“She did.”
Something like triumph passed through the apostle’s eyes. “And is it your mother’s god you pray to in the night? Is it her beasts you call to?”
“They weren’t her beasts. They belong to no one.”
“And yet they obey you.”
Immanuelle shook her head. “They heed no one.”
At that, the apostle smiled, as if the two of them shared some dirty secret. He drew closer, his boots scuffing across the floor, and dropped to a crouch at her side. “But Ezra heeds your every whim, doesn’t he?”
It was the first Immanuelle had heard of him in what felt like weeks. The sound of his name alone was enough to fill her with a heady mix of dread and fear and hope. She wanted to ask if he was still alive, and if so in what condition, but was too afraid for fear of what the apostle’s answer would be.
“Ezra always heeds your call, doesn’t he?” the apostle asked again, annoyed by her silence. “He had a hand in your schemes?”
Immanuelle didn’t know how to answer. If she said no, she would assume full responsibility for all the accusations the apostle leveled against her. The punishment for her crimes would be death by purging, and if she died on the pyre before she had the chance to reverse the plagues, Bethel was all but doomed. But if she answered yes, Ezra could be deemed an accomplice, or even culpable for her transgressions. What would the charge for such a crime be? Conspiracy against the Church, perhaps? Holy treason? The former was a punishment of fifty lashes, the latter death.
But the future prophet couldn’t be executed, could he? Would they dare lay the lash upon his shoulders? Or worse yet, send him to the pyre?
A sharp burning snapped Immanuelle to attention and she yelped, snatching her hand away.
The apostle loomed above her, his candle tipped to the side so the hot wax had spilled onto her hand. “Answer the question, girl.”
Immanuelle picked her words carefully, scraping wax flakes from the back of her hand. “Ezra is my friend. He heeds me as a friend would.”
“And what is the nature of your friendship?”
“He gave me books to read. We talked about poetry and the Scriptures.”
The apostle leaned forward, sneering. When he spoke, his breath was hot against her cheek. “Did you lie with each other?”
She stiffened. “No.”
Whether the apostle believed her or not, Immanuelle couldn’t tell. He stood and turned his back to her, stalking toward the cell door. “You’re a sick, sinful girl, do you know that?”
Immanuelle almost smiled in spite of it all. “So I’ve been told.”
The apostle suddenly doubled back to her and tipped the candle once more. Burning wax splattered across her cheeks and she winced. It was all she could do to keep from weeping, but she refused to give him the pleasure.
“I have a surprise for you,” said the apostle, stepping aside so Immanuelle had a clear view of the hall. The candlelight’s glow illuminated the corridor, and a familiar face soon appeared behind the bars: Martha.
She wore a black wool cloak that she typically reserved for funerals. The hood hung low, casting a shadow over her eyes. “Hello, Immanuelle.”
At the sight of her grandmother, Immanuelle straightened, pressing herself against the cell wall so the cobbles cut into her back. “What do you want from me?”
“That’s no way to greet the woman who raised you,” the apostle chided.
Immanuelle kept her eyes on Martha. Her chains rattled across the floor as she drew back. “She’s no kin to me.”
A damp wind licked down the hallway. The torch flared and Martha’s candle sputtered out. “I was only trying to help you, Immanuelle.”
“Help me? You betrayed me.”
“I tried to save you, as best I was able to.”
“You said you’d let me go.”
“I did,” said Martha, drawing closer. “And I have. That’s why you’re here in contrition, to be let go. To be released from your sins and forgiven.”
Apostle Isaac’s lips peeled back into a sneer. He moved toward the door, put a hand on Martha’s shoulder. “And so she will be, upon her confession. The Prophet will make sure of it.”
Martha trembled so violently her candle rattled on its pricket. In a rare moment of weakness, her eyes filled with tears. When she finally spoke it was not to the apostle, but to Immanuelle. “Honor and Glory weep for you in the night. Anna is broken. Abram is so sick with grief he can barely eat.”
