Page 61 of What Fury Brings
A guillotine.
For a man’s cock.
The sentenced man started to thrash as the woman used a rod to lift his member and place it in the designated indentation. The crowd started to chant, but Sanos couldn’t quite make out the words. Sweat ran down the man’s face, and he was spewing venom from his mouth, too far for Sanos to hear. It was probably for the best.
And then, all at once, the blade was released. It plummeted toward the ground and the man’s member.
Sanos shut his eyes at the last moment, unable to watch. It heightened his hearing, allowing him to finally discern the chant.
“Cut! Cut! Cut!”
The scream made the hair at the back of his neck stand on end. The crowd silenced as though to hear it better. When Sanos opened his eyes, he couldn’t bear to stare at the scene in front of him, so he looked to Olerra instead.
That was a mistake.
“Look,” she demanded, nodding toward the pit.
He shook his head.
She wrenched on the leash, forcing him forward. His eyes focused without him giving them the command to do so.
Another woman had entered the arena. She wore gloves and a medical coat. She also held some sort of thin tubing in her hands. There was a second scream as she hunched over the bound man, doing something that couldn’t be seen with her blocking his lower half with her own body.
When she stepped aside, the tubing hung from where his cock once was.
So he could still urinate.
Finally they brought what appeared to be a hot poker, to cauterize—
Sanos nearly passed out as the man screamed a third time.
14
Andrastus dragged his feet as they returned to the carriage. Olerra bought him lunch, though he didn’t eat it. She wasn’t surprised that he’d lost his appetite after their last stop. She enjoyed the chicken skewers on her own, handing out the extras to anyone on the street who looked hungry. The prince was quiet, which she knew by now was not his natural state. She worried for him but left him to his thoughts.
He didn’t speak until the carriage was halfway back to the palace.
“Why did you show me that? So I would know what awaits me should I misbehave again?”
She turned to him in alarm. “Andrastus, no.No.I told you. We believe the punishment should fit the crime. The point was to show you the ugliest side of both your gender and mine. To punish you by making you watch, yes. But you would never be sentenced to such a thing unless you first committed the crime.”
He didn’t seem convinced.
“Let me remind you that you lost your breakfast when you learned of the man’s crimes. Not when you saw what happened to him. Did you think the punishment unfitting?”
“That man is permanently scarred,” Andrastus said.
“And you think the children he hurt aren’t? Their scars might be internal, but they are still there and just as lasting.”
Silence spread between them, but Olerra broke it once more. “Onething I wish I could make men understand,” she said, “is empathy. Most men will never understand the horrors of rape. It happens, but not nearly so often to them. So most never even think of it. You do not realize the pain and shame andfearthat women in the world carry with them.”
“But in Amarra, surely that doesn’t happen often,” he said.
“No, not often. But it was only five hundred years ago that our goddess blessed her daughters with her strength. It was not so long ago that we don’t remember the way things were, especially when we can still see it in our neighbors. So many women flee to our borders to escape their lives. We make room for them. Because this is a place where all women should feel safe and cared for. And not just them, but all the minorities: amise, madae, madereo, madorn, siro, turé, and even sirem, who are not revered as they are in our country.”
The prince said, “Everyone except men with a preference for women.”
“You’re learning.”
