Chapter 4 Ezra
Dawn had hardly crested the horizon when Reina knocked lightly, cautiously, on the door to my chambers. “Enter.” My voice sounded harsher than I meant, but I had already been awake for hours, staring out the window into the night sky, wondering if Liv was staring at the same stars, as lost as I was.
“Oh, um, Prevailing…” Reina lowered her head slightly, “I did not mean to wake you.”
She knew as well as I that she did not, though we did not speak of it.
She was polite enough not to question the shouting that came from my rooms at night, and for that I was grateful.
Reina was the only staff member whom I had kept on after Liv left.
In truth, I would have sent her away with the rest of them, but Liv had a fondness for her.
“Good morning, Reina. What is it?” A small smile flashed across her face and then disappeared.
“My Lord, the council has sent word. There is to be another reckoning, and they request your presence in the Holudrums.”
The reckonings. I detested them. When the council made the decision to brand Liv and Helena as witches, they had set a precedent.
The people of Verith feared change more than they feared cruelty.
The balance of magic was fragile, and without my agreement, they had all but declared Liv and Helena enemies of the balance.
They were villains, and people feared them.
My position as Prevailing Diviner was precarious.
I was more ornamental now than anything.
They did not allow me a vote on any matter.
Stanhope had taken point. He preyed on their fear, fed it.
By the time I had accused him of murdering my father, and Liv’s, and gods know how many others, for power.
They did not act against him. It was not that they did not believe me; they simply did not care.
He had twisted the fear of the public, of the council, so thoroughly that they saw him as a savior, rather than a monster.
A murderer was scary, a power thief was disturbing, but a witch who could upset the very balance of society, of magic, became their nightmare.
Their terror allowed him to keep control.
As their self-proclaimed savior, his answer to this terror was the hunts.
And when the hunts were successful, there were reckonings.
Public executions. All were made to bear witness to what happened to these villains.
It made the people feel safer that they were no longer allowed to walk freely among them.
Stanhope reveled in the people’s praise.
When he was in a particularly good mood, he allowed them to keep their lives.
The Vecarcere was a cruel fate, but better than death.
He would sentence them publicly, make a show of it.
And all council members were expected to back him.
I thought he was going to expel me from the council.
Strip me of my titles and lands. But it seems he gets pleasure from keeping me here, forcing me to hunt my own soul bond.
It made him a merciful lord in the eyes of the public that he allowed me to remain here.
Little did he know that my presence on the council and in Verith allowed me to help Liv.
I was able to warn her of where they would be searching next and keep her one step ahead of them at all times.
That is, until she visited her mother. Helena and I had both told her it was a bad idea.
She had grown tired of running, though, and she knew she was going to leave Verith.
The council’s reach did not extend beyond the great wall that bordered Verith and Torezia. She was safe there for now.
The council, specifically Stanhope, was not happy with that fact.
The hunts and reckonings no longer only target women with magic, but also those who helped them.
Their families and friends were no longer safe either.
Many had fled, gone into hiding. But those who remained were sought out, marked, and reckoned.
The Holudrums were more dismal than they had ever been.
Empty, boarded-up shops. Homes abandoned and preserved like macabre museums.
Doors marked with the sigil of the witch.
The sigil was simple. An eight-pointed star crowned a slender spear.
An upturned crescent cradled its center, while a small ring encircled the shaft below.
It was painted black on their doors when they were marked, and branded into their skin when they were reckoned.
There were more doors marked here than in Diviners Row, even more so than in the Baresia.
It was not because there was more power here, but because there were more sympathizers, more safe houses, and more families who had lost their titles and lands when their patriarch died without an heir.
The Holudrums had become something of a net that caught all the wayward souls who were unfortunate enough not to escape.
I stood beside Lord Fitzwarren, before a small shack of a home.
The door bore the mark. A crowd gathered around when they saw the council descend on the home, desperate to watch the outcome.
Some looked on with horror, some with excitement.
I only felt rage. This was not the realm I grew up in, not the one I had sworn to protect when I took my oath as Prevailing.
Stanhope rapped on the door loudly, making a spectacle of the reckoning before it even began.
The sound of the door creaking open was followed by the clanking of bottles and the smell of someone who had overindulged.
“We are looking for a Miss Carina Brandswith.”
Stanhope boomed. Carina Brandswith? Why did I recognize that name?
I turned it over in my mind, trying to make a connection, when the woman spoke.
“Whatdya want?” Her words were slurred, she was very obviously plied with drink, and the morning had only just begun.
“Are you Carina Brandswith?” Stanhope sounded annoyed now.
“I used to be. But that’d be my no-good husband’s sorry last…” Hiccup, “Name. I’m Carina Grant by…” Belch, “Birth.”
A sly smile curled across Stanhope’s lips. “And your daughter is Clarissa Brandswith?”
Only then did I realize who we were standing before.
She had fled her home after Liv and Helena took Christine, but they had found her anyway.
This was Clarissa’s mother. That is why I recognized the name.
Liv had told me all about her. Her love of drink, her neglect and abuse, and her abhorrent mistreatment of Clarissa’s body.
She was a disgraceful excuse for a mother, for a person.
