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Screams reverberated through dead village streets.
If it were any other day, the downtown core of Meristone would be bustling with the steady thrum of merchants and buyers. Bartering and trading. Exchanging goods for coin. But today was different. The azure sky was stained with crimson banners—waving and flickering, pronouncing the king’s claim over these lands.
Not a soul, not one, walked the cobblestone roads of the little village. Most of the villagers had run home, locked themselves up and barricaded their doors. As for the ones who had not, they were standing in the village square—grouped together, frozen by fear, unable to look away. Me included.
Silence gripped at each one of us as we watched the fair-haired girl, not much older than fourteen, be dragged by two armor-clad soldiers towards the pyre. She wore the iron collar, the rusty nails on the underside sunk in like teeth into her pale, delicate flesh. A necklace of dried blood adorned her slender neck, disappearing under the ceremonial white garb they forced her to wear—a cheap piece of cloth—not that the king would spend good coin on something meant to burn.
The king. That is all I referred to him as. Because anyone willing to do this—willing to have such a blatant disregard for human life—they did not deserve to be called by their personal name. Because they were not a person at all. They were a thing. A bloodthirsty figurehead.
A woman, with the same honey-colored hair as the girl, pushed her way through the crowd. She clasped her hands together and fell to her knees, a frantic prayer for mercy falling from her cracked, pale lips. A soldier sporting the eagle crest of the king—talons stretched out, ready for the kill—stalked towards her, his bootheel the answer to her plea.
The girl wailed as she watched the woman crumble to the ground, the heavy blow rendering her unconscious—a merciful state to be in, considering the circumstances. The girl fought against the soldiers’ unyielding grips as they strapped her to the wooden stake. She was a rabbit among wolves—the Cursed among the clean.
“Please! Please! I do not bear the Curse!” she cried out as tears raced down her bruised cheeks.
Her voice was immediately silenced as the taller soldier propped her mouth open, brandished his knife, and cut out her tongue. The soldier dangled the dripping, bloody slab in front of the girl’s face before he threw it at her feet, taunting her. Horror painted her eyes as blood seeped down her chin—the butchered nub twisting grotesquely in her mouth as she attempted a gurgled, unnatural scream.
I turned away.
My stomach lurched, roiling like lava was in my gut, the acidic contents stinging the back of my tongue. I suffocated the urge to vomit. Sunk my nails into my palms. Concentrating on the pain, I cemented myself in place as I watched them set fire to the platform, a stack of wood blanketed in dry, ready-to-catch kindling. Although my attention was on her, I felt someone’s on me.
A tether pulled, an invisible string—the sensation strange, yet familiar.
I glanced over my shoulder, looking past the people standing behind me, landing directly onhim.
A male, domineering in stature, towering in height, was fully cloaked in black. The loose garment did little to conceal the power brooding beneath, biding its time, waiting for release.
I could taste his magic. Feel it. The force of it was a sudden weight upon my chest.
His dark eyes fixed on mine, the color of them a bottomless black.
I nearly gasped. Nearly took a step back. But I held firm, reasoning that the shadows crafted by his hood played a role in the illusion of his otherworldly eyes.
Surely, they must be dark brown.
His black lashes were so thick, his eyes looked naturally rimmed with kohl. A heavy, yet neat stubble carved out his sharp jawline and angular cheekbones. Every one of his features dripped with untamed masculinity, the kind mothers warned their daughters about.
I couldn’t avert my eyes. And as it would seem, neither could he.
Another unnatural, horrified scream came from the poor girl, and it drove a dagger through our locked gaze, my attention darting back to her.
The flames started out small, slowly wiggling their way closer to her, as if cozying up to an old lover. Feral and wild, she thrashed about, her bindings biting deeply into her flesh.
A gentle breeze sifted through, coaxing the flames to reach higher until they lapped at her bare, ivory feet. A spontaneous burst, and the flames ramped up at an unusual speed. A tang of magic drifted on the air. I knew who it came from, but when I looked over my shoulder, the cloaked male was no longer there.
The gurgled, nightmarish screams were one thing, but the smell of burning flesh was entirely another. It was an assault of the senses, a horrific, sickening smell that burned away any desire to ever cook meat again, let alone eat it.
Flesh and bone fed the hungry flames as they lapped farther up her legs.
This was not the first Cleansing I had experienced, nor would it be my last, but that never made them easier. The smells and sounds haunted me, always replaying on the cusp of my mind, especially in the middle of the night.
The soldiers liked to put their own unique twists on the Cleansing—a cut-out tongue, severed ears, gouged-out eyes, or something else more sinister. They were always thinking of ways to create a memorable spectacle that would leave the villagers cowering in fear and it always worked. Despite the buildup, there was one factor that never changed—the Cleansing always ended in flames.
But the flames had not consumed her yet.
And maybe, just maybe, I could save a life.
The greenhorns, the new soldiers recognizable by their lack of armor, did not concern me. Half of them weren’t even equipped with swords. But the one with the scar, etched like lightning down the side of his weathered face, his armor carefully tailored and forged from iron—that one would be a problem.
