Chapter 14
Chapter fourteen
Mirela
The sound of the door closing was small. That was what terrified her most.
It wasn’t a slam or a shout, just a dull final scrape of iron sliding into place. It was as if the tower itself had decided this was where they would remain. Mirela’s breath stuttered in her chest, her hands lifting instinctively, uselessly, as if she could undo it simply by wanting to.
Ferron still stood between them and the door. His form, somehow taller than Mirela remembered, his gaze darker.
He moved calmly, his presence filling the room. The same way he moved when he was about to react to something Mirela had done or said.
It was suffocating.
He glanced around her chamber as if it belonged to him, as if every charcoal sketch and half-burnt candle were proof of some private indulgence he had long tolerated.
Claire shifted beside her.
Mirela felt the tension radiating from Claire’s body, the instinct to protect. And yet, she was unable to move, hoping to will everything away.
Claire stepped forward, placing herself closer to Ferron, and the sight of that action sent a spike of cold fear through Mirela’s veins.
She wanted to reach out, to pull her back, to beg her not to stand so near him, but her body refused to move.
Years of obedience held her frozen, her muscles locked in memory.
If she didn’t talk, if she didn’t move, then his anger would dissipate faster.
“Let us pass,” Claire said, her voice firm despite the tremor Mirela could hear beneath it.
Ferron chuckled. He tried to feign benevolence, but she had seen that grin before. Underneath it was nothing but cruelty.
“You bring corruption into the House of God,” he mumbled.
His eyes slid to Claire’s face, lingering in a way that made Mirela’s skin crawl.
“The least I can do is keep you away from everyone on the outside. Maybe that way your corruption will end.” He tilted his head then.
“You already did your harm. I will not allow you to keep on hurting others.”
“You have no right—“
“Yes, I do! I have all rights. I am Judge Claude Ferron, and I will decide what happens to your life, to Mirela’s and to whoever I see fit! Starting with those pests.”
Mirela narrowed her eyes. “Pests?”
“The nomads…” He paused, his upper lip twisting in disgust. “I began with your mother.”
Mirela’s breath left her in a soundless gasp just as Claire took a step closer to her.
Her scars burned as if reliving memories of heat, screams, and sobs.
Of a warm body holding her tightly, of hands pulling her away from the comforting embrace of her mother.
She remembered the smell of burning flesh, not only of her mother’s, but of her own.
She remembered an angry gaze now locked with hers, commanding her to be quiet, to hush.
She remembered the aching in her throat as she screamed out in both physical and emotional agony.
It all burned, her scars, her chest, the tears now running down her cheeks.
“How could you?” Mirela whispered. “Why her?”
“I purified her and then I tried to keep you safe, pure. But now I see you reaching for another woman,” he went on, his voice tightening with contempt. “Another corruption. Truly… your kind cannot be redeemed.”
“Stop talking and let us out,” Claire said.
Mirela focused on Claire’s hands curling into fists by her side, trembling. Her own hands shook with the need to touch them, to stop her from interacting with him. There was no use; he wouldn’t listen. He never did.
He moved closer to Claire, his frame towering over her, and yet Claire looked up at him defiantly. When he took another step and his chest pushed against her, Claire bared her teeth.
Snarling, Claire leaned back and spat in Ferron’s face. “Let us out!” she shouted, shoving him.
The gesture was small, but it was enough to strike his temper like a match.
Ferron struck her sharply with the back of his hand, the sound echoing within the stone walls as Claire stumbled back.
She fell next to Mirela, a hand on her cheek as red bloomed against her dark skin, a thin line of blood slipping from her lips.
“Whore,” he spat. “Temptress.”
Mirela did not remember deciding to move.
One moment she was frozen, her heart hammering against her ribs, telling herself to not defy him, to not anger him, be still, and the next, her hands were on his throat.
Her fingers sank into flesh and fabric, driving him back with a force she had never known she possessed.
His back hit the wall hard enough to rattle the sketches pinned behind him, charcoal smearing, paper tearing.
Her mismatched eyes stared down at him, her teeth bared, hot anger coursing through her.
Ferron gasped. The sound was ugly as fear poured out of him, sudden and raw, and the realization stunned her.
He was afraid of her…
Judge Claude Ferron was afraid of her.
“Mirela,” he rasped, his hands clawing uselessly at her wrists. “Child—please—“
The word snapped something inside her. She pulled him from the wall and slammed him back once more.
