SIXTY-FOUR GIRLS WHO SLAY TOGETHER, STAY TOGETHER #3
I don’t know how I’m not screaming. Once the molten heat of the brand collides with my inner wrist, I suppress a sob. It lodges behind the newly grown orange tree that’s taking up a permanent residence in my throat.
The brand might only be the width of a nickel, but it feels the size of a watermelon.
My skin sizzles as it cooks and chars beneath the terrifyingly hot metal.
My sweat evaporates so close to the searing heat.
The stench, fuck, the stench. If I didn’t want to puke earlier, the urge is three times as strong now.
I can feel lightheadedness overtake me. Stars take up a prominent place in the corners of my eyes, dancing and jittering as I fight unconsciousness. Every gallon of blood in my body feels as if it’s centered around that brand, bubbling and boiling as the molten metal collides with it.
The whirring in my ears is louder than the crowd, who still sound like a wave of skittering roaches scuttling over a tiled floor. Finally, eventually, thankfully, he tugs on the branding iron and releases me.
And somehow, the pain is so much worse.
The slight tear as the metal rips my flesh has me howling inside.
“Sister, discard of the traitor’s ring in here,” the leader orders me, and I hear the softest clink, but it doesn’t register where I had to put it. Not in my dazed state.
What I don’t know, until Wynter tells me later, is that I just knelt there. Not a sound uttered. Not a tear dropped. Only moving on command.
I barely hear her soft whimpers as she accepts her branding. The stench is back, though, and it’s unbearable.
When the ceremony is complete, the Secretary of Defense steps forward and splashes water onto the wounds from a chalice.
I glance down at it through eyes that feel as if they don’t belong to me.
As I wonder if it’s some kind of holy water, the main man, whose voice suddenly comes to me—Brother Alaric from the first initiation night—lifts a book from the altar.
A susurration darts around the audience.
“Traitor Aoric VI allowed this to fall into the hands of the police.”
The susurration turns into an outraged roar.
“This,” Alaric informs us, “is the main reason for his death. The brand is secret. But what lies within these pages is for no one’s eyes but a Veronian’s.
“It is only thanks to the swift actions of Aoric III that this copy was spared from scrutiny.” He drops the book into the special fire-pot.
There’s deadly silence as it goes up in flames.
Even my dazed eyes widen when red smoke oozes from it.
“Traitor, traitor, traitor!”
The men chant the word over and over and over again.
Alaric lifts a hand.
Immediately, silence falls. Only the whispers of the crowd’s breathing can be heard. It tiptoes through my nerve endings, growing louder and louder until they might as well be shouting at me. It’s a tidal wave of sound. A tsunami of inhales and exhales that trip me into sensory overload.
My eyelids flutter as I force them open.
The urge to cringe is strong. The urge to beg them to breathe quieter hovers on the tip of my tongue.
It’s almost a relief when two platters sweep into my line of vision and serve as a distraction.
I swallow when I see it’s the same book.
“This is your new bible. Our god is a jealous god, and we kneel before no other than this one.”
He hands me a tome. My fingers brush over it, and I have the disconcerting suspicion that it’s made from skin. Human skin. Oh, fuck.
“We will expect you to know these pages front to back. This is your past, your present, and your future. You will live and die by these words. Especially if you allow another to access the contents.
“Do you understand?”
“I understand,” I bluster.
“I understand.” Hell, Wynter sounds frailer than I do.
To the cheer from the crowd, a pillow pops up in front of me.
It’s a ring. Like a sovereign’s.
It matches Dyers’s.
“Wear these for official events only,” we’re told.
“Now, where are your coins?”
It takes a few seconds for me to remember my Hispania coin. And Darius Harrington’s.
“It’s a rare thing for a member to gain two. Never mind another half.” Alaric accepts our coins into his possession and tumbles them in his hand. To me, he remarks, “We’ll expect great things from you, Sister Egilona.”
Oh, goodie. NOT!
“Please rise,” the leader orders.
Wynter nearly tumbles into me before she catches herself. And I’m thankful she did because I doubt I could have propped her up without both of us falling over.
Men lay black velvet cloaks onto our shoulders.
Alaric hovers a chalice under our noses. At first glance, I don’t recognize it. Then the leader holds it low enough for us to see that it’s… God. Blood. Dyers’s blood.
“You honor your brothers with your actions tonight. There are few pledges who make such an impact on their very first evening as one of us.
“You wear this as a badge of pride, knowing that as sisters of the Veronians, you have accomplished more than most of your brothers.”
A pin dropping would be louder than a hurricane in the deathly silence from the crowd.
The leader dips his thumb into the blood and scrawls a “V” onto my forehead.
I’m not sure how I don’t gag.
Wynter moans, just low enough for me to hear as Alaric anoints her with Dyers’s blood.
When the leader’s hands press onto our shoulders, in a low voice, he murmurs, “Turn and face your brothers.”
Like marionettes, we comply.
The lights illuminate our audience and we are in darkness.
Spots from the sudden shift dance at the front of my vision, making me blink as hundreds of men come into focus.
The cheers from before are no more.
There’s petulant quiet as a thousand eyes take in the blood on our foreheads. More men than I realized. So many, many, many more.
And then, in a move that has to be choreographed, every single one of them, aside from the men surrounding us on the ground, sweep onto their knees.
If this were a nightmare, this would be where I wake up.
But, unfortunately, I don’t.
Like before, there’s a banquet.
Like before, I’m half in a trance as I struggle not to scream, struggle not to weep, struggle not to rush to the nearest bathroom and wipe the blood off my face, grateful only for the brother who steps forward and presses a bandage to our wounds.
Neither Wynter nor I speak a single word to anyone.
Not even when we realize Alec’s tending to our wounds.
We simply eat what is placed in front of us.
Drink what is served to us.
We lift our goblets when a toast is made, and eventually, we slip into the same town car that brought us to this hellhole of our own making.
This is, without a shadow of a doubt, the worst night of my life. Maybe more so because I asked for this.
“It can only get better from here,” Wynter whispers in response.
Fuck, I spoke those words aloud.
My mouth, drier than the Gobi Desert, permits me to croak out, “Can it?”