Okay guys, this week has been insane and I just finished chapter four. I haven't had time to edit it and it's not nearly as good as I want it to be, but I wanted to post something, so here it is. Please forgive any errors, I'll be polishing it and reposting by Monday. Thanks!

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Sholu climbs the gallows' steps to stand beside me. The wind picks up, pulling strands of hair loose from my braid and sending the tails of his kata into a frenetic dance. I will the fabric to twine around his neck like a Vetivera vine and choke the life from him. Let him be the showpiece, not me.

He brushes his hair from his face and begins to address the crowd.

"People of Arzsa," he calls out, his voice carrying in all directions like the proclamation of an angry god. "Today we gather to witness the cleansing of a nation."

Cleansing. He's taken the Yukkaiti's phrase and fed it back to us, partially digested and stinking like a sunbaked carcass. I feel the anger within me rising, swallowing some of my fear, stilling my shaking hands. A cleansing? He dares call what has happened here, the evil he has wrought, a cleansing? He dares dress this madness up in white and ask us to call it pure?

I look around for Shira, searching for one pure thing amongst this virgin sacrifice, but I can't find him. The faces all bleed together like ink on parchment.

"For a millennium we have let one family steer us. And for what, for the diluted hero's blood that runs in their veins? For their claim that their rule is blessed by our goddess?"

"Well?" He questions the silent crowd. "Why? Why have you followed blindly where they lead, when they lead to ruin? Why, if they're goddess-blessed, does the River Imer run dry? Why do our crops lie fallow in the fields? Why do the cloth-weavers and silk merchants have empty coffers while they live in a palace?!"

A murmur travels through the crowd. A few mild faces begin to scowl. Are they listening to this? Can they really be that stupid? The river lies low in its bed because of the second major drought in the last ten years, the same drought that's been killing crops and ruining farmers from Shikkah all the way north to Alumankarra and Unren. The cloth-weavers and silk merchants suffer because our wealth comes from exporting luxury goods, and the market has decreased significantly as our neighbors focus less on fine silks and more on avoiding famine. Then there's the lingering effects of the Yukkaiti civil war, the increased piracy along the Macchon sea, the increase in Kamai tariffs in response to the piracy... none of this is the doing of the Dimaraste.

If anything, the fact that Shikkah is still standing is our doing. Our own coffers were hollowed out keeping the country from starving during the drought ten years ago, and they still hadn't refilled by the time the second drought came. Who do they think paid the farmers? Who do they think imported food? Who do they think made sure the silk merchants didn't lose their businesses, who kept the silk farms from drying up to dust? That was our doing.

"They have led us towards ruin," Sholu repeats, grey eyes blazing with the bright fury of a sun. "They have told us to follow them, to trust them, to lay our fate as an offering at their feet while we grow smaller and poorer with every passing year. While they look down on those of us who are able to rise above our born station, mocking us as Vasayaste, little lords."

"Well, I am Vasayaste," Sholu says. "I am a little lord. I was born on the streets and grew up with the gangs. And yet, with my little hands, I managed to claw my way upwards. And now, with those same hands they eschewed as those of a beggar, I have knocked them from their pedestal. Gods tumble down from high and walk among us!" He shouts. "Because they are not gods! They never were! They are just men, men who have committed crimes against our free will for generations. And like men, they too can bleed. They too can die- will die."

The crowd jeers. Ignited by the fire of hollow words, they shout and roil and come to a boil before me, all of their anger and hate and fear flying like an arrow towards my chest. The curved noose in front of me reminds me of a mouth smiling, saying see, see? See how they turn against you, little Izsaiki? See how easy it is to be cast down?

