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It is why I write this account. As warning to the Penitents who will follow. You see, I know Solange Wildblood. Once I knew what I was required to do, what Shemhazai demanded as the Tithing time drew nearer, I thought it would be easier. And when Isaiah began to appear in my nightmares to watch with me the execution of Elizabeth Wildblood, I believed if I knew the evil of the Wildblood witch, maybe I could go through with it. Maybe I could make a Sacrifice of her.
Shemhazai punished not me, but my mother and sister for my misstep.
The lashing I endured was nothing compared to the price they paid.
“Come, brother,” Charles says as the door is opened, and I meet Solange’s wide blue eyes. “Let us claim your bride.”
She was made to watch her father’s beating. Charles made sure of that. The night of the Tithing, though, was the first time she looked upon me in fear.
The ceremony itself lasted longer than necessary. A part of the punishment for attempting to run. Charles stripped each of the sisters bare. He humiliated them knowing all along it was Solange who bore the mark. Solange who would be the next Sacrifice.
That night, I took her to my bed as my bride. Before that, we had lain in sin. Shemhazai had known. It was an error on my part to think he would not. Shemhazai knows all things.
It was that very night as Solange clung to me, weeping, that I saw it. The fine almost unnoticeable crack in the great wooden carving above my bed. I did not understand what it meant. I’m not sure I do now. But it is no matter to us.
In the first week of her residence in our home, Solange remained strong as she endured the rituals decreed by this Book of Tithes. Her hair was shorn. It was my own hand to do it as she knelt naked at the angel’s feet and wept, my hand that left her head bloody and bald while my family watched.
Me who offered her hair to him, a promise of more to come.
She did not hate me. It may have been easier if she had. She forgave me that night. And I hated myself more for it.
The next morning came the first of daily whippings that would leave her back raw until the very end. This was the morning I learned that it was better that she receive her punishments at my hand for if I refused, Grandfather would hand Charles the whip and call him Penitent.
It took one time for me to learn.
One time of hearing her screams.
One time of watching the wickedness upon his face as he brought the lash down again and again and again, flaying my poor Solange.
One time of watching him degrade her with his seed upon her broken, bloody body to know I needed to take up the whip the following morning and every morning after that.
In the nights that followed, in the weeks that Solange lived with me and slept at my side, taking comfort from me by night when she endured only pain at my hands by day, that I watched that hairline split of the carving lengthen, deepen. And on our final night together, when I tried to spare her from the fate that was coming, that would come for her at the moment the sun broke the horizon, I confessed my love for my Solange. And in our pitiable state, she did the same. And over our heads, I swear, I swear it upon the god who has forsaken us, I heard the splintering of wood, and I knew, I knew in my heart that Shemhazai somehow grew weaker for our love.
But I did not hope for a better outcome for my Solange.
I only asked that once I had spilled her blood, that they would spill mine. And by the time the morning of the Sacrifice came, she was ready. She begged me for it. By then, she needed to be carried to the foot of the statue. By then, she was too broken in body and spirit to walk.
And when I looked into her eyes and saw the forgiveness in them, I despised myself for my weakness. I slit her throat, angering my family with the mercy I showed her in death that she had not been shown in life knowing all along I’d be punished for it. I knew and did not care. I would endure like she did. And I would die at their hands, for there was nothing to live for. I would not see my family prosper. My father would take a new wife. My brother would marry. It is all they spoke of, well, apart from the humiliations and horrors they would have me wreak upon my innocent bride.