Child.
He never used that word on her. He never used endearing terms. He called her his miracle, but that was it. A miracle for what? For his use? For his gain? To stroke his own ego?
If she was his child, why didn’t he parade her around like she had seen many fathers do during the festivals?
Why didn’t he speak words that showed tenderness or that at least he liked her; not desired her in a sick, twisted way?
As if she was what was left of the woman he wanted and couldn’t claim.
His hands moved to her arm, trying to touch her face, her right side. She snarled, pulled him back, and slammed him once more. He did not get to touch her. Not now, not ever.
“M-Mirela!”
“Shut up!” she barked, squeezing his neck like the ropes to the bells. “Shut up, shut up, you… you devil!” She hissed, taking a step forward.
It wasn’t until now that she was close to him, standing straight, on her own two feet and not cowering away like she always did that she noticed she was taller than him.
“How dare you put your hands on her,” Mirela said, her voice low, shaking, unfamiliar even to herself. Her scars burned beneath her skin, heat rising as if the fire had been waiting for this all along. “You will never hurt anyone ever again.”
His eyes flickered with that distinctive spark of fear Mirela knew too well.
“Mirela, p-please, let go,” he begged then stammering, breathless.
If he dared to invoke God, to ask for mercy or forgiveness, she would not grant it. Not when he had hurt Claire, not after all that he had confessed. His words, his blubbering, only made her angrier. Years of prayer, of guilt, of fear coiled tight in her chest and finally unraveled.
“Mirela—don’t,” Claire said suddenly, her hands gripping Mirela’s arm, trying to pull her back. Her voice trembled with urgency. “Let’s leave. He isn’t worth it. We can go. Please.”
Mirela turned her head sharply toward her.
For a moment, the world narrowed to Claire’s face.
Her expression was soft even though her cheek had darkened, and there were still traces of blood on her lip.
Her eyes still showed mercy toward a man who had never shown Mirela any.
That alone stole the breath from Mirela’s lungs.
Of course, Claire would be the one to reach for kindness, even when it was undeserved. She was a divine creature, the closest thing to heaven Mirela had ever known—had ever been allowed to touch. And the thought of that mercy, so freely given, shattered something fragile and burning inside her.
“Mi-rela.”
Ferron trembled under her grip, felt the way his hands clutched uselessly at her wrists, his breath hot and uneven.
Mirela pulled him back up from the wall, her fingers tightening at his throat, lifting him just enough for his feet to scrape helplessly against the floor. “We are leaving. You will not come after us. You will stay here.”
He didn’t answer so she shook him. “Do you understand?!”
“Y-yes, child. P-please.”
Turning abruptly, Mirela slammed to the ground. The impact shook the room.
Ferron hit the floor hard. The breath was knocked clean from his lungs, and as his body twisted, his arm struck the small oil lamp perched on the crate beside her cot. The lamp tipped, shattered, and oil spilled across the floorboards in a glistening arc.
Fire caught instantly, leaping to life as if it had been waiting to be released as if oil had been previously dispersed in her chamber.
Mirela froze. Heat slammed into her like a memory made real as her sketches burned.
Paper curled, charcoal blackened, as faces and animals vanished in seconds.
Her drawings. Her birds. Her gargoyles. Claire’s face, half-smiling, swallowed by flame.
The fire raced across the oil-slick floor, climbed the wooden frame of her cot, crawled up the walls, hungry and fast.
Her lungs seized as her scars burned once more. The room blurred and sharpened all at once, the crackle of flame too loud, too close, the smell of oil, smoke and burning wood dragged something buried straight to the surface.
She was small again. She was screaming. She was burning. She was torn from her mother’s arms.
“Mirela!” Claire cried, grabbing her shoulders. “Mirela, look at me—look at me!”
But Mirela could only stare as the flames grew. The fire bloomed higher, climbing the beams above them, and then she smelled it—smoke from somewhere else, drifting down from above, thick and wrong. The bell tower. The ropes. The wood.
Above them, something was already burning.
Ferron laughed, low and shaking. From the floor, he dragged himself upright, fumbling inside his judge’s coat with trembling hands. When he pulled his arm free, glass glinted in the firelight. In his hand there was a small flask, already uncorked.
More oil.
Mirela’s blood ran cold.
“No,” she breathed.