"Today, we stand as witnesses to a revolution, not only in leadership, but in thought. The past will die on the end of a rope. When the sun sets, so will the Dimaraste. And when the sun rises, the future will rise with it!"
A raucous cheer envelopes me, a cheer for violence, enticed by his promises. Fools. They're all fools. I close my eyes for a moment and imagine I'm back in my room, behind the safety of the heavy wooden door. I imagine Halima braiding my hair, her soft, melodic voice lulling me into a sense of false security, like nothing outside of the room even exists. Because I can't be here, I can't listen to this... this blasphemy. And I can't bare to watch the crowd swallow it like a hearty soup, filling their bellies with hate and false righteousness.

I open my eyes and look for Shira again. I need him beside me. I need to reach out and hold his hand to keep from screaming. From crying. From doing what weak things do. My eyes jump around frenetically, searching, but I can't see him. I swallow.

"Bring him up," Sholu says to the guards standing at the base of the gallows, keeping the crowd from pressing in on us.
And then he's there. Hands tied with coarse rope, head and shoulders bowed. His long, silvery hair has been roughly shorn, and an accumulation of dirt and grease makes the color closer to straw. His tunic is torn and ragged and bruises line his arms in swirling patterns.

My breath catches in my throat. What have they done to you? I ask silently, my heart breaking in my chest.

Every night I cursed my fate and beat against the door with my fists, someone might have been beating their fists against him. Each fight I picked with the guards could've been a fight he couldn't avoid. What happened to make his shoulders curl that way, to make him quake as he climbs the gallows' stairs? Does he hate me? Does he blame me?

"Shira," I breathe out, barely a whisper. "Oh goddess, Shira, I'm- I'm so-"

He reaches the top step and finally looks up. The eyes that meet mine are a cloudy, bloodshot blue.

He's not Shira.

The stranger smiles at me. Several of his teeth are missing. "Izsaiki O'otani," he says, stumbling closer to me. "I want you to know I didn't say a word to them-"

A guard backhands him and he trips, landing on his knees.

"Stop it!" I shout, rushing over to him. I rush over and help him up, letting him lean on me when he can't support his own small weight. He's malnourished, his arms bony as they grip me. His face is wan and his cheeks are sunken, but his eyes sparkle with something far to close to hope when he looks at me.

"He's safe, Izsaiki, far, far away from here. Saw him get on the ship myself, I swear it, a fast ship too. I didn't say anything to them. I never said a word. I was quiet as a mouse, even when they pulled out my teeth."

I hug his frail form, feeling a ray of sunlight shoot through me. It brands me with hope, and I laugh. I might be as mad as he is, but I laugh, and then I'm crying tears of joy as I picture Amshira on a fast ship, going where the ruination of Shikkah cannot follow. He's safe, goddess be blessed, he's safe.

"Thank you," I tell the stranger. "Bless you, thank you, thank you for doing what I couldn't-"

A guard rips the man out of my grasp, leading him towards the second noose. He gives me a terrified look but doesn't fight, either because he's too smart or too weak. I hold his gaze, hoping I might give him some small amount of strength. It's the only gift I can give him in return for what he's given me.

"The world is changing and it's time we change with it!" Sholu calls out, pulling my gaze away from the stranger and my thoughts away from the joy of knowing Shira isn't going to die here today. "With the help of the Shao Asha, who three years ago rid Yukkaita of its own monarchist plague, and the blessing of Zsavina, I have cut down the Dimaraste. I will not erect myself as a tyrant in their place. You may call me your deme, but I am not a lord: I am Vasayaste, an upstart, the son of a whore who fought for everything he's ever had. I am one of you, and I will make it so that each and every Shikkan has a voice in their own governance. I will restore order to this city, to this country, and return our wealth to us!"

I'm surprised he doesn't promise to bring rain to the River Imer. Still, the crowd cheers, too stupid and blind to see the truth. These are the people he wants to lead themselves? He thinks they deserve a voice in their governance when they'll follow anyone with a loud voice and a few hired guns?

"But before the future can come to fruition, we must bury the past. Today the Dimaraste will atone for their sins and, should the goddess will it, find absolution. May Zsavina smile mercifully upon them, though they were little more than petty tyrants."

