by T. Rudacille
***
They walked out in a line, shackled together one in front of the other at their necks, by their wrists, and around their middles. The first man was unshackled, and I recognized him from our days in Janna’s village. He had sold herbs and tonics for couples to enhance their sex lives. He had gotten out of that trade, obviously, once the village had fallen to the Old Spirits. Now, he packaged medicinal herbs and salves. “A much less exciting endeavor, but it will do until the tides turn,” he had told Dr. Miletus when we had stopped to talk to him in the marketplace.
“Who will claim this man?”
There were twenty or so other people in the crowd with me, and out of them, a young man, no older than thirteen, stepped forward. An older woman, his mother, I presumed, stood behind him tensely.
“I claim him.” The young boy said, and when the guard released his grip on the man’s shoulder, his wife and the boy remained tense. I had been there twice before to claim Dr. Miletus, and I had been there to claim Illa before she had committed three crimes and was taken to the Lapsarian. All of those times, I had seen that just because someone stepped forward to claim their loved one didn’t mean that the guard wouldn’t shoot their loved one in the back of the head as they walked away. It was all just a game to them, though they swore after a sudden execution that they had been sending a message, one of which God would certainly approve: if you violate the Sacred Law, your punishment will be swift, brutal, and random. It will occur when you least expect it. But really, those executions were just for fun.
The man was returned to his wife and son, and his wife embraced them both gratefully.
“You are dismissed.” The guard said, and with their shoulders still tense, their backs held taut, and their eyes facing forward resolutely, they began to walk away. My heart pounded as I tried not to watch them go; everyone in the silent crowd was looking ahead at their loved ones. If no one was watching the man, maybe they would not shoot him in the back. If they did not have an audience, maybe they would spare him. In my peripheral vision, I could see that he was between his wife and son, and he had one arm around his wife’s shoulders and one arm around his son’s. The worst sudden execution that I had seen had been of a woman accused of adultery. She had not been executed outright because the charge had not been proven; her husband had died randomly, tragically, of a heart attack before he could testify against her, though I knew nothing about that. Except that I did know, because we had done it, Lucy, Akio, Macie, and a few like-minded others. Paul, with his ever-watchful gaze, must have suspected foul play, because though the High Court found her innocent (and yet sentenced her to one week in lockup simply because she had given her kind, benevolent husband reason to doubt her loyalty to him), the guards had shot both her and her teenage son there in the city square. Lucy and I had been there to claim Illa, and when I had gone to look at Lucy in shock, in horror, and in sadness, because we had lost this woman despite our quiet efforts to save her life, she had grasped my wrist and shaken her head very slightly. We could not give away that we were disturbed by it, that it meant anything to us. So we had stared straight ahead as the men burned their bodies right there in the street, knowing that Paul, with his ever-watchful gaze, was looking at us from somewhere where we could not see, looking for a reaction.
The man from Shadow Village was spared, and I tried not to breathe too obviously in relief. The next person to be unshackled was a woman I did not recognize but could tell was originally from Earth by the way she smelled. It was a faint odor, one of pine trees, gasoline, and salt water, of summer rain and static electricity, of smoke and burning rubble and endless fields of wildflowers, all at the same time. It still clung to me then, too, and though it sounds as though it would be rather unpleasant, Macie informed me that she found it to be utterly intoxicating when she even happened to notice it, which was rare. I drew in a discreet yet deep breath through my nose to take in that scent from the woman as she was brought forward to be claimed, and for a moment, the nostalgia became so overwhelming that I had to close my eyes. I decided that because she was from my home, despite the side she had chosen in The Almighty Split, (which I could see she was regretting then), I was rooting for her. I was praying with all my heart that she was spared.
“Who will claim this woman?”
A man, presumably the woman’s husband, stepped forward, grabbed her roughly by the top of the arm when the guard pushed her towards him, and carted her off towards the West Village End. They did not even pretend to want to shoot her, because they knew that she would receive worse at home. I watched her go until she was out of sight, until that scent of home we shared had finally disappeared.
Lucy was next, and my heart picked up the speed of its beats from a quickened gallop to a full-out sprint. My palms were sweating, because Caspar was beside the guards, smirking at Lucy, and when our eyes met, his smirk deepened.
Oh, God… My mind gasped, They’re going to do it. They’re going to shoot her…
“Who will claim this—”
“I will.” I said instantly, and I walked forward before they had even unlocked the shackles around her wrists, neck, and ankles.
If her wrists were only bruised, then I knew that it had not been as terrible as it could possibly have been, but if her wrists were bruised and bloody, I knew that it had been the absolute worst. The large iron cuffs came away, and I cringed at the sight of red. Before I could open my mouth to say something, anything, she took my hand and began to walk us away.
“Goodbye, Lucy!” Caspar called, and I thought that our bodies were as tense as they could possibly be, but when he spoke, our shoulders raised even higher and our hands locked together like the skin had suddenly fused. We both expected to hear a gunshot, and I expected her to crumple to the ground, dead or dying, and she expected them to shoot me, too. We kept walking, expecting to hear the shot, or perhaps only feel it, even if only for a split second before we were gone.
When we rounded the corner to head towards our home, we both breathed a sigh of relief, and I reached up to wipe the tears that had been streaming from my eyes all along but that I had not felt until we were out of harm’s way. I was clenching my teeth, holding my lips together firmly, trying not to make a sound. But when her fingers entwined with mine, I lost it. A sob escaped me, and I turned to her, shaking all over, and threw my arms around her neck.
“It is alright.” She whispered softly as I tried to stifle the sound of my hysterical cries in her neck, “It is alright, my sweet girl.”
“Are you okay?” I managed to ask.
“I am perfectly alright. I am back home with you, Millie, and Macie, am I not? How could I not be alright?”
“You’re in pain! You can pretend like you’re not, but I know you are.”
“Yes, and I will take some Slumber Root when we get home. Calm down now, Violet. It is all over now.”
I pulled away from her and wiped the tears from my eyes hastily.
“I should be comforting you. You shouldn’t have to get out of there and comfort me.”
She smiled, brushed my hair away from my face, and kissed my forehead.
“Stop all of that.” She told me in a tone that was gentler than I was used to hearing from her, and with my hand held in hers, she led us back to our home.