Page 92 of The Year of the Witching

Ezra studied the blade in her hand, reached for it, then stopped. “No. You have the only right. The choice is yours, and yours only.”

Immanuelle paused, lingering in the shadow of the altar. The Prophet scrabbled at her feet, pleading for mercy.

“Please.”He wheezed and hacked like he had to fight for every breath.“Please. Please.”

Immanuelle turned to study the faces in the crowd—Anna and Honor, Martha and Glory, Vera and Ezra, people from the Glades and the Holy Grounds and the Outskirts alike. What she did, she did for them, for all of Bethel, for the dream of making their home something better than it was, so that those who followed in their footsteps would never know the heat of a pyre, or the pain of its flames.

A world without killings or cruelty: That was the fate she wanted.

And it was the fate she would have.

Turning to face the pews in full, Immanuelle dropped the blade, and it struck the floor with a clatter that echoed through the cathedral. “Today, we choose mercy.”

The flock answered her as one.“Now and forevermore.”

EPILOGUE

IMMANUELLE SAT ONthe stairs of the Haven and watched the sun rise through the trees. In the days after the attack on the cathedral, she’d spent many a morning on those steps, cradling a cup of tea or a book of poetry, waiting for the sun to climb above the treetops, just to make sure it would. Sometimes, when she was alone, she would peel back the sleeve of her dress, trace the puckered scar of the sigil she’d carved into her arm all those weeks ago.

In her darkest moments, she would hope—even pray—that her recompense would hasten, if only so she wouldn’t be made to wait in a state of perpetual dread, under the threat of some faceless affliction she didn’t yet know. Better to settle the matter quickly, face her reckoning so she could put all of the strife behind her once and for all. Because if she didn’t do that, who would she be? What honor was there in a girl who could fight to save everyone except herself?

“You’re drifting again,” Ezra said, his eyes on the horizon. He sat close beside her, as he always did when he had the time to. “What’s on your mind?”

Immanuelle drew her knees to her chest and gazed out acrossthe sun-washed plains, watching light flood between the trees. She grasped her forearm, fingertips pressing painfully into the scar of the sigil. So much had changed in the span of a few short weeks. The Prophet’s condition had worsened, and preparations for his death were being made. Some of the flock remained loyal to him, but others looked to Ezra as the new leader of the Church and faith. Immanuelle hoped that the tensions between the opposing groups wouldn’t implode into a schism—or worse yet a holy war—but whispers emerging from the bastions of the old Church suggested that the matter of the Prophet’s succession would only be settled through bloodshed.

But Immanuelle tried not to think about that. Ezra had told her, time and time again, that those troubles weren’t hers anymore. She had done her part. She’d saved Bethel from the plagues and all of the evil done in her name. Now it was time for her to let go. “I’m just thinking about how so many things can change and yet stay entirely the same.”

Ezra frowned. “Is this about the schism?”

“The schism, the sentencings, the threat of holy war. Sometimes I feel like we’re just rehashing the past all over again. I hate feeling that we’ve gotten this far only to become what others have already been before us.”

“We’re not repeating the past,” said Ezra, “and we’re making damn sure no one else will either. You can’t lose sight of that.”

Immanuelle’s gaze shifted west, to the distant ruins of the cathedral. Sometimes, when she closed her eyes, she could picture the slaughter—the bodies strewn through the rubble, the blood smeared across the tiles, Vera with the gutting blade in her hand, Abram lying dead. “It’s a little late for that. It seems like I can’t keep sight of anything that matters anymore. So here I am trying to pick up the bits and pieces of who I used to be and who I am now, in the wake of all of this.”

Ezra raised a hand to her cheek, his thumb tracing over her bottom lip. “I’ll take those bits and pieces. Any day, over anything. And when we’re stronger, we’ll build those bits and pieces into something more.”

Immanuelle looked at him and smiled. It was a small thing—a little grin as quick as a flame’s flicker—but it was something. It was a start.

Leaning into Ezra’s hand, she kissed him. First the pad of his thumb, then his lips, shifting into him as he angled closer, grasping her waist. Immanuelle could have stayed that way with him until the sun pulled high above the horizon line and sank into shadow again. But after a minute, she drew back.

Easing out of Ezra’s arms, she pressed to her feet and stepped barefoot off the stairs and out onto the smoke-washed plains. Wind stirred through her curls and tore at her skirts. On the distant horizon, the last pyres of the purging smoldered and died.

“I’ve thought of a name for the coming year,” she said, squinting into the red light of the rising sun. For a moment, she thought she saw Lilith standing on the cusp of the Darkwood, the tines of her antlers tangled in the branches of a birch tree. But it was only a trick of the shadows. The dead were dormant and the woods were quiet. Immanuelle narrowed her eyes and watched as the rising sun crested the treetops. “I think we should call it Year of the Dawn.”

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