Yes, I was a petty tyrant. I sat upon my little throne and wore my fine silks and saw personally to the ruination of every Shikkan. I gorged on power and made the river run dry and poisioned the crops and salted the ground so they couldn't regrow. I'm personally responsible for the piracy, for the foreign war, for the tariffs. Let them lay the blame for all of it at my feet.

Sholu angles his body towards me, meeting my eyes. "O'otani Koritzu Amarin," he says. "Daughter of Kyoro Amarin and former Izsaiki of the Amarin Dimaraste. For your crimes against progress, and against the Shikkan people, I sentence you to death."

I expected it. I knew it was coming. But somehow hearing him say the words causes the breath to catch in my throat and pure terror to clutch my chest. My heart is a small animal caught in a trap, desperately fighting to free itself from those words. I sentence you to death. I feel as if I've been branded with a hot iron. I sentence you to death.

A few in the crowd cheer, but most are silent, realizing this show will end in a macabre finale. That there's teeth behind the pretty words they want to cling to.

Sholu steps towards me and I harden my features. He smiles at me, almost tenderly, and I have to swallow to keep the acid in my stomach from burning my throat.

He binds my hands behind my back. Then he takes the noose in his hand and slips it around my neck. I dig my fingernails into my arm, cutting into my skin and digging deep, willing the pain to center me as he tightens the rope. I can feel it touching my skin, goddess, the coarse fibers chafing against my throat, already constricting my breath. I crush my eyes together to still my tears.

Shira is safe, I tell myself, needing to hold onto something besides the cold panic running through my veins. Shira is safe and far away and he'll live, he'll live on for us all. He'll survive.

Sholu steps away from me, holding my defiant gaze for far too long before he turns and addresses the stranger.

"Yeri Lazsar," he calls out. "You have been found guilty not only of harboring the Izsai Shira Lyuren Amarin, but of aiding his flight from justice. For this crime, I sentence you to death."

"I have committed no crime!" The man called Yeri yells as Sholu slips the noose around his neck. He's rail thin and quaking, but his voice holds incredible anger. Righteous anger. "There is no crime in sheltering an innocent from you wild curs! Spineless traitors hiding behind Yukkaiti rifles and killing children! People of Arzsa, you can't stand for this, you can't let him get away with this, do not be afraid-"

A guard drives the barrel of his gun into Yeri's face. I hear a sickening crack and watch in horror as blood begins to fall from his nose, staining his lips and teeth like those of some wild carnivore as he ignores the pain and continues to yell.

"Do whatever you want to me, I don't care! It doesn't matter, because of me the future of Shikkah is safe, do your worst you spineless cunts-"

This time it's a fist that cuts him off. He goes quiet, but he doesn't let his shoulders roll forward, and he doesn't look away. Defiance is written all across his bloodied face, even as bruises begin to bloom under his eyes.

"I am the future of Shikkah." Sholu whispers, looking at me instead of Yeri. He walks towards me slowly, grey eyes cutting into my skin, filling up my vision, an animal in a trap, a rope around my neck. He is the hunter, stalking towards me with steel in his eyes.

He stops right in front of me, his back to the crowd. His head blocks out the sun, throwing me into shadow. He grabs my chin in his hand, tilting my face up to meet his eyes. "Do you understand? There is the rubble, and then there's me."

"You made the rubble," I spit.

"Of course I did. There has to be something to rise out of, doesn't there?" He leans forward, his hot breath staining my skin. "Sometimes destruction is the price of creation, O'otani. And I mean to create something great."

"You'll create anarchy, and it will swallow you whole," I promise. "And when you're crushed under the weight of the rubble you're 'created,' and your ashes are scattered on the winds, Shira will return here to lay flowers on my grave. He will restore order from your chaos and resume his rightful place as leader-"

Sholu laughs, shaking his head. "Don't be foolish, Izsaiki. The Izsai will be dead within a fortnight."

