“They’re always pretty.” The robed man said again. “It’s how they use their magic. How they beguile you. They tempt you with their corrupt blood. They seduce your soul until your every thought is theirs to own.”
I shut my eyes tighter. Shame and fear erupting in equal measure. Why had they not simply killed me yet? Why was I still alive?
“Bring her to the pyre.” The man said.
Hands grabbed me, groped me, pulled at me, as I was dragged through the dirt into a cavernous hole in the mountain.
Inside were more men. All of them robed. Though they wore black not red.
I kicked out, I fought the bindings, ignoring every cut, every blow that I took and not caring how I exposed myself as my survival instincts took over.
Ahead I could see it. The mound of logs and the wooden pole sticking out of the top. It was like something from medieval times. Like I was a witch they were going to burn me at the stake.
My tears streamed as I realised I couldn’t escape this. That even my death would be one of agony. Of pain.
They wrenched my arms around tying me against the pole. Bits of wood poked into my flesh and as I began to hyperventilate the red robed man stepped up to me.
Everyone else fell back. A circle of men surrounded me as I faced him.
He brushed my hair back from my forehead then marked my skin. I could feel whatever it was drying as it set.
His eyes dropped staring at my body and then he drew more markings. Across my chest, on my ribs, on my stomach too.
When he was done he stepped back, his eyes gleaming like he’d already defeated me and I guess in a way he had.
“Light it up.” He said.
I shook my head, I pleaded with him through my eyes but it made no difference.
As he watched on, a man walked towards me with a blazing torch him his hands. He knelt down setting fire to the base before burying in at my feet.
I screamed. I fought more as slowly the heat and the smoke began to rise.
I was going to burn. I was going to die in the worst way imaginable.
I wrung my hands, twisted them around, half tearing my skin apart but there was nothing, no give, just more pain.
The men around me began to chant. It echoed off the walls. Strange words I didn’t know, didn’t recognise but I knew what they were calling for, what they were all but demanding.
The heat hit me first. It scorched my toes in searing agony. I cried out, recoiling as much as I could but it wasn’t enough. It was never going to be enough. I screamed out as the flames licked at my flesh.
At my legs, at my arms, at all of me.
And as the smoke overwhelmed me, as I began to truly choke I think in a way I welcomed it.
I welcomed my death.
And the fact I’d finally be leaving this cruel, hateful world.
Istormed out of the room. The gloat and the accusations both ringing in my ears.
But then I’d seen her. How in all that is good had she managed to be there at that exact moment? I could see from her face that she’d heard. I could feel from the pain and the anger soaring through her that she believed I’d done it.
I stepped forward, my hands reaching out to grab her, to shout that it wasn’t true, that despite how it looked, I hadn’t done it. That I hadn’t simply followed my brother’s orders like a monster.
That none of my actions had been driven by his wants and were purely my own. My want for her. My need for her.
Nela called me a fool.