I'd spent years with a monster lingering around inside my head, with the past few weeks turning into a crazed, manic freak show as Rhoe somehow activated it to reveal myself to her. I knew what it meant to feel gross all over, to feel numb and sick to my stomach all at once.

This, however, was a different type of numb. A cruel feeling mixed with shock and disbelief as I moved - albeit stiffly - to push my way through the crowd with Craen and Bonosoli behind me. This was completely out of order, not at all how these sorts of executions were handled - a runkin was supposed to lead it, followed by two erlas. It didn't seem like Bonosoli cared at all about tradition today, though. Instead, she had me, who was soaked to the bone in water and blood, come face to face with a woman the people wanted dead for reasons unbeknown to me.

Bonosoli was supposed to do this. She was the one in white, the last thing the woman was supposed to see before being sacrificed to whatever god she'd so horribly wronged. They said the last thing you'd see was to be carried over in death, so that whoever decided what happened to you afterwards could see if your death was justly served or not and go from there. Being executed by a runkin was supposed to be something of a mercy, a statement to say, "punish the mortal no further".

It was one of those things that I had absolutely no idea if it was true or not, but if it was, I wasn't sure how the gods would take it if this woman's death was brought by me instead of Bonosoli. I'd only done this once before, and it had been the turning tide of how I'd went about the Reftin Circle ever since.

The woman was shivering uncontrollably, her arms pulled taut between her weight and the ropes that held her hands upward. She was so incredibly underweight, her ribs showing through the strain, and her tanned skin was littered in a series of purpling, black bruises. Nowadays, they also secured the victim's legs by a rope to a loop secured in the ground to keep them from kicking out, but I doubted this woman had much strength to even manage that. She opened her eyes when she sensed my presence, and her lips trembled.

"Dascré," I faintly heard her mumble - a Delin word that loosely translated to 'demon'. This girl wasn't even a native. Did she know what was happening? Delha was a small country on the other side of the Blurr Sea. It was such a pain in the ass to travel to when the weather permitted  due to the crazy amount of sea monsters, and the wayfolds rarely lined up just right to allow access between the two pieces of land. Simply going around the sea was no easy task - not unless one fancied the sky-high mountaintops and the giant birds and things that lingered there.

What was this woman doing all the way here, in Canden?

"Dascré," she said again, and tried resisting against her bonds. "No, no, no."

I resisted the urge to look down at myself, at the things that still stuck to me. Whatever she saw in me, it was obviously bad enough for her to mistaken me for a cursed underworld monster.

As much as everyone had their eyes fixed between me and this woman, nothing hit me as much as the expectant stares from Craen and Bonosoli.

"You had me do this once, before," I murmured beneath my breath - just loud enough for the runkist to hear me. "And that was no mere mistake. What has this woman done?"

I turned to the side to glare at her, her stark white cloak in such contrast to my filthy state. She held out the jar, pressing it into my hands. Somehow, I didn't drop it.

"When will you learn," she said just as softly, "that all of this is so much more than the pride of gods?" She paused, and I got the sense that even though her magic prevented me from seeing her face directly, she was staring me right in the eye. "Do not forsake your vows, now, Wrenva." Not when you're so close.

Fuck.

Even when you do your job, nothing ever seems to go right, does it?

I scowled. Not ready to have another internal argument with myself, I faced the woman sentenced to die a painful death. I stepped on the ledge that allowed even my shorter height to stand a little ways above her.

"Please," she began, her voice thick with an accent and tears. "Please, I don't . . . I don't know why I lived. I don't know why, please . . ."

A survivor of disease, maybe? Did they believe that she participated in dark magic? No matter. Just get this over with.

"I hold in my hands the blood of a son of Lumos, the god of travels," I recited, my voice as bleak and empty as the stares of the shocked people around me. How many of them knew that the sons of Lumos were just mere stags? "I pour this over you so that you do not go undetected in your afterlife."

The woman didn't need to be familiar with the Nevhian gods to panic at my words. I was about to poor a giant jar of blood over her, blood that, once exposed to air, would become just shy of being scorching hot to the touch. She shook beneath her bonds, cried beneath the wind's harsh touch, and in that moment, she didn't appear at all like someone who deserved to die.

Then again, few of them ever did.

A sharp pain sprouted out from the middle of my chest, making it hard to breathe, and the sweat gathering around my palms threatened to release the grip I had around the jar. Somewhere, someone shouted something that sounded like, "kill the sympathizer!" but all I could really focus on was the ringing pulsing within my ears.

She trusted me. She was supposed to trust me-

I wasn't sure how I remained quiet, how I was able to hold back a scream much like the one I'd released outside the nymphtan's den when I realized I'd gotten Orik killed. With my pulse still roaring in my ears, I all but yanked the lid off and dumped the horrid contents over this poor girl's head. I needed to get out of my head. Needed to focus on the task at hand, needed to convince the Circle members that were surely watching me that I still served them.

But holy shit, was I going to have a very endearing talk with my mentor after this.

My body moved of its own accord, a familiar numbness quieting the madness I felt so strongly from within until all that was left was a shell of a woman simply going through the motions.

I didn't say the rest of the words I was supposed to, however. I didn't speak the brief prayer over her as I was handed the cursed little box, didn't stop to ask if there was anything she wanted to say before she died. I wasn't even sure she could, anyway - she was muttering things in her own language, now, speaking too fast for me to properly make out what she was saying. Any other situation, and I wouldn't hesitate to lop a head from someone who meant me ill and was chanting words out like this. No need to enable a potential curse and all that. But here, in this situation, with the woman stripped bare and no signs of runes carved upon her skin, there wasn't much she could do to me with mere words.

And when I opened the box to carefully take out the bug that would take over her body, I knew she wish she could.

"Please," she tried again, speaking faster and faster. "I don't know why they spared me. I'm a nomad. My caravan was here for the celebrations; I didn't know anything about the attack-" she choked on a round of sobs, her body straining against the effort. I stiffened, even when the beetle began to twitch in my fingers, no longer dormant.

They were executing her because she survived the nymphtan attack.

Slowly, I glanced over at the woman in white. Again, I thought, after all these years, she's doing this to me again.

Only, last time I had completely fallen for everything her and her organization stood for. I'd entirely believed that the newly childless mother they'd wanted me to do this to had indeed brought it all upon herself, only to find out afterwards that there had been a giant, incredible mistake that involved a spy not being caught until it was too late.

In this moment, I knew what was going on. They didn't want me to execute this woman because she deserved it. She was something Canden's people hated because she was an outsider that survived, and a scapegoat the Circle could use to prove their worth after I indirectly made them look useless.

If I create another fucking ravtin over this . . . Could a person have more than one on their heels?

I faced the woman, reaching over to force the bug past her lips, pushing down whatever guilt that threatened to tear down my composure. I'd let hundreds die just days ago. How was this any different?

You wouldn't be here if you'd stopped the nymphtan the first time.

I didn't wait to watch the woman's skin break out in dark, ugly boils. Didn't wait for the snap in her ribs as they were all collectively pushed down, or the silent cry and scream as she begged for it to end. Instead, I stepped off the ledge and shoved myself forward through the crowd, in the direction of the overwhelming mountains located behind the city. I wasn't entirely in the clear when I rounded a building, fell to my knees, and threw up whatever was left in my stomach.

~ 1696 Words ~