Immanuelle squeezed her eyes shut, willing herself not to cry. Her family and her tenderness for them had always been her greatest weakness. Martha knew that, perhaps better than anyone else.
“Tomorrow, at your trial, you must confess to your sins. Admit your guilt so that you can be forgiven and allowed to return home to those that love you. To me. Hope is not yet lost, if you’re willing to do that.”
Immanuelle laughed at the proposition. If only Martha knew what she was plotting. The sigil she was planning to carve. In the wake of what she was preparing to do, there would be no seat for her at Abram’s table. No place for her in Bethel, except bound to the stake of a purging pyre. Once she had a consecrated blade in her hand—whether it be the Prophet’s dagger or the sacred gutting knife—she would act. It was only a matter of biding her time. “What if I refuse to repent?”
A tear slipped down Martha’s cheek. “Then may the Father have mercy on your soul.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
I have confessed my sins and made peace with my fate. If the pyre awaits, then let the flames rise. I’m ready.
—FROM THE TRIAL OF DANIEL WARD
IMMANUELLE WOKE ON the floor of her cell to the echo of approaching footsteps. Pushing herself off the bricks, she stumbled to her feet. The cell door ground open, and red torchlight spilled over the walls as Apostle Isaac stepped onto the threshold. “You’re to be tried today,” he said by way of greeting.
Immanuelle smoothed her skirt over her thighs. Her shackles rattled across the floor as she edged toward the apostle. Two members of the Prophet’s Guard stepped in to block her path, but if the apostle was threatened by her, he gave no indication. He raised a gnarled hand, motioning for the guards to stand down. “Let her through.”
So, they did. One of them grabbed her by the shackles. The other lowered his torch to the small of her back, so close Immanuelle feared her dress might catch alight and she’d burn to a crisp before she ever laid eyes on her pyre.
“Don’t get any ideas, witch.”
The guards took a path that Immanuelle didn’t know, toward the distant reaches of the Haven. As they walked, the brick walls gave way to corridors hewn through rough stone. Some of these halls were no more than long caves of packed dirt, the ground so soft that cold mud oozed between her toes with every step.
After a while, they came to a door at the end of a corridor so narrow the guards’ shoulders brushed the walls as they passed through. Immanuelle struggled up a steep flight of stairs—little more than planks of wood embedded into a wall of packed dirt—to the iron door at its end.
The taller of the two guards stepped forward to open it, and Immanuelle was greeted by a cold blast of clean night air. She swallowed a deep breath, savoring the freshness after all the time she’d spent in the reeking catacombs beneath the Prophet’s Haven. Over the course of her detainment, there had been times when she thought she would never walk the plains again. Yet here she was. If this was her last chance now to do so, before the end came, it would be enough. One last night to hear wind in the trees, to feel grass bristle between her toes . . . to live.
But as Immanuelle peered into the endless dark, she realized the plains weren’t the same moonlit meadows from her memories.
Oblivion lay before her.
There was no light, save for that of the torches, and the distant darkness was too thic
k to see through. No moon hung overhead, no stars. Even the fires of the purging pyres appeared to have been swallowed by the black.
As her eyes adjusted to the shadows, she saw odd, nightmarish shapes in the darkness—the glimpse of a strange face, a little girl drowning in the deep, a man-shaped shade that flickered and shifted, beckoning her into the black with a hooked finger.
The guard gave Immanuelle’s shackles a cruel yank, dragging her forward, and the shapes in the black disappeared.
“What time is it?” she asked, and the night seemed to devour her words.
“It’s a little past noon,” said Apostle Isaac. “Tell me, what witch taught you how to cast a curse as powerful as this one? Or did you simply whore yourself to the dark to attain this power?”
Immanuelle stumbled over a rut in the road, stubbing her toe on a rock. “I wrought no curses.” Not intentionally, anyway. The real witch-work had been her mother’s doing. She was merely the vessel.
The guard lowered his torch to her back again. “Bite your lying tongue, witch. Save your confessions for the trial.”
