Chapter Fifteen
Fifteen
Within the city, the bells of Belspire sing like a glorious choir. Go beyond its gates, though, beyond its borders… when the wind carries that song, it can sound like cries.
—FROM THE WRITINGS OF CLERIC ERIS
I STAND AT THE EDGE of the white river.
Wind whips and screams, needling my skin with snowflakes as chalky clouds press down from above. On the other side of the water an invisible promise beckons: freedom.
I don’t want to move, but I do.
Tracks appear in front of me as I step onto the frozen river, hundreds of them, trails for me to follow. But I don’t want to. I don’t want to follow.
I do anyway.
In the middle of the river, the tracks disappear.
Run. My body betrays me again, rooting me where I stand. Run to where they won’t follow. Liberty is right there, waiting on the other side of the river. But I can’t move, and beneath me, the ice begins to crack. Liquid oozes up through the gap.
Not water.
Blood.
Crack.
The fissures spread, the white shattering into unsteady pieces.
Crack.
I am frozen in place.
Crack. Crack. Cr—
I wake up gasping in the hazy morning light, nearly strangled by silk sheets soaked with sweat.
A dream. Familiar and unwelcome.
I curse aloud to my empty room. Kick off the bedding and take another quick bath. Pack my things.
It’s time to get the fuck out of Belspire.
Almost as soon as I’m ready, a knock sounds on my door. When I rip it open, Nolan is in the hall, pack slung over one shoulder.
“You look terrible,” he says.
“Flattery will get you everywhere.” I push past him. “C’mon, we’ve got better places to be.”
We trek through the castle without saying thank you or goodbye or any other of that polite nonsense.
But despite Caius’s emphasis last night, no one seems to care.
It’s festival time, and that supersedes any bothersome hospitality.
I briefly worry Gottschalk and Caius will try to delay us further, but when we arrive at the stables, the horses are waiting, ready to go.
I take Mortimer’s reins and check him over.
Given the kind of cruelty the Arbiters show for people, who knows what they might do to innocent horses.
But Mortimer appears to have been well cared for, nickering softly as I rub the star on his nose.
At the castle gate, I curse again. Thousands are already gathered in the plaza, surrounding the stage constructed in the center.
I’d hoped to be gone before the festival kicked off, but no such luck.
It’s slow going, making our way through the press of bodies, all bright eyed and joyous at the prospect of starting the morning off with an invigorating execution.
There’s laughter. Singing. Vendors hawking their special-occasion foods.
Yesterday, my mouth watered. This morning I want to throw up.
As we move, I keep my gaze turned away from the stage set at the feet of Tempestra-Innara’s statue, and the foreboding metal post at its center.
We almost make it out of the plaza before I stop.
Nolan draws up beside me. “Is something the matter?”
“No.” I can’t help myself. I turn back to the dais. The post. “Yes.”
I swing Mortimer back so that I am facing the center of the plaza. Horsed, I have a fine view above the sea of people.
“Lys?” Nolan speaks gently, but in a tone heavy with questions.
“Just… wait.” I don’t look at him, only the post. “Please.”
He doesn’t say anything else. We wait.
After a few minutes, the bells begin to ring.
They start one at a time but soon overlap each other, a high, joyful chorus. I expect the crowd to cheer, but instead a reverent silence falls, seeming to spread beyond us, throughout the rest of the city. Some lips move in prayer, but no one speaks a single word aloud.
Soon, a procession emerges from the castle. Caius rides at the head of it, followed by a palanquin with gauzy curtains obscuring the flaccid figure of the princess within. I don’t see Gottschalk.
Then comes the prisoner. She’s on an open wagon, bound with ropes, burlap covering her face yet again. The people part to allow access to the dais. There, guards drag the woman up the stairs and bind her to the post. Only then does Caius dismount and join her.
Suddenly, the bells cease.
The cheering begins.
It hits me like a punch to the gut: the communal bloodlust that Caius was so desperate to feed.
How long have Belspire’s people been waiting for this rare treat, this echo of the slaughter that began their fealty?
It doesn’t matter that there’s no real justice here, or that the woman on the dais isn’t Magda.
They have a body, someone to blame. To judge.
Caius holds up his hands. With his blessed eyesight, he should have no trouble seeing us.
But if he does, there’s no break in his ritualistic performance.
This is his show, one that he must think will help elevate him, maybe even garner enough of the Goddess’s favor to promote him away from Belspire.
Which means he’s going to lay it on as thick as he can.
The crowd quiets at his gesture.
“Belspire.” His voice carries throughout the plaza. “Today we gather to remember the most hallowed moment in our history: the day when this fair city saw the true light and dedicated itself wholly to our Goddess Tempestra-Innara. May the Flame warm us all.”
When they whisper, we wake…
The crowd responds with prayer. When Nolan joins in, so do I.
At their command, we follow. In their light, we are seen… we are judged…
I want to chew every word to a pulp and spit it onto the street with the dirt and horse shit.
