Page 55 of The Year of the Witching

Across the pastures and through the rolling smoke, Immanuelle spotted the Prophet on his horse, waiting for Ezra. There was a gravitas to his gaze, and even at a distance, she could tell he was watching them. “You need to go. Now.”

“I know,” said Ezra, but he didn’t move, just stood there staring after his father. It took her a moment to see the expression on his face for what it was: dread. “Do you still believe we can find a way to end this?”

Pyre smoke rolled across the road, obscuring the Prophet from view. “We have to.”

CHAPTERTWENTY-FIVE

I often wonder if my spirit will live on in her. Sometimes Ihope that it will, if only so I won’t be forgotten.

—MIRIAMMOORE

THAT NIGHT, IMMANUELLEdreamed she walked through a field of amber. As far as the eye could see, waves of golden wheat rolled with the breath of the wind. Crickets warbled summer songs; the air was thick and sticky, the sky clear of clouds.

In the distance, two figures moved through the wheat like fish in water. The first, a girl with golden hair and a wicked smile. Immanuelle recognized her from the portrait in her mother’s journal: Miriam, her mother.

Walking alongside her, a tall boy with night-dark skin and eyes like Immanuelle’s. She knew, without really knowing, who he was upon first glance: Daniel Ward, her father.

Together, the pair waded hand in hand through the wheat, smiling and laughing, enraptured with each other, their faces warm with the light of the rising sun. When they turned and kissed each other, it was with passion... and yearning.

Immanuelle tried to follow them through the amber waves, but they were quick and she was slow, and when they ran she stumbled and lagged behind.

The sun shifted overhead, as if pulled by a string. Shadows fellacross the plains and the couple disappeared over the bend of a hill. Immanuelle struggled after them, catching the scent of smoke on the wind as night fell.

She heard the muffled rush of flames. Dragging herself through the last of the wheat, Immanuelle peered down at the plains below. There was a crowd some one hundred strong gathered around a pyre. Standing on that pyre, shirtless and bleeding, was her father, Daniel Ward.

A scream broke across the plains. Immanuelle followed the sound to Miriam, who cowered weeping at the foot of the pyre. Like her lover, she was bound, shackled at the throat. She lunged for the pyre, crawling on her hands and knees, the iron brace digging into her neck, but one cruel yank on her chain sent her sprawling, and she collapsed into the dirt again.

Immanuelle didn’t want to watch. She didn’t want to move, but she found herself descending the hill, the throng parting to make way for her. She came to stand alongside Miriam, in the shadow of the pyre.

The crowds parted again. A man passed through them. It took Immanuelle a moment to recognize him: the Prophet Grant Chambers, Ezra’s father. In his grasp was a flaming branch bigger than any torch she’d ever seen. He bore it with both hands, cutting across the field to the foot of the pyre in three long steps.

Miriam clawed at the dirt, shrieking pleas and spitting curses, begging and weeping and swearing on what little she had left to swear on—her life, her blood, her good word—to whatever god could hear her.

But for all of her pleas and curses, the Prophet did not heed her. He lowered the branch to the pyre, and with a roar, the flames stormed through the kindling.

Daniel did not move. He did not flinch. He did not plead theway Miriam did. When the flames chewed up his legs and devoured him, he let loose a single, haunting cry and then fell silent. And as quickly as it began, it was over.

Flesh to bone to ashes.

Immanuelle staggered, stooped, and broke to her knees, hitting the dirt alongside her mother. She clasped her hands over her ears to block out the roar of the flames and Miriam’s keening, the jeering of the crowd. Every breath brought the stench of burnt flesh.

Smoke rolled across the flames, too thick to see through. Immanuelle choked, blind in the darkness; the light of the pyre died to little more than the dull glow of an ember in the night.

When the darkness cleared, Immanuelle found herself alone. The pyre was gone, as were the crowds. The Prophet and Miriam were nowhere to be seen. The plains were empty.

Overhead, the moon hung, fat and full.

Immanuelle squinted. In the distance, she could just make out the crude shadow of the cathedral, breaking above the waves of wheat. Immanuelle started toward it, crossing through the empty pastures, traveling east by the light of the moon.

When she arrived at the cathedral, she faltered, standing motionless in the shadow of the bell tower. The doors swung open slowly, and even from a distance, she caught the stench of something raw on the air, all blood and butchery.

Immanuelle climbed the stone steps and entered into a darkness as thick as night. She staggered down the center aisle, hands outstretched, moving from one pew to the next.

A flame flickered to life behind the altar. In its glow, Immanuelle could make out the shadow of a figure, Miriam. She wore a white cutting dress, its folds spilling over the swell of her belly. As Immanuelle drew nearer she saw that she was smiling—a wetgash of a grin. In her right hand she held a broken antler like a dagger, its jagged point dripping blood.

A great shape moved from behind her, like a spider emerging from the edges of its web. Lilith prowled to the front of the altar and hovered at Miriam’s shoulder. Upon her arrival, the darkness retreated, and candlelight spilled through the cathedral. And as Immanuelle’s eyes adjusted, and the room came into focus, it was all she could do to bite back a scream.

The place was a tomb.

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