Chapter 19
Half an hour later, a carriage brought them to another residence, this one with a facade of white stones and yellow bricks, squeezed between other similar buildings covered with ivy.
Tall Doric columns lined its white porch like the bars of a cage. Beyond them, a red door was drenched in the soulless orange glow of the sconces hanging by its side. A paper had been glued over it; the Inquisition’s emblem printed on it notified passersby of the restricted area beyond.
Semras doubted it was as efficient as the two Venator sword-bearers standing at the top of the stairs. They kept guard there, their hands resting on the pommels of their swords. Her heart lurched at their unexpected presence.
Estevan helped her down from the carriage. She squeezed his hand tightly, but neither its warmth nor the cool breeze of the night could stop the distressing memories of her assault from surfacing in her mind.
Her neck ached with phantom pain.
Semras hesitantly trailed behind the inquisitor as he briskly climbed the stairs.
He stopped before the sword-bearers to present his insignia, and they opened the door to let him through.
When she tried to follow, they barred her passage.
With faces of stone and steel, they slid their swords off their scabbards by an inch.
A flare of anxiety hit her, and she stumbled back. She knew they weren’t the same men that almost killed her, but her mind still reeled with fear.
“She is with me,” Estevan said, standing at the threshold of the house.
Shuffling on their feet, the guards exchanged a glance. One of them cleared his throat. “My lord Inquisitor,” he said, “with all due respect, this is against protocol. Our orders are clear: no one but the authorized personnel of the Inquisition may come inside.”
“I know,” the inquisitor replied, sneering. “I signed that order. Should I sign another paper to give myself permission to bring someone inside?”
The sword-bearer glanced at the witch. “My lord Inquisitor, it’s … it’s protocol. The tribunals would have our heads if we let her inside. She may tamper with the crime scene, since she’s a …” His tongue darted out to moisten his dry lips. “… a witch.”
Semras wouldn’t cower in front of the sword-bearers. She would not. She’d make a mockery of their distrust—and prove to herself she wasn’t afraid of them.
“I have no interest in meddling in this affair more than I have to,” she said, extending her wrists toward the inquisitor.
Her hands shook slightly, but the contemptuous glare she threw at the Venators kept their attention away from them.
“If that will soothe their petty concerns, then please restrain me, Inquisitor Velten.”
Eyes gleaming, Estevan grinned. “If you insist. Just remember: I did not demand it. You volunteered.” After retrieving the witch-shackles hanging from his belt, he stepped toward her.
A shiver shook her to the bones.
The gauntlets of rings had been forged out of cold iron—a metal folded into fire so often it had entirely consumed its link to the Unseen Arras. Interconnected with thin chains and beads to restrict movement, the witch-shackles would severely impede her ability to weave.
Semras had seen such impediments once on an Elder of the Adastra Coven. One of her hands had been trapped in it since the last witch purge, and the cold iron had branded her wrist with bloated, discoloured veins coursing down her forearm.
The cold metal touched Semras’ hands, and she suppressed a flinch. The memory of the Elder’s wrist flashed through her mind.
One by one, Estevan slid the metallic bands onto each of her fingers. Anyone else would have called him contrite by how gently he secured the shackles on her. The witch scoffed. He probably thought it was hilarious.
“Is this uncomfortable?” he whispered.
Of course it was, but she still shook her head.
Her skin itched beneath the cold iron. She could use her hands with careful, slow consideration, but there would be no weaving for as long as the shackles trapped them.
Emboldened by the presence of Estevan next to her, Semras glared at the Venator guards. “Well? Still worried about little me?”
They squirmed under her fierce gaze. That the witch could boil the blood in their veins where they stood—had she been on the Path of War and not wearing witch-shackles—was irrelevant. They were craven.
“Figured,” Semras said, sneering. Then she stepped into the home of Tribunal Torqedan, soon followed by Inquisitor Velten.
The main hall only looked modest at first glance thanks to its lack of furniture and decor—yet it was anything but such.
Walnut wood panels covered the lower parts of the walls, their dark reddish stain complementing the red wallpaper of tiny yellow birds flying around plant stems. A light layer of dust dimmed the varnish of the floor tiles arranged in colourful geometric shapes beneath Semras’ feet.
