Chapter Nine #2
Seraphina started pacing the cell. Despite the biting cold, she felt feverish.
No, this couldn’t happen. For one, he was innocent.
Not that anyone would believe him now. And two, because the penal code was so strict, the city watch always investigated crimes like these thoroughly.
There had been changes in the justice system in the past years.
The new Bavarian Penal Code adopted in 1813 kept the death penalty, but barbaric methods, like the breaking wheel, were replaced with the more humane practice of decapitation.
Humane... There was nothing humane about anything that happened in this prison.
She could hear the convicts through the walls and knew that even if they hadn’t killed anyone and they were here for lesser crimes, half of them would still die before spring came.
Their death sentence was undeniable, just not on paper.
No, Rune couldn’t die. He was too... He was just...
She didn’t want him to die.
Seraphina let her hands follow the wall as she inspected the cell, inch by inch.
She knew her previous cell by heart, but not this one.
With Rune gone, this was the first time she was alone between these four walls, so she took the opportunity to learn them through her fingertips.
It didn’t take her long to discover they were covered in Rune’s carvings.
Most of them were clustered above the wooden cot.
She traced the shape of wings and wondered if it was a bird or an angel he’d tried to sketch. Then she found his verses.
She took her time reading them, her fingers pressing against the letters, digging into the small spaces between them. She had to go over the lines of text two or three times to make sure she identified every word. The carvings weren’t always clean or well defined.
“Let others kneel at gilded thrones,
I worship at your skin and bones.
My only prayer, only creed,
Is your every burning need.”
“Oh,” she gasped. Who had he written this for?
Her fingers moved lower on the wall.
“Don’t you smell the rot on me?
The sweet decay of memory?
Breathe me in, my only cure,
There is nothing left that’s pure.”
Seraphina hung her head and smiled. She couldn’t agree more. There truly was nothing left that was even remotely pure. Not in this place, and not in the whole world, if men were ready to kill over bones, adding more bones to the pile.
She moved to the wall underneath the barred window and traced more lines.
“I am a thing of ruin, a blasphemy of flesh.”
Noise erupted down the corridor, and she nearly jumped out of her skin.
Heavy steps approached the cell, and she didn’t have time to read the rest of it.
She huddled in a corner, covering her face with her hands.
The door was unlocked, and her nose caught Rune’s distinctive scent – his musk and his sweat, which she didn’t find repulsive at all, more like comforting.
She’d gotten used to the smell of his skin.
On top of all that, there was a layer of fresh, cold air.
They’d taken him outside, probably to the gatehouse.
He was back now, and that was all that mattered.
The watchmen left them, and Seraphina focused hard on keeping calm. She wanted to turn around, jump into his arms and ask him if he was all right.
She wasn’t going to do any of that.
In another life, another time, when she was a different person, a whole woman, she might’ve.
“I was worried about you,” she said. She could be honest with him. That she could do.
“For no reason at all. I’m fine.”
“What did the sergeant want?”
“He asked me questions about the murders. He wanted details.”
“And what did you say?”
“I don’t know. Things. Whatever I could come up with.”
She let out a heavy sigh. “You don’t actually know any details.”
“I did my best. He said the investigation is ongoing and they are questioning witnesses. But it shouldn’t be long now.”
She bit her lip, uncertain of how to proceed.
How long had it been since they met? Two weeks?
She’d lost track of time, forgotten to count the days.
But in this time, she’d become convinced that he knew very little about the world.
So, it was entirely possible that he didn’t know, in fact, about the possibility of getting the death sentence, and if she told him, what would that make her? His torturer.
Had the sergeant not told him? The guards? Maybe they had, but so much irreverent shit came out of their mouths, that sometimes it was hard to tell when they were being serious or just messing with one’s head.
“I think...” He hesitated, his voice dropping to a whisper. “I think the sergeant doesn’t believe me.”
A flutter started in Seraphina’s chest and spread down into her stomach. Hope. What a dangerous thing to feel.
“That’s a good thing,” she said. “You should come clean, maybe they’ll let you go.”
“No.”
“I can help you when you’re outside. When we’re both out of here. You’re innocent, and my trial will end in my favor when everyone learns the truth about what Hartmann did.”
She felt her heart pick up the pace, the hopeful flutter spreading through her limbs now, and up her throat, to her head.
“Did you tell the sergeant what’s happening here? That I was put in your cell and Hartmann wants me dead?”
“N-No...”
She pursed her lips. Of course, she hadn’t asked him. But she’d hoped he’d have the presence of mind to take advantage of his meeting with the man in charge and advocate for her.
“I didn’t, because I’m getting you out anyway,” he added. “We’ll wait a few days, until you–”
“It’s not possible, Rune.”
“Until you stop bleed–”
“Stop it,” she cut him off. “Trying to escape is suicide.”
But for him, staying was suicide, too. She sank her fingers into her hair and pulled at the roots, her sharp nails scratching her scalp.
“I will get you out of here, Seraphina.”
She was starting to like how her name sounded in that deep, baritone voice of his.
“I’ll let you,” she said, giving in. “But only if you come with me, Rune.”
“I will.”
And there it was again. The lie.