Godbound (The Skyburn War #1)

Chapter 1

If I had a coin for every time I stood up against the lashing of a cursed woman, I’d still have none. Because the Church says sinners deserve their penance. And my conscience? It screams I’m a coward.

The sun glares down as I rattle along in an open carriage, headed to yet another punishment. Another noble girl, dragged out for daring to shame herself with a man before marriage. Ten years of swallowed protests scrape like rust in my throat.

A trickle of sweat slips between my breasts, and I curse the chafing neckline of my modest dress. It presses so high it feels like it’s trying to choke me.

“You’ll tear your dress if you keep clawing at the neckline, Lady Raylane,” my duenna, Eleanor, says from across the carriage. She’s my assigned protector of virtue, which means talking back isn’t just useless, it’s punishable. Especially on a day like this.

So I drop my hands into my lap and fold them, demure as a sermon.

Days ago, this dress didn’t bother me at all.

But ever since Peonica hurled her angry words at me, nothing sits right.

Least of all this dress, like it’s trying to choke me with the virtue I’m supposed to uphold. One I can’t seem to wear anymore.

“How many times can you cry over the same thing?” Peonica had asked exasperated, after catching the angry tear I thought I’d hidden when I was ordered to attend this lashing.

“You cry, you look away, and then you cry again. At some point, you either admit you’re a coward like the rest of us or you stop crying and do something about it. ”

Something brittle had snapped inside me at her words, and I haven’t been able to piece it back together since.

The carriage rattles over loose stones again, and my gaze snaps to the dried remains of some small animal by the roadside, wildflowers sprouting from its ribs.

The world feeding on its own dead. Something about it feels like mockery which sends snarls of defiance twisting hot around my spine—a desperate refusal to stay complicit one second longer.

My voice cuts through the air before I even realize I’m going to speak.

“Stop.”

The young man driving us glances back, uncertain, as if he’s not sure if he misheard me.

My duenna jerks upright and snaps her fingers, signaling him to keep going. He obeys sheepishly, still, the reins slacken slightly in his hands.

“What’s the meaning of this?” Eleanor demands, as if she’d been waiting for my misstep from the moment we entered the carriage.

My palms sweat, and before I can stop myself, I blurt the words again, louder now. “I said stop!”

This time, the driver jerks the reins. The wheels lurch sideways on the loose stones.

I practically leap from the carriage, not waiting for the footman to open the door and assist me. My trembling hands gather the pure white strands of my hair, lifting them to let the cool breeze kiss the back of my neck as I walk back.

I hear the rustle of skirts and the shuffle of footsteps as Eleanor, I assume, climbs out of the carriage to follow me.

“Lady Raylane,” my duenna calls out gruffly behind me. “Are you unwell?”

I stop just a few feet from the dead creature—a poor mink, from the looks of it—and lift my face to the bright blue sky.

Beyond the dense wall of birch trees, the roar of the Bluerush River reaches me, loud even here, so far away.

I listen, envious of its freedom. Its rage has space to exist—to crash, to thrash, to be heard. Mine hasn’t reached anything, barely even my own conscious thoughts. It just coils tighter inside me, all noise with nowhere to go.

“No, Eleanor,” I say, my voice low and raw.

“I’m not well. I haven’t been for a long time.

” My hands fall, and my hair slips back into place, brushing low on my back.

When I turn, she’s gesturing for others to stay back, as if shielding them from my defiance.

“Are you well, knowing what we’re going to see? ”

She exhales through her nose, fingers smoothing down her skirts with rehearsed restraint.

“Might I remind you, Lady Raylane, that the future queen’s place is at the king’s side, not staging a roadside spectacle.”

“The future queen,” I drawl through my teeth, “does not wish to sit and smile while Brienne is whipped like a dog in front of an audience of fools.”

Eleanor takes a deep, suffering breath that reminds me that she’s old enough to be my grandmother.

“What is this really about, my lady? Your defiance flies in the face of your good fortune.” She suddenly sounds tired, drained of the energy to argue.

My frequent antics, as she calls them, are too much for a woman of her age.

But then Eleanor reaches for the Borrowglass hanging around her neck, a silent reminder that she carries a glass vial filled with god-magic, entrusted to her by the Archpriest with full authority to unleash it if she decides my purity is in danger, even if it means using it against me.

