Chapter 02 #3
A hand slammed over her mouth. Sounds of indignation spilled out of her throat, but his firm fingers over her lips kept them too muffled to reach anyone. Wide-eyed, she struggled only to stumble back into the frame of the inquisitor. His arms caged her in. Her bags fell onto the muddy leaves.
Semras rammed her elbows into his ribs, but the inquisitor only dragged her back against him. Taller than her by a full head, his frame swallowed hers easily, immobilizing her, trapping her. Her rage couldn’t break through his strength.
“Shhh, witch,” he said. “Did you think an inquisitor would not know the tricks of your people? You wove magic to spy on me, and I have very little patience for eavesdroppers. From now on, you will weave magic no more. I forbid it. I do not want to hear a single spell coming out of that pretty little mouth, do you hear me?”
Semras bit into the hand that muffled her, only for her teeth to meet leather—his damn glove protected him.
“You may refuse my request, of course, in which case I shall gag you and shackle your hands. The trip might be more entertaining for me this way, but I would rather not have to order one of my knights to watch over you at all times.” He chuckled darkly against her ear.
“I have a feeling you would find a way out of even cold iron shackles. Now, I will remove my hand, and you will say, ‘Yes, my lord.’”
Semras did not say, ‘Yes, my lord.’
She screamed.
“How dare you!” Lifting her chin up, she glowered at him. “Get your hands off me! Get off! I’ll hex you!”
Inquisitor Velten returned his hand over her mouth and hummed. “We will have to try that again. You are not good at following orders, are you?”
Her glare could have killed him.
Further away, a group of sword-bearers turned their attention toward the commotion.
Semras’ eyes pleaded at them for help, but they only observed from afar, glancing at each other.
Close by, the young knight—Themas, was it?
—watched the scene, a motionless figure amidst waves of men and beasts.
From afar, she couldn’t guess his expression.
The voice of Inquisitor Velten reappeared at her ear, intimately close.
“They will not help you. At every turn, they are wondering just how dangerous you are, if the tales about your people are true, and if they should kill you before you kill them.” His voice lowered to a drawl.
“Remember, witch, that you now travel with men used to watching your kind burn on the pyre. Look at them.”
He grabbed her jaw, forcing her to watch the sword-bearers.
Tears of frustration and humiliation welled in her eyes, but she refused to shed them.
She’d rather die than let the inquisitor know how much he scared her right now.
With her arms restrained, there was no way she could weave magic to free herself from his grasp.
He knew it as well—he knew exactly how to render a witch helpless.
“Magic will trigger them,” he said, loosening his grip on her jaw.
His fingers trailed down to her throat. “They do not understand it, and what they do not understand, they will destroy. I will protect you, as per our deal, but these men will grow nervous each time you unsettle them. They could turn into a mob that even I could not stop at the slightest provocation. Do you understand now?”
His words made sense but wounded her pride. The hand on her mouth retreated, and she held back tears of frustration. “… Yes,” she breathed.
“We will have to work on you addressing me properly and respectfully, but this shall do for now. I am releasing you, witch. Do not fall. It would be a shame to dirty your pretty dress. You look so lovely in it.”
He let her go, and Semras stumbled forward.
Spinning to face the inquisitor, she dug her nails into her palms to stop herself from hexing him.
She so dearly wished to, but the awful man was right: the sword-bearers kept watching, waiting for her next move.
She had to behave, if only for the sake of the witch sister that needed her help.
Instead, Semras dusted anger and hate off her dress.
Arms crossed over his chest, Inquisitor Velten waited calmly for her to be done. He was muscular, and she intensely regretted not noticing earlier the physical threat he posed to her.
Some inquisitors, acting as the ecclesiastical investigators they pretended to be, worked in the shadows and used specialists like Venator knights to do their dirty work. Others openly acted like the executioners they truly were, wielding weapons in their fight against so-called heresies.
By the look of his toned body, Inquisitor Velten was one of those favouring their might.
She must have thrown him a particularly hateful glare, for his eyes brightened and his smirk widened. “Something to say, witch?”
That irritated her. “You know my name. Use it.”
“I do not think I will, witch.”
“Very well, Inquisitor,” she replied, “if that’s how you want this to be.” She looked down at her bags, now sprawled in the mud before her. Magic could have quickly removed the dirt from them, but the inquisitor was still there, still watching. She dared not use it.
With magic forbidden to her, the world felt ridiculously restrictive. It felt colourless, cold.
And she felt vulnerable.
She side-eyed him, gauging just how far he’d go to oppress her—and how far she was willing to go to rebel against him.
Inquisitor Velten glanced briefly at her bags.
“I am serious about the prohibition of magic.” His voice had lost the edge it held before—that mix of amusement and arrogance that made her want to scream—in favour of a more appeasing, almost apologetic tone.
“I might be gracious enough to allow you one minor transgression here and there, but many are not. The last witch purges ended a generation ago, but there are whispers in high places yearning for a new one. I do not need to explain to you how our collaboration could become the catalyst for a new war between our people.”
Her blood turned to ice, freezing all the fight that remained in her.
Born half a year after the last one ended, Semras grew up hearing its gruesome stories from the few witches who survived it.
She had thought them to be a thing of the past, never to return now that laws prohibited the persecution and killing of her kin without due cause.
Yet, according to Inquisitor Velten, peace held on by only a whisper.
If a new purge was about to occur, her people needed to know.
She’d send word to the Coven about this. Later tonight, when she could weave magic without the meddling inquisitor lurking around her, she decided. In his arrogance, he had let slip something the Inquisition would never have wanted her people to know—she’d make sure they would.
“I know how precarious this situation is,” she replied, “but I will remind you that you are the one needing me. Not the other way around. I am not your prisoner, and I refuse to be treated as such.”
“Then let’s try to extend some trust to one another, so I will not have to treat you like one. No more spying on me.” Inquisitor Velten grabbed her bags and dusted them off. “And you still need to lighten your bags. Keep only the essentials.”
Semras tugged on her belongings.
He did not let them go. “One last thing …”
“What. Now?”
“I expect you to lie to me again, witch, as it is in your nature. But I am warning you, it will be useless. I always know when someone is lying.”
Instead of dignifying his threat with an answer, Semras pulled on her bags once more and spun on her heel. This time, he let them go.
Minutes later, she emerged again from her house with a single bag. Forcing her clenched jaw to relax, Semras straightened her shoulder, then once more made her way to the horses.
How she yearned to be back home already.