She didn’t make the mistake of speaking again.
They walked on. Time passed strangely in the black—as if the seconds slowed—but eventually, Immanuelle spotted lights in the distance. It took her a moment to register the size of the crowd. There were scores of people gathered at the foot of the cathedral, bearing torches and rousing the pyre flames, their faces lit by the glow.
The guards walked ahead of Immanuelle and Apostle Isaac, carving a path through the crowds for them to follow. As she moved through the throng, a chant began, the sound like a hymn without music: “Witch. Whore. Beast. Sinner. Bitch. Mother-spawn.”
Immanuelle entered the cathedral and squinted against the light. There were lamps and torches burning on every post, chasing off the shadows that leaked in through the doors and windows. The pews were packed with the throngs who’d gathered to watch the trial. There were the Prophet’s brides and village folk, and even a few people from the Outskirts.
Behind the altar stood the seven apostles, and, to Immanuelle’s horror, the Moores stood in their shadow, claiming the first row of pews. Anna stood, cloaked in black. She held a damp handkerchief to her eyes, refusing to look at Immanuelle as she passed. Next to Anna, Abram, his eyes bloodshot and flat. Martha stood beside him, dressed in the same dark cloak she’d worn the night she visited Immanuelle in the catacombs. Both Honor and Glory were absent, likely still recovering from the blight.
“Move along,” the guard ordered.
Immanuelle staggered up the stone steps to the altar, her muddy feet slipping beneath her. Someone laughed when she fell and bruised her knees on the stairs. The guard shoved the torch closer, mere inches above her shoulder blades, and the flames seared the back of her neck. “Hurry up. You’re making a spectacle of yourself.”
Pushing to her feet, Immanuelle limped the rest of the way up to the altar, the apostles splitting apart to make room for her. There, she stood before the congregation, head lowered, hands clasped in front of her. She was reminded of how, just a few months prior, on a very different day, Leah had stood in the same spot, back when life still had a little joy.
The doors of the cathedral slammed shut, and it was all Immanuelle could do to choke back her tears. The congregation blurred and doubled before her eyes. They all stared up at her with the same dead gaze, the same scowls and sneers. She knew then that they would vote to send her to the purging pyre, no matter what she said. Their minds were already made up. The trial was just a formality. She’d fought so hard to save them all from Lilith’s plagues, and now they would watch her burn. Vera was right—there was nothing she could do to earn their favor. But she had to save them just the same. And to do that, she would have to prove her innocence. Because if they deemed her guilty and damned her to the purging pyre as punishment for her sins, she would never get the chance to cast the reversal sigil.
For Bethel’s survival, and her own, she would have to fight for her innocence.
The Prophet emerged from the back of the cathedral and staggered down the center aisle, pausing every few steps to brace himself on the back of a pew and catch his breath. After a long, grueling walk to the altar, he turned to address his flock. “We are gathered here for the trial of Immanuelle Moore, who has been accused of witchcraft, murder, sorcery, thieving, whoring, and holy treason against the Good Father’s Church.”
The congregation jeered.
“Today, we will hear her confession. We will judge her not according to the passions of our hearts, but by the laws of our Father and Holy Scriptures. Only then may she find true forgiveness. Let the trial commence.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
If you have any honor, any semblance of kindness or decency, then spare her. Spare her, please.
—THE FINAL CONFESSION OF DANIEL WARD
THE FIRST WITNESS to testify was Abram Moore. He staggered forward, leaning heavily on his cane, his face a picture of pain as he hobbled into the shadow of the altar.
Immanuelle didn’t expect him to meet her eyes, but he did. “I’m here to testify . . . on behalf of myself and . . . my wife Martha Moore. Immanuelle is my granddaughter . . . the child of Miriam Moore who died the . . . day Immanuelle was born. She had no living father so . . . I raised her . . . as my own. She bears . . . my name.”
“Did you raise her to be what she is?” Apostle Isaac asked, moving toward the altar. He was the apostle who had replaced Abram in the wake of Miriam’s disgrace, and Immanuelle could not help but wonder if he relished the opportunity to best his rival once again.