My insides knot. She could call out the vines from the ground, bind me, and drag me back to the carriage before I take another breath.

And for a heartbeat, I almost step back. Almost.

Underneath the fear, something harder takes hold. I glower at Eleanor’s hand, at the glinting glass vial.

“This—this is what it’s about,” I say, jabbing a finger toward the skeleton tangled in flowers.

“This is what I am now. Dying quietly while pretending to be alive. And all those women we watched suffer, and all the ones we never bothered to see…” My voice cracks.

“I carry the weight of every girl you called ruined, whether you want me to or not.”

Eleanor narrows her eyes, the pronounced lines crumple together turning her already drooping eyes to slits. “You carried it silently for years, my lady,” she hisses. “What’s a few more days? One more lashing?”

“I know her, Eleanor,” I say as my fingers curl into fists. “Brienne didn’t betray anyone. She’s just a young girl who fell in love.”

Brienne and I aren’t close friends, but she is a kind person who had a long, happy life ahead of her. Why must she get punished so severely for a single moment of weakness?

Eleanor licks her dry lips, her fingers slipping from the vial.

“The only thing your absence will accomplish is embarrassment for your future husband, His Majesty the King. Half the consuls already snicker behind his back for choosing a bride with your family’s…

stain.” Her voice takes on a craftier note.

“You think that by witnessing the lashing you condone it. But have you ever considered that you might offer comfort to the punished, by your silent witness?”

I know what she’s alluding to. Eleanor knows I would’ve given up every dress, every trinket, everything I owned just to go back and visit my mother during the long years of her banishment, before that final day.

To be there. To make sure that as she bled out on that pole, at least one pair of eyes looked on in grief.

That she saw, just once, that someone still loved her.

Or, in my wildest, most selfish dream, find a way to stop it. To save her.

Whatever my duenna sees on my face must be enough for her to know that she’s won.

She turns around and walks back to the carriage without waiting for me. I look at her back, the sorrow for my mother nearly making my knees buckle. But instead, I lean over, pick up the intertwined bones and fiery red blooms.

Turning away from injustice won’t absolve me. It would only quiet my conscience. It won’t save Brienne.

It won’t save anyone.

I will go. I will bear witness. But I will not be silent. Not anymore.

And as sunlight catches the curve of bone and the petals still tangled in its ribs, I brush the dust away and walk toward the carriage.

We ride the rest of the way in taut silence. Eleanor’s frown settles permanently into her brow, as if she’s finally realized that no amount of coaxing will make me part with my grotesque centerpiece.

The bones and flowers sit firmly on my lap.

And when my racing heart finally slows, I still don’t quite understand what I’m going to do with them.

But as we arrive at the Grand Plaza, and one of the footmen offers his hand to help me down, I clutch the bundle as if someone might rip it from my grasp.

Our carriage stops at the designated path, beside the empty royal carriage. From there, I follow the way marked by the guards, cutting through the crowd to the royal dais.

The plaza is encircled by the Goldspears, Ryker’s personal guard in golden armor, Borrowglass glinting at their throats. Today’s spectacle is reserved for nobles alone. The commoners are penned behind the glittering wall of soldiers, craning for a glimpse of the scene within.

The usual noise of vendors and performers is gone. In its place stands a pole—not the old wooden stake on the city’s edge, its grain darkened by decades of spilled blood, but a newly planted post of stark iron.

Stone tiers rise up in clean, perfect rows, scrubbed and cushioned for the noble class. Across the way, a dais gleams in white and gold, a throne waiting at its center. The banners and flowers do their best to soften the scene, but nothing can hide what this place was made for.

Ryker’s bright blue eyes find mine the moment I step into view, and his handsome face, framed by neatly groomed sandy hair, softens with a flicker of light. For a heartbeat, he almost smiles, but the weight of what’s to come presses the expression tight again.

His lean toned frame fits perfectly into the tailored white-and-gold of royal attire.

Usually, looking at him feels like witnessing the first ray of spring sunlight breaking through the last fog of autumn.

But now, surrounded by so much ugliness, our gazes meet in quiet solidarity and shared understanding that neither of us wants this, yet we must endure it.

At least for now. He’s still newly crowned, barely two months since his father’s death, and still fighting to cement his power.