Above her head, trims of Andakkadian plasterwork framed the coffered ceiling.
Apparently, it paid well to burn witches.
Estevan stopped her with a hand over her shoulder. “It is here,” he said, pointing toward a door down the hallway. “But before … the shackles, they—”
“It’s fine,” Semras replied, glancing toward the door—and the Venator guards lying behind it. “They might still see me through the windows, so we can’t remove them yet.”
“I take it you never wore such things before. Be careful, and do not try to weave with them on you,” the inquisitor said, brow creased with concern. “They are made to cut you if you struggle against them too much. Do not let the cold iron touch your blood.”
Semras nodded, looking down at her binds. An odd chill had started spreading from them, numbing her hands. She tried to shake it off.
It was nothing—just the hyperawareness of the cold iron against her skin, surely. Estevan would get them off her soon enough.
She trusted him, she realized. To have let him place such dreadful binds on her, she had to.
Estevan enjoyed acting like a bastard, but his actions had proven that she could depend on him.
He had shielded her in front of disgruntled sword-bearers, had saved her from the one who tried to take her life …
and he hadn’t betrayed Nimue. They were not together.
The child’s existence and his lack of interest in them didn’t …
well, please her, but he was doing right by them, and that mattered more than her growing feelings of envy.
Maybe … maybe Estevan really did like her. Her heart had no business swelling so much at the thought.
Semras blinked her focus back onto the door in front of her, then reached for the handle. Trapping her tongue between her lips, she curled her restrained fingers over the round piece of brass. With enough patience and a little strain, she should be able to turn it.
Before she could manage to, Estevan moved his hand over hers and twisted the handle. “You might want to hold your breath,” he said.
He opened the door, and Semras gasped.
The parlour was ransacked. Books and papers had flown everywhere, mixing in with the glassware and ceramic shards littering the ground. The hairs on her arms rose. Something was wrong here, very wrong. She could feel it.
It was in the air, in the way it clung to her skin and threatened to choke her out. The smell of several days’ old blood and vomit swirled all around her into a heavy, suffocating fog.
Recoiling from the stench, Semras stepped back into Estevan.
He caught her arm and steadied her before she could stumble any further. “Careful, witch.”
“I have a name,” she snapped. “Use it.”
“Make me,” he replied, chuckling. His mirth sounded wrong here, in this place of death.
Semras braced herself, then walked into the room, carefully stepping around the chaos. She just needed time to get used to the scent. Once she’d get her bearing, she’d—
Semras froze at the sight of the corpse.
It lay on the floor, contorted in the throes of its agony.
Its taut, yellowed skin was stretched over an emaciated frame dressed in the black and burgundy robes of a tribunal.
Its belly had swelled horrendously, turning it into a bulbous mass.
It had been a tall, sturdy old man once, before rigor mortis came and stole any semblance of life and humanity away.
“Tribunal Eloy Torqedan,” Estevan announced. “His body has spent the entire week in the basement cold room, but decay might have set in already. I sent orders this evening to bring him out and lay him in the exact position we found him in for your inspection.”
Semras couldn’t tear her eyes off the corpse. Animated by the amber glow of a nearby candle, the eyes of the dead man seemed to be glancing at her.
“There was vomit and blood everywhere when I first examined the scene a week ago,” the inquisitor continued. “It has been cleaned since then; I did not think you would need to see it. Or smell it, though my nose tells me they missed a spot or two.”
She must have frozen for longer than she thought, for her vision was suddenly blocked by Estevan stepping in front of her.
He frowned. “Are you—?”
“No, I-I can do it. I’m not some delicate city flower who hasn’t seen death before. I just never saw …” Semras paused. No words sufficed to convey her thoughts.
“… Never saw one so violent before?” he offered.
She expected mockery, or judgment, or any other form of belittlement from him, but his eyes held only sincere empathy.
The witch swallowed her nerves. “I’ll have to examine him. And see the blood and the vomit, if there’s any remaining.” She raised her wrists up. “You can remove these now.”
“You volunteered those binds,” he said, smirking. “And I do not fancy putting them back on and off each time the sword-bearers feel like dropping by. Keep them on for now, and just tell me how I can assist you.”