the blade falls. That man’s face stares up at us, his mouth still working in shock for a moment that feels like eternity.
By the third and fourth, I know that my lack of reaction to the scene is a sign of trouble to come. I should be horrified, unable to look.
What’s become of me, that I’m willing to stay and see this horror, but do nothing to stop it.
The condemned men don’t look so brave anymore as they wait. Some have tears in their eyes. Some shake. If I turn away from the scene, I will appear weak. The pack will think I don’t have the courage to follow through with Nathan’s orders. We’re a unified force. We run the pack.