Completely incapable of love, that is how Liv described her, and that is what I saw before me.
Suddenly, I no longer felt disdain for today’s hunt.
My ears perked up, and I leaned in as Stanhope read the charges to her.
“Miss Carina, you have been accused of witchcraft. Not as a practitioner, but as a sympathizer, and as a harbinger. The punishment for this crime against society is a reckoning, an execution. Do you protest or deny these allegations?”
She did not answer. She stared at him with round, glassy eyes as though she were dissecting his meaning and trying to understand.
Stanhope leaned in closer and spoke louder.
“Did you not hear me, Miss? You are being charged, you have been marked, and you will face your reckoning, unless you have proof against these allegations.”
She swayed in the doorway. “I ain’t got nothin to do with no witches.” Hiccup.
“Your daughter is, sorry, was Clarissa. She held magic that did not belong to her. Upon her death, the magic was stolen by her younger sister Christine, who still lives. You did not report either. So, you are a sympathizer at the very least.”
Stanhope rolled the parchment he had held up with the warrant and placed it back in his satchel.
“That little bitch is dead. And her…” Belch, “Little thief of a sister ain’t my problem no more. Not since that witch came and took her.”
Stanhope’s face screwed up. Anger flashed in his eyes, and then a mask of indifference slid into place.
He knew exactly who she spoke of. It was no secret what Liv and Helena had done.
Whispers traveled far within Verith. He had already made up his mind before we arrived.
An example would be made of her. And truthfully, she deserved it.
“They may no longer reside under your care, but you brought them into this world and cursed Verith with those abominations.”
I flinched at the word as he continued, “Acting against the best wishes of this society, endangering the balance abiding citizens of Verith, your punishment for these crimes will be death by hanging.”
Ah, so today was a bad-mood kind of day.
He waved two fingers to signal the enforcers.
They lunged at her and placed her hands in shackles as she squirmed and protested.
I hesitated as something painful twisted in me.
Not sympathy. No. Death was too kind for her.
As the shackles closed around her wrists, I found no satisfaction in it either.
I did not know Clarissa. She had left her mark on Liv, and even on the unmovable Helena.
Even if she had not, she was a child. Carina was her mother.
She was supposed to give those girls love and care.
Liv had only told me a fraction of the hell she had endured under her mother’s so-called care.
Then there was her sister. Small Christine.
I had only met her briefly before Helena and Liv fled and went into hiding.
She was so sweet, so innocent. There was nothing she could have done to deserve her mother’s ire. Anger rose in me anew.
“Stanhope!” I shouted, stepping forward.
“Oh, do not tell me, the virtuous Prevailing Diviner, does not have the stomach for a reckoning…again.” He chuckled, and the other council members murmured in agreement.
I steeled myself. “No. This woman deserves her punishment.” Though I would not tell him why. “I only feel that an example should be made of her. Executing her seems a waste. She should be displayed as a warning.” The sick bastard actually smiled, a real, genuine smile.
“Wow, Ezra, I am impressed. Where was this side of you weeks ago when we were hunting that delicious little pet of yours?”
My fists clenched painfully, the curve of my nails biting into my skin.
“What shall her punishment be then? Prevailing Diviner.”
The title on his lips sounded like a mockery. But I would not waste this chance.
“She should be branded with the witch’s sigil and placed in the stockades for all to see her shame.”
I could feel my eyes darken and with them my soul.
This was a sin I would not come back from, and a small piece of me knew that.
But the piece of me that could never understand why a woman would harm her own child spoke louder. “And I want to be the one to do it.”
Stanhope smiled and clapped as he ushered me forward, “As you wish, Prevailing.” A mock bow and a flourish of his hand gave me all the permission I needed.
I took hold of the shackles and pulled her from the house.
Her feet dragged as she struggled for purchase.
We paraded her through the streets, onlookers gasping as they saw her weep.
My heart fractured, and for a moment, I felt disgusted with myself.
This was not me, I was not like Stanhope, I was not like my father.
But then she opened her mouth again, “That stupid little bitch is not worth all this trouble; let me loose, I will make it worth your while.”
She wiggled her brows suggestively, and my stomach churned.
I positioned her in front of the stockades and kicked the back of her knees, forcing her to kneel.
Tears flowed down her cheeks. They were not tears of remorse; I did not think her capable of that.
They were tears for herself, for her life.
Not for the life of her daughters. I fastened the stockades around her head and hands, locking her in place.
Then I took the branding iron in my hand.
The one Stanhope had commissioned from the blacksmith, the same sigil that was painted across the doors.
The weight of it felt heavier than its size would have suggested.
The end of it had been heated with the fire magic of one of the council members.
It burned white-hot. Before placing it to her skin, I leaned in close, so that we were face to face, and she was forced to meet my gaze.
My magic writhed wildly, and black veins had begun to climb my neck.
I did not mind the pain this time. “This is for Clarissa,” I growled out with disgust.
Her eyes widened, and I smiled as I spat at her, the same way she had spat on her daughter’s dead body.
Then, without hesitation, I drove the iron into her bare skin and forced myself not to look away as the sizzling mixed with her screams.