"You're a liar," I hiss.

His grip on my chin tightens, probably leaving bruises. "Do you really think he's going to be some sort of savior? He's a coward, O'otani. He left you here with me. He left you to die."

"He had no choice," I protest. "You made sure of that!"
"There's always a choice," Sholu counters.

"He would have died!"

"Would you have left him?"

I stop talking. No, I wouldn't have left him. In the midst of the violence, it wasn't my own life I thought of. It was his. It's always been his. I would walk into death if I thought he lay on the other side.

"I- I'm the Izsaiki," I mutter. "It's different for me."

Sholu snorts. "That's what I thought."

"He did what was right!"

"He abandoned you to save himself. Your bastard prince is a coward and he doesn't deserve your lionizing. He's barely worth the effort it will take me to track him down and kill him."

"He's worth everything," I reply, my voice iron-forged. "Everything."

"You're a fool, Izsaiki," he sneers. "Just like all the rest."

"And you're Vasayaste," I reply acidly. "A little lord who thinks he's more than he is. Don't you understand, you mad cunt? You're nothing. You're the sand under our fingernails. The son of a whore who thinks he's a god, well, let me tell you that I am blood-bound to a son of Zsavina and you will never be half of what he is, no matter how hard you try!"

A dark look crosses Sholu's face and before I can tell he's moved he slaps me hard across the face. I taste blood in my mouth and my cheek stings. I lift my head and spit at him, a fine spray of blood and saliva painting the left side of his face.

I expect another slap, but it doesn't come. He just wipes his face with the sleeve of his kata, smearing my blood into his skin.

He reaches down and pulls something out of his pocket. I see the glint of steel in the sun and stiffen, my eyes widening as righteous anger falls to fear. It's my knife he's holding, I realize, the knife I left lodged in his guard's bone.

"I may be Vasayaste, O'otani," he murmurs, sliding the blade under the noose so it presses into my throat. I feel him break skin break and begin to panic, struggling to pull away though my hands and neck are bound. "But I'm the one holding the knife."

A strangled sound escapes my throat, an aborted scream as my own hot blood begins to trickle down my neck. I'm truly shaking now, goddess, he's going to cut my throat with my own knife. He wants blood and he's going to have it, no one will stop him, I can't stop him, I'm powerless, powerless-

He leans forward, speaking so softly I can barely hear him over the chaos in my own head.

"I'm going to give you a choice, Izsaiki. If you want that child to live, don't say another word."

Halima. "She's nothing to you, she's done nothing, don't hurt her, please-"

"Silent." He whispers into my ear. "No matter what I say. Do you understand?"

"Y-yes," I say quickly, fear piercing my gut. I can't let him hurt her.

"Good." He turns back towards the crowd, the bloodied knife falling from my neck. I gasp, relief flooding me.

"Make no mistake," he calls to the crowd, showmanship returning. "The Dimaraste died well before the night of the Founder's Feast. It was crippled with the excess of sin and betrayal well before I dealt the death blow." He glances back at me, a warning in his eyes. "It was the Izsaiki herself who gave me the palace blueprints so I knew exactly where the guards were stationed. The protector of Arzsa herself was the key to its destruction."

"What?" I spit, a wave of righteous anger rising in me with the force of a great wave. "How dare y-"

Sholu looks back at me, eyes flashing. "Not a word," he mouths, and I pale. Halima.

I believe him. He'll kill her; he murdered my baby cousins without thought, so what is one palace maid? To him, nothing.

"In her quest for power, she was willing to turn her back on her family and her blood oath. Why wouldn't she then turn on Shikkah? Why wouldn't they turn on all of us?"

I grind my teeth to keep from screaming. I want, I need, to dispute this. To let them know he's lying, that he's never said one honest word in his life. That I would sooner lose my own life than betray my family, let alone Amshira. That everything I've ever done, I've done for Arzsa. I've done for them.

