Page 27 of Flame and Sparrow

They wouldn’t leave me here to die.

A warm, smoky breeze whipped across my face, causing an itching pain to spread across the cuts on my chin. An involuntary shudder rippled through me. My escort tightened his hold on my chains.

I didn’t recall making a conscious decision to keep moving.

Yet somehow, we were at the foot of the crudely fashioned stairs leading up to the high platform, and in another blink, I was up the stairs, at the head of the path of offerings that led to the center post.

Beyond the platform and pyre, I saw a full picture of the temple’s destruction for the first time. The scorch marks stretching out from the foundation, the broken ground, all the rubble that had been scraped away and stacked neatly around what remained of the destroyed building. Piles and piles of broken glass and stone, row after row of damaged furniture, sculptures, melted paintings, and other art…it must have taken hundreds of humans to organize it so quickly.

So quickly.

Would they simply rebuild it all, just as quick? Replace their fallen temple with a grander one after sprinkling my ashes over its restored foundations?

I cursed under my breath, adding fuel to the fury smoldering inside me, trying to coax my anger into rising up and pushing the waves of hopeless despair away.

Most of the crowd’s chatter had given way to nervous whispers, punctuated by the occasional triumphant laugh or a loud, eager bit of prayer. The smoke and the competing smells of countless burning offerings assaulted my inhuman senses, cutting sharply up my nose and making my eyes water. Not having hands free to wipe away the tears was excruciating, and within minutes, I was effectively blind.

“One final chance to give information about your accomplices,” said my escort in a low voice. “I’m sure the magistrate and the head cleric would be willing to offer you a deal, if only you’d answer their questions.”

I bristled at his tone, which still danced on the edge between pity and mockery. Blinking tears away as well as I could, I looked his way and smiled another sweetly sick smile at him.

“Well?”

“Go fuck yourself.”

His silver eyes flashed. His lips parted, speechless for a moment, but then they settled into his easy, arrogant grin once more. He gave a slight, mocking bow, gesturing as he straightened for the other guards who had followed us out of the prison hold.

My escort stepped back down the stairs as the other guards swarmed around me, two of them taking the chains he’d carried, several others taking a rough grip on my filthy clothing, my arms, the back of my neck. Even if I’d been at full strength, I don’t think I would have been able to twist free; there were simply too many hands.

Then we reached the post erected in the platform’s center, and there were too many ropes around too many parts of my body. Too many people rushing forward, setting fire to the outermost offerings upon the platform. Too many scents. Too many sounds. Too much fury and confusion and…tightness. I was tightly bound to the post by my arms, my legs, my stomach, and though no binding was across my chest, the tense heaviness I felt in it was nearly unbearable.

I can’t die. It was all I could think, over and over.I can’t die like this. Please, not like this.

I lowered my head, briefly closing my watering eyes, teeth gritting at the stinging pain accompanying the tears.

I heard a faint whistling sound—one too high-pitched to be noticed by humans.

Every numbed nerve I possessed tingled back to life. The tightness in my chest settled briefly, just long enough to allow a deep breath. But I tempered my hope, keeping my next inhales measured and shallow. I had imagined the whistle in my desperation, hadn’t I? We’d used that instrument for years now, and I’d know the sound anywhere, but…

Could it really be them?

I kept my head lowered but lifted my eyes, still trying to blink back tears so I could scan the crowd for familiar faces. That crowd had grown loud again. Clamorous and restless, bodies jostling for position like crabs trying to fight their way out of a fisherman’s bucket. The smoke atop the platform was growing thicker as embers fell from the outer offerings and set fire to the ones closer to me. Those closest to my body had not caught fire yet, but it was only a matter of minutes before they did. At most. Some of the crowd started to back away from the platform as the flames grew.

Even if Andrel and the otherswerehere, I likely wouldn’t be able to find them in this chaos.

And I doubted they’d be able to get to me.

I eventuallydidfind a clear face through the smoke and beyond the platform’s edge, but it was not one of my own kind—not an ally or savior—but the guard who had dragged me from my prison cell.

He was one of the only people standing perfectly still. His smug smile was gone, his shadowed face oddly contemplative.

I glared at him and nothing else.

As everything else steadily turned to little more than bleary, smoke-obscured blurs, he became my only tether to this realm, this lifetime. I directed every angry, desperate thought I had in his direction. All my bitterness. All my rage. The familiar hatred cocooned me as it always did, bringing safety and warmth as I sank into it, making me invincible and—

The guard looked up.

Our eyes met.

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