May their blessed flame find purity of faith, or else leave cinder and ash.
“Many years have passed since that joyous day,” Caius continues, when the voices have settled, “and our city continues to burn brightly under their blessings. But there are still those who deny our Goddess’s enduring supremacy, worshipping gods long dead.”
The crowd boos.
Caius again gestures for them to quiet. “Under the Goddess’s light, the devoted must not suffer a heretic to live.
But in their mercy, they do not pass sentence on one who might be saved through penance.
They do not punish without first rendering judgement.
” He turns to the woman and rips the burlap cover from her face.
I tighten. The woman with the muddy-water hair. Her face is red and puffy from crying, and unsurprisingly, she is gagged. Wouldn’t want any truth to ruin Caius’s stage show.
“With the authority of Tempestra-Innara,” says Caius, “I will now gaze into this woman’s heart, to see if she bears any true love for our Goddess that might buy her mercy. Or, if as accused, she is a true heretic.”
From a pocket, he produces a small bottle of sapphire-blue glass.
I’ve seen such vessels before, but rarely.
They hold the potion the Arbiters use in their judging, a carefully guarded recipe known only to the most senior of their Order.
With an absurd flourish, Caius unstops the bottle.
He raises it, allowing a single drop of the liquid to fall into each eye, then blinks.
Even at a distance, the new sheen is apparent.
The Judge’s Sight. An Arbiter’s bread and butter.
Caius turns to the woman and reaches for her, fingers alighting on her cheek, a gesture that appears almost loving. Her features go blank.
“Lys.” Nolan speaks so that only I can hear him. “You don’t have to watch this.”
As riveted as I am, the sensation of his hand on my arm rises in memory.
A touch of genuine concern. His words are an echo of that, but I can’t look at him.
Can’t see if there’s even a hint of acceptance for this twisted ritual on his face.
At least he knows it’s a sham. I cling to that.
Then again, if he saw the truth of my heart, Nolan would probably tie me to the post himself…
a fact that bothers me more than I like.
I keep my eyes on the stage. “Yes, I do.”
An anxious minute crawls by, during which whatever is happening before us begins to bleed its way over the crowd.
It comes on like an itch, an ache, causing the onlookers to shift and mutter, though I cannot pinpoint any specific sensation.
Meanwhile, the judged woman begins to tremble, and then shake, though Caius remains as still as a statue.
Life returns to her eyes, which widen with pure horror as her mouth stretches in a desperate, soundless scream.
Finally, his hand drops. In the same instant, the woman releases a pained, guttural cry, her whole body going limp with the exertion of the ritual.
Caius spins to the crowd, face flush. “My evaluation is complete.” He stabs a finger accusingly. “This woman holds no love for our Goddess, only fear and resentment. She is a true heretic. Therefore, she must suffer a heretic’s fate!”
The crowd cheers as if the announcement were ever in doubt.
There are exclamations of love and devotion for the Goddess, as well as jeers for the bound woman.
Caius indulges the crowd’s ferocity a bit longer before turning back.
He doesn’t need to ask for silence this time.
A thousand people collectively take a breath and hold it.
We’ve reached the moment.
Caius cups his hands together. Then, the divine flame bursts to life with a brilliance that seems impossible in the light of day.
He holds it, almost cradles it, before stepping toward the condemned.
As he does, pure animalistic fear overtakes the woman.
She fights her bindings, emanating a sound that sinks claws into my guts and twists.
All futile. As soon as Caius touches the flame to her chest, right above her heart, it moves quickly, racing down her torso, climbing up over her shoulders.
The Arbiter’s control is spent—the flame is its own creature now, one that knows only a hungry spread.
But this is no divine execution. What Caius calls is only an offshoot of the Goddess’s. Less pure, less powerful.
Which means it takes a very long time for the woman to die.
Her screams begin immediately, though. The gag flakes away like paper, freeing the sounds further, and I have to grit my teeth to keep myself from looking away.
This is what I needed to see, to witness.
I was the one who sent this woman to her fate.
I owe her something, if only that I will have to carry this memory until the day I die.
Leave. My thoughts screech as the scent of burning flesh reaches me, as I hear the greasy crackle of her fat. Go.
I stay right where I am.
Meanwhile, Caius stands back with an appropriately pious expression, hands folded before him.
I sense he’s practically bursting with satisfaction, a suspicion that is confirmed when his gaze deliberately finds mine.
I keep my expression neutral. Let him think he’s gotten the best of me, of us. And maybe he has.
But I know how to kill his goddess.
And if I succeed, his line—our line—ends. No more Arbiter’s judgement, no more divine flame.
Maybe he’d still be able to keep power. Someone always does. Still, I allow myself the fantasy of him tied to that post instead of the woman, of him screaming instead of her.
Finally, the woman’s cries cease, but Caius remains staring at me. Raising my hand slowly, I flash him a rude gesture, before yanking Mortimer around and heading for the city gates. Nolan follows.
Behind us, the bells begin to cry again.