Chapter Nine
He has witnessed more horrors than he can count. Has heard screams for mercy and screams of pain. None of them haunt him like the sound of her shattering.
Rouen
There is a stillness in the crowd; a hush interrupted only by the quiet sobs of the few and the sharp, piercing words spitting from Bishop Cauchon’s lips.
“A homicidal viper …”
Beside Anna, a young girl turns her dirty, tear-streaked face into her mother’s skirts.
Soldiers stack kindling along the base of one of the three stages in the square.
The stake that rises from the center ensures there’s no doubt about its purpose.
The way the Bishop sneers, venom dripping from his every word, offers little hope that it won’t be used.
“The poisoned virus of heresy …”
There is a sea of faces packed in the cobbled streets of Rouen’s marketplace, but Anna can only see the one. A woman, far too young and far too innocent to deserve what’s coming to her, with her hands bound and her face ashen as the bishop buries her beneath accusation after accusation.
“This pernicious leprosy …”
A shoulder brushes hers, the square is so crowded Anna is numb to the bumps and knocks, but when she feels a gentle hand grasp her elbow, she tears her eyes away from the damned and meets the eyes of her savior.
“Khiran,” she breathes, because even though his hair is a light chestnut and his jaw is chiseled and sharp, his eyes are the same unmistakable blue-green.
He leans in close. Anna can feel his words against her cheek. “You shouldn’t be here.”
She frowns, retreating enough to fully see his face.
He meets her eyes; Anna’s surprised to find him as somber as the rest of the crowd.
“Where would you have me?” she asks, trembling along the lines of a whisper.
It feels like every place she lingers, pain follows.
If she hadn’t known the world to harbor horrors before Khiran’s fruit found its way to her lips, Anna may have believed she was cursed.
Sometimes, she thinks, she would have preferred it that way.
At least she would have had the comfort of knowing some corners of the world hold more hope than not.
His gaze is weighted and soft—knowing. When he speaks, it isn’t in the English or French spoken by the majority of the crowd, but Italian. “You, of all people, should not bear witness to a burning, Anna.”
She sucks in a breath, holds it in her lungs as if she could wield it like a shield over her heart. It doesn’t work.
The bishop’s words cut, rising in volume. “For these causes …”
Anna knows what’s coming—they all know—and it’s all the more heartbreaking.
Khiran moves between her and the stage, blocking her view. His hands settle on her shoulders, head ducking to catch her eyes. “You staying won’t save her.”
Anna’s heart stutters, a thread of hope pulling on her heart. “You could.” Her fingers tangle in his sleeve, a sudden desperation making her skin itch. “It would be easy for you.”
The change in him is instant. The sympathetic pull of his lips hardens into a tight frown and whatever concern lined his eyes before has cooled into something edged and sharp. “No.”
There’s no room for argument. No room to think she stands a chance of convincing him. It doesn’t stop her from trying. “She doesn’t deserve this.”
“We decree that thou art a relapsed heretic …”
Khiran’s hand reaches for the fingers still strangling the fine fabric of his sleeve. “No one ever does.”
“We denounce thee as a rotten member …”
“So save her,” she hisses, chest tight and eyes burning. Under his grip, the joints in her hand groan with how tightly he holds it.
The muscles along his jaw flex. Anna wonders if she hears the grinding of his teeth, or if it’s just the static ringing in her ears. “I cannot.”
“Cast out from the Unity of the Church …”
The disappointment is as deep as her anger; as destructive and devastating as any fire.
She thinks of the flames that licked at her skin, that burned but didn’t blister—didn’t blacken.
Thinks of agony she endured before the darkness welcomed her into its embrace.
Jeanne d’Arc will not rise from the ashes after the fire’s done feeding, but Anna knows the torment she will suffer with an intimacy that continues to haunt her centuries later.
She rips her hand away, backing as far as the crowd will let her.
They should be drawing their attention but a quick glance shows not a single pair of eyes on them.
More magic. A laugh claws up her throat, twisted and dark and bitter.
“Of course. You have all the magic to make the world look away—to make sure their notice won’t inconvenience you—” She jabs a finger in the direction of the accused.
“But not to save someone from a fate that’s undeserved? ”
Khiran snaps. “She is not mine to save!”
