Chapter 8 #2
"I am sure that I do not take or share your meaning," she replies, stiffly. I let my head fall to the side, studying her. Considering.
"On the contrary, Ruth Anne, I am positive you understand just fine."
"I assure, I do not. I took pride in my husband and comfort in his presence. Now, if you will excuse me, I must return." She makes haste, spinning on her heels, scampering away.
"Stop." I command, squeezing the stone in my hand with considerable force.
Her feet freeze in their tracks, body lurching to a stop.
I twirl my fingers over the raised edges of the stone, and she mimics my command, her steps jerking and uneven as her body obeys.
"It is true, you took comfort in the presence of your husband, but I am curious. ..did Caterina share those notions?"
Her nostrils flare, and I lessen the hold on her body to allow her to speak.
"Do not say the name of the demon that stole my good childe," she snaps, eyes darting to the still-darkened stake.
"Ruth Anne..." I step closer, moving into her space, the taste of her sin a tease on my senses.
"T'was the Devil inside of her!”
“Twas your husband inside of her,” I fume. My words are met with silence. A proud, defiant lift of her chin.
"Did you cast him out, as you did her, when she confided that her father snuck into her bed?
How long, before she finally told you, did you turn a blind eye?
A woman knows, Ruth Anne." My voice softens, my rage burning too bright, unable to reconcile how a mother could allow such suffering on a child she carried.
"She seduced him! Peter was a good and righteous man—" her voice shakes, the lies caustic on her own tongue but she burns her mouth to spill them anyway. Her soul darkens with every word. My hunger grows.
"A righteous man does not molest his child," Silas condemns, stepping into the light, anger coiled in every inch of him as he tastes, too.
He is a vision of vengeance, broad chest streaked with blood, eyes glinting under the red aura shining from above.
Ruth Anne's face contorts with terror as his face registers, her mind struggling to admit she watched this man burn.
"You!" she whimpers, "B-but you b-burned!" She trembles, thin and frail and it is my instinct to feel sorrow for her, but I cannot. Not with the evidence of her trespasses causing my mouth to water.
"And now I have returned," he turns to me, eyes blazing, "The third pyre?" I dip my chin in confirmation. The guilty verdict twists his lips into a snarl, his fingers dance with flame.
"In many ways, this is not your fault," I turn the stone in my hand, and her feet begin to move, dragging her body back to the stake.
Tears fall, splashing down cheeks just beginning to crease with lines, "You are indoctrinated to carry water for those who would not spare a drop if you were dying of thirst, if it did not suit them.
To break your own back and spirit upholding a way of life that subjugates anyone they consider other.
" My voice rises, layered with magic, with blessing.
"She stole him from me! First from my bed, then this world!" Ruth Anne cries, and it sours me, the justifications. The deafening knowledge that she truly believes in her victimhood.
"I have been inside your dreams, Ruth Anne, dug beneath the very marrow of your rotten core and I have seen the lies you convince yourself are truth.
A demon did put that knife in Caterina's hand, but we both know it was Peter Prentiss.
Instead of protecting her, you allowed your jealousy and anger at his philandering fester into resentment and blame against someone who could not dismiss you as he did, hardened your heart against the child you grew inside you.
" My hands drop to my own stomach, teeth bared as her back presses against the pine, feet stumbling over dried sticks and tinder.
"That is a sacred oath of protection. Blood of my blood, flesh of my flesh.
You failed Caterina at every turn and then you condemned her for having the strength to do what you could not. "
"She k-killed him," she sobs. Disgust curdles my blood.
"It should have been by your hand." I hiss.
Her hands fly up to the post, gripping the wood. She cannot thrash, cannot escape, even unbound.
"I take no joy in this, Ruth Anne Prentiss.
" I admit, sadly. At the edge of my vision, Silas' hands ignite, flames dancing along his fingers, lapping and licking across his skin.
"You abandoned your charge, and every lick of flame she felt, so shall you.
Every agony. And it still will not be sufficient, for what you have done. "
Silas flicks a dart of ember into the kindling with practiced ease.
It ignites at once, spreading and devouring, crackling and popping into a roar, drowning out Ruth Anne's screams. We watch in silence as flames crawl up her body, burn the white fabric to cinders, melts flesh, chars bones.
She cries out, until the flames choke those too, smoke rising high into the sky.
"Thank you." A whisper, soft and delicate and gentle. I turn to see Caterina Prentiss, skin ghastly pale, body incorporeal. Her eyes shine in the light of the pyre as she watches her first protector and final betrayer return to dust, the shackles of her pain holding her from slumber broken.
"Rest now."
I feel her presence ascend, and my eyes sink closed, grateful for her release.
Silas approaches the pyre, hands calling flame to his touch and they come, quieting to smoldering remnants and embers under his command.
There is a cracking of fist through bone, the scent of smoked flesh in the air as he retrieves what is left of her heart, sustained by the Cast, and presents it for me.
He does not congratulate me, or celebrate this death.
No words for those who envy the power wielded over them, and turn their ire upon others more vulnerable to reclaim agency.
There is a breaking in the betrayal of kind on kind.