On Death's Honor

Chapter 34: The Innocent Outcast

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.