A cry rises, guttural and raw. Jeanne has fallen to her knees, prayers falling from her lips like a flood.
The crowd stirs, a ripple of disapproval, but no one screams for the guards to stop as they lead the praying girl to her death.
Rough hands chain her to the stake. Her voice rises over the mutterings of the crowd.
Piercing. Damning. “Bishop, I die through you!”
Anna feels her last tiny thread of hope burn away with the sight of the torch. Leaving her numb. Leaving her empty.
Hands grasp her shoulders, turning her away. “Come.”
Anna doesn’t pull away; doesn’t fight. There’s a hollow ache in her chest, spreading into her limbs like smoke trapped beneath a glass—suffocating.
Khiran leads her through the crowd, weaving between bodies with a grace she doesn’t process.
It’s either magic or a miracle that she doesn’t bump into anyone.
“You’re just like the rest of them.” The accusation leaves a rancid taste in her mouth, but it helps soothe the stinging pain in her heart.
He doesn’t deny it.
Behind her, the crackling of the fire sounds louder than the weeping; the smell of smoke stronger than the dirt and sweat of the crowd.
Bile rises in her throat, choking her. Then the world moves beneath her feet, expanding and contracting faster than her vision can follow and, for a moment, she is weightless.
A leaf floating on the breeze before it falls.
She staggers forward; the hands gripping her shoulders the only thing keeping her from falling into the field. Where there was dirty, cobbled streets and buildings is a sea of purple flowers swaying in the breeze. Where there was smoke is now the perfumed scent of fresh lavender.
“What have you done?” Anna pulls away from his hold, eyes searching for the familiar and finding nothing but sky and fields. “How are we here?”
“Does it matter?”
“Yes!” The word rolls over the flowered stalks, softening the edges when she wishes it would remain as sharp as the dagger in her heart feels. “You could have done this for her. You could have saved her.”
“She isn’t my responsibility. You are.”
“I didn’t need saving! I can’t die!”
His expression twists, teeth bared and frustration coating his voice in gravel. “You still think like a mortal. As if there is life and death, and nothing else. I admire your heart, Anna, but there are limits to how much of it you can afford to give away before you break.”
The words leave her as a sob breaks away from her chest. “They are burning her!”
“Her fate is not my doing.”
“But your refusal to help is!” Her hands gesture wildly, anything to have an outlet for the anger burning beneath her skin.
“Be angry if you wish, Anna, but your judgment is meaningless.”
She seethes. “Why? Because I’m human?”
“Because you’re ignorant,” he snaps, the bite in his words matching her own. “You have no understanding of what you’re asking.”
“And you’re a coward!”
He goes impossibly still, danger coiling around him like a snake the moment before they strike. “A coward?”
Anna pales, a tremble dancing up her spine.
The air between them is thick with a power even she can feel humming against her skin.
It steals her breath, smothers whatever is left of her anger.
She has never feared him, even when she first discovered he was more than human, Khiran has never done anything to make her feel afraid.
She is now. The fury in his eyes is raw and deep—consuming. She’s drowning in it.
His chest heaves around ragged breaths as he steps closer—towering over her tiny frame.
“I have spent a millennia whispering in mortal ears, singing songs and weaving stories with only glimmers of truth to tie them together. I am Loki, the god of Lies. Eris, the goddess of strife. Lucifer, Wisakedjak, Eshu, Anansi, Hanuman. I am all of them, and I am none of them.” He leans closer until their foreheads nearly touch and she can feel his words against her lips with every violent tremble.
“You stand there, with your mere centuries, and dare to place blame when you know nothing of the power holding the strings of your world and the consequences that come with toying with lives that aren’t ours to play with. ”
He pulls away, just a few inches. Just enough for his gaze to trace the quiver of her bottom lip.
The stifling heaviness weighing over her eases with the tension in his shoulders, melting away like wax held too close to the fire.
When he speaks, his voice is softer. More like the man she’s known for centuries and less like the powerful god she had foolishly forgotten him to be.
“You haven’t learned yet, Anna, but you will.
It’s only a matter of when, not if, and I shall hold on to patience with everything I am.
Because as infuriating as your ignorance is, there is only so long you can hold on to it. ”
Anna doesn’t answer. Even if she could find the courage, she doesn’t know what to say. She feels his sigh before he breaks eye contact and takes a generous step back.