Page 17 of The Fated and the Damned
The breath shuddered from my lungs as I finally looked upon Caitlin. Her withered face crinkled into a sneer, and in her old eyes I saw her condemning me to a fate worse than death. But no matter. She’ll be the first to know about that. Death himself will greet her with open arms and whatever might pass for a wicked grin in that void-face of his. I didn’t want to think of what torment he’ll have planned.
Mama, flanked by Erika and Iren, approached her. The pyre itself was simple. A wooden pole raised on a landing in the centre of carefully stacked and bound kindling. There were no ladder or steps to climb. Why create more work for the táltosok when a living torch was already in their midst?
The councillors might say the words, but I would be the one to light the fire.
I was the match, the executioner.
Mama raised her arms, and the chorus of voices dipped to a hum before falling silent. My sisters stood at my back; their eyes raised at the woman who betrayed them. The woman who sold them off like chattel, who trafficked their blood in return for the promise of power and fed from their innocence.
No one stirred as the wind clawed at our shawls and our hair whipped in the stillness. Even Caitlin herself was silent, the air ripe with the stench of her fear. A coldness in my stomach that belied the temperature told me Death was somewhere close, waiting to collect, to lead her home.
“Caitlin Vargo, High Witch of the Green Coven, you are sentenced to burn at the stake for your crimes,” Nora said, her voice amplified so it boomed across the square. “Do you have any last words before Death takes you?”
My blood pounded in my ears, so loud I wondered if Dante could hear it. My heart rate quickened, my breathing sharp and rushed. He stiffened by my side, leaning just a little closer to me. His warmth seeped through my tunic and into my skin, cleansing, clarifying my thoughts.
The crone lifted herself up, jutting her chin into the air with the authority of a woman used to looking down her nose at others. For so long, she had looked at me that way. As something beneath her. Ugly. Wrong. But I had never pretended to be anything except me. It was the lies and secrets of others that had masked my true skin. And now that I knew who I was, I would cower no longer.
Caitlin couldn’t strip me of my dignity when I was a girl. She wouldn’t do so now that I was a woman. A witch worthy of being in this coven and someone who would always defend her own.
“Everything I did,” Caitlin rasped, her words throaty with emotion, “I did for the good of the coven. Before your blood soaks the earth, you will remember the protection I afforded you. One lamb does not a wolf satisfy. But a flock will feed a thousand.”
I stared at her piteous form as murmurs broke out among the coven. Surely no one was foolish enough to believe her? One soul or many, she had traded lives for her own selfish gains. It didn’t matter if her arrangement with Sylvie had bought the coven time, she had murdered witches and, in the end, her own greed and fear had turned her wicked with lust for more power.
Before I could point out as much, my mother strode towards the people, disgust etched into the creases around her downturned lips. “A lie however beautifully crafted is still poison from a serpent’s tongue. This woman is a traitor, a murderer, and a thief. She has broken our creeds and abused dark magic. Opened the veins of our sisters in an attempt to steal their magic and corrupt another coven as High Witch. In this, there is no forgiveness. Under the eyes of the Mother and all that is sacred, I sanctify that Caitlin Vargo shall burn with the rising of the sun. What say you, my sisters?”
I stepped forward, my eyes never straying from Caitlin’s face. “Aye.”
A collective of voices sounded behind me, all acknowledging the order, all agreeing as one.
Caitlin shrieked with rage as everyone turned on her, then her splutters of protest turned to whimpers and pleas, begging, utterly diminished in her final hour. Mama looked at me firmly, nodding once, and I took a deep breath.
Dante stepped beside me, and I allowed myself to look at him before the world changed course once again.
His olive skin gleamed, the set of his chiselled jaw and full lips stern as he looked at me. Those eyes burned into my own, deep and perilous and filled with my darkest desires. But his lips curled up ever so slightly to the side, a single dimple winking into existence, and he nodded. Just once, enough to convey his encouragement, and his strength. Enough to say I could do this.
His hand brushed against my own, his knuckles scraping against mine with the most fleeting of touches. A tiny gasp escaped my lips, and I didn’t dare let myself dwell on that contact, not as I focused my gaze on the witch before me and raised my arm.
“No,” Caitlin screamed. “Please, don’t do this, don’t—”
Her words fizzled out as I focused on my task, the whole world blurring as I pointed my finger and let my power come rushing to the fore. I was the executioner, and I would not shy from my duty.
“Burn.”
The kindling burst into flames, crackling and groaning as the fire licked the wood and caught until it encircled Caitlin entirely. She thrashed at her restraints, her chest heaving, her neck taut from where she stretched her face as far away from the flames as possible.
Warmth blazed in my direction, searing and harsh against my cheeks as the flames climbed higher and higher, the smoke making my eyes water and my throat dry out.
Then the screaming started. Soon after, the smell of burning flesh permeated the air.
I didn’t want to watch this. Didn’t want to see or smell or face the destruction frommy hand, but I didn’t look away. Not for a second while the rain misted down and the clouds rumbled with the voices of the gods.
Dante wrapped his arms around me. I let him, too frozen to push him away, too horrified to do anything but stand there as the flames crept towards the sky and the screams were soon silenced.
I, too, wanted to scream and vomit and curl myself into a ball anywhere but here.
But I didn’t look away.
Long after Caitlin’s body was unrecognisable, I was still staring.
