Page 51 of Chasing the Night

“No! No. no,” she chanted.

Fuck.

I closed my eyes and walked toward the door. The heavy chains of the condemned were right there on the peg. I hadn’t used them in three years. A fact I was proud of. I would someday outlaw capital punishment. I made it my business to do so the day I watched Lisette melt away to nothing in that clear tropical blue water. It took a decade to climb this high… but here I was. If one could call what I did a high position.

There really wasn’t a great deal of glory in extraction… not unless it was the obviously guilty. Those were fun to play with, if the charges were warranted. This one, she was just a means to an end. A tool. Her current situation revealed just exactly who stood in her favor when it was all said and done. No one. Not Nayana, House Rocham, or Lazarus’ sorry ass.

“What are you doing? No. Get away.” Tamara did her best to kick at me, but her restraints were well thought. “Stop. You can’t! You can’t throw me in there. You can’t!”

“Your silence said you’re a traitor. If you’re a traitor, you have to swim,” I assisted her reasoning while taking up the strings that decorated the bodice of her gown.

“No!” she screamed, kneeing me and tossing herself about. I left her to it, and she shook her own ties loose. The moment of truth came when I grabbed her shoulders and shoved the material off them.

“I’m not a traitor! I’m not a traitor! I loved him. I love him still. Lazarus will be here, you must give him time to arrive!” Tamara sobbed.

“Good. Very good.” I sighed, personally relieved she had caved. “I’m pardoning you from Lake Last. And I shall be even kinder by not branding your face.”

I returned the chains to the wall and took the branding iron from its place beside the poker.

“Why the fuck would you brand her?” Chalice exclaimed, her knuckles were white where they wrapped around the cage.

“Atticus and Nayana will not see this without consequence. They both want her dead. The best mercy I can give her is no death and a brand. If I place it to her face… how will she find work? Her children will be shamed. I’m going to place it where it will only be seen by those it concerns. It will give her half a chance when she is exiled.”

The chains began to rattle behind me.

Chalice slid down the length of the cage, her fingers catching on each bar as she went. “You’re not serious?” she whispered, before her eyes saw what I had placed over the flame. “Messiah you can’t burn that woman! Messiah!”

Tamara began to squirm and scream, she tossed herself left and right, but only had about six inches in either direction to go.

Chalice

“The law says women are branded on the face. It is the easiest to get to when they fight. I am willing to not disgrace you for life… but I can only do it… if you consent…” He tipped his head and studied her bodice in a way that made my stomach sour.

“Stop it! Stop Messiah, what if she has kids to nurse?” He didn’t answer me, but the woman in the chains stilled and shrunk back against the wall.

“Face or hidden?” Messiah repeated, stepping closer toward her. His hand came out to her throat, and she screamed out in her panic.

“Hidden!”

My hand flew to my mouth, and I clamped my eyes shut. I swallowed violently against the sound of the irons hiss and Lady Tamara’s piercing screams. I didn’t want to look… but I was surprised when I did. His balancing hand had dropped to her sternum and his iron was flush against her upper arm.

Tears trickled down my face. Was it relief? Horror? Empathy? I was so fucked up I didn’t know. I had truly expected him to burn her chest, so I felt a sense of gratefulness toward him for settling with an arm, which only made me more disgusted with myself and the whole damn situation.

Once the woman composed herself, Messiah helped her from the device and arranged an escort to take her back to her husband.

So why was I still in the cage?

He came back inside the shack of a jail a few minutes later with bread and a bit of wine. I started to panic again, when he handed it through the bars rather than letting me out.

“Messiah…” I whispered