But he threatened Halima. He'll kill her. What is she worth to me? Is she really worth my honor, my name?

Yes, I decide, swallowing my protests like poison. What is honor worth then you're already tied to a noose? She's the only one who's stayed loyal to me. She held me when I cried and whispered soothing words when I screamed and reminded me that I was human when the darkness of memory seized me.

I won't condemn her. I can't. And so all I can do is listen while Sholu Verlaina assassinates my reputation. He's ruined me, wholly and completely. He's taken my family and my country, he's going to take my life, but before that, he's taking whatever honor I have left. Using me as a political prop, draping his lies over me like a shroud.

I make the mistake of looking over at Yeri. His face is slack with shock, then it screws up tight in anger. He looks at me like I'm worse than Sholu.

"You bitch," he yells out through his split lip. "You betrayed him? You were supposed to protect him with your life, you swore to the goddess! You sold your own family to this monster?"

No, I think, never. But I just look away, too cowardly to endure his accusing gaze. I hang my head, feeling tears begin to fall.

"You're the worst of them, Izsaiki!" Yeri howls. "You're the rot, may the goddess rend your soul apart in her hands!"

She doesn't need to. Sholu Verlaina already has.

"This is the night of Shikkah's rebirth!" Sholu calls out over the sound of Yeri's curses. "The night of all of our rebirths as we perform ablations with the blood of traitors! Let these two stand as your example!"

A guard standing at the base pulls a lever and the floor of the gallows falls out from under Yeri. I watch in horror as he twists on the end of the rope, thrashing about as panic consumes him. His face turns a horrible shade of red, then it pales as the weight of his own body suffocates him. It takes several minutes for him to die.

Sholu watches impassively. Then, when the hanged man's still and the crowd is deadly silent, he walks back towards me. I begin to hyperventilate, my fear overcoming my reason. Raw hopelessness seizes me, the knowledge of what's coming, that this is how I will die. I'm going to die.

I can only hope that the fall breaks my neck, so it doesn't take too long.

"There is no place for traitors in my future," Sholu booms as he stalks towards me. "Anyone who helps the Izsai, or clings to the old ways, will find no refuge but death!" He looks at home on the stage, like he's spent his entire life planning this speech. Maybe he has. Maybe these are the words that he's carved into his soul, in the same way I've carved Shira's name.

Take care of him, Zsavina, I pray silently, closing my eyes so I don't have to watch Sholu's approach. Please save him, I know I'm lost, but please keep him safe. He and Halima, they're the only ones I care about left.

"But those who are willing to atone, and to move forward with us, will find mercy. No matter who they've been of what they've done. There is a place for everyone in the new Shikkah, even for ghosts."

I open my eyes, confused as to why the ground hasn't dropped out from under me. Sholu's standing right in front of me. He brings my own knife back to my throat, slipping it under the rope. He must want to do this himself instead of giving gravity the honors. His eyes are smiling. My soul is screaming.

"Just do it, whoreson," I growl. "Do it!"

There's a quick jerk of the knife and I tense, expecting a death blow. Then the rope around my neck is gone, cut, and I'm falling. I land at his feet, my knees striking the wood.

"You are the past, Izsaiki, but your betrayal helped me usher in the future. For this, and this alone, I hand you your life."

Then he turns and descends the gallows without sparing me another glance.

I fall forward, relief and disbelief making me dizzy. The world fractures as tears steal my vision. I'm alive. Somehow, I'm alive.

I dig my fingernails into the wood and sob.

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YAY! CHAPTER FOUR IS FINALLY OVER, AFTER TWENTY FIVE WORD PAGES AND AROUND A MONTH. I am so exhausted. Whew.

Next chapter is back to Shira.

Also, I'm kind of curious, why do you think Sholu spared O'otani's life? What do you make of his motivation, or just of his character in general?

And again, thanks for reading. I