“I raised her to . . . fear the Father,” said Abram. “And . . . I believe she does.”
There was a collective gasp, but Abram pressed on. “She’s just . . . a child.”
Apostle Isaac moved to the edge of the altar. He stared down at Abram with a look of such naked contempt, it made Immanuelle cringe.
But Abram didn’t waver.
“I would remind you of the words of our Holy Scriptures,” said the apostle, speaking slowly, as if he thought Abram simple. “Blood begets blood. That’s the price of sin.”
“I know the Father’s . . . Scriptures. And I know that . . . clemency is extended to those who are not of sound mind . . . or heart.”
“She is sound,” the apostle snapped. “We spoke at length.”
“The girl has . . . her mother’s sickness.”
“Her mother’s only sickness was witchery.”
This was met with applause. Men at the back of the crowd raised their fists to the rafters, yelling for blood and burning.
“Sin can be an affliction . . . real as any,” said Abram. He turned to appeal directly to the flock. “Sin has come upon us in the form . . . of these plagues, and yet . . . we don’t punish ourselves. We don’t lay . . . the whip . . . against our own backs.”
Apostle Isaac interrupted, “That’s because we aren’t to blame. We are victims of this evil. But that girl”—he pointed toward Immanuelle with a shaking finger—“is the source of it. She’s a witch. She conjured the curses that have ravaged these lands, and yet you would see her walk among us? You would set her free?”
“I would not free her . . . here,” said Abram. “I would release her . . . to the wilds. Banish her from Bethel. Let her . . . make a life for herself beyond the wall.”
Apostle Isaac opened his mouth to refute him, but the Prophet raised a hand for silence. He brushed past the apostle as if he was little more than a hanging curtain. “Thank you for your witness, brother Abram. We accept your truth with gratitude.”
As Abram shuffled back to his seat, the Prophet cast his gaze back to the people, scanning the pews. “Are there others who wish to offer witness?”
A small, thin voice sounded at the back of the cathedral. “There are.”
It took Immanuelle a moment to r
ecognize the girl limping toward her, chained and flanked by two of the Prophet’s guardsmen.
Contrition had not been kind to Judith. She looked like a corpse.
Her auburn curls, which had once been so long they hung to her waist, had been cut into a scum-matted crop as short as a boy’s. She was deathly thin, and dirty, dressed in a torn bodice and bloodstained skirts. Despite the cold, she wore no shoes or shawl about her shoulders. Both of her lips were badly split, and when she spoke they began to bleed. “I have a confession to make.”
The Prophet nodded. “Speak your truth, child.”
Judith stopped at the altar’s edge, her gaze pinned to the floor even as she turned to face the flock. She wrung her hands, shackles rattling, and peered up at the Prophet, as if waiting for some kind of cue. When she finally spoke, it was in a lifeless drone, as though she was reciting a catechism or Holy Scriptures. “Immanuelle Moore has defied Holy Protocol. She has cast her charms and worked her evils against the men and women of this Church.”
The Prophet appraised her, his expression blank. “And what evidence do you have to charge the accused with these crimes?”
“Her own words,” said Judith, her voice wavering. She struggled for a moment, as if trying to remember what she was told to say. “On a Sabbath, weeks ago, Immanuelle said that she liked to walk the woods with the devils, and to dance with the witches naked in the moon’s light.”
There was a chorus of gasps. People grasped their holy daggers and muttered prayers.
Judith looked to the Prophet again, and Immanuelle saw him offer her the smallest nod. She turned her attention back to the congregation, spoke in a rush. “When Immanuelle said those words, Ezra Chambers laughed like he couldn’t stop. His whole body seized up, the way the sick do when they catch the fever she cast upon us. She seduced Ezra,” Judith said, raising her eyes to the Prophet. “She put a hex on your son, using the magic of the Dark Mother to do it. So you see, it wasn’t his fault. She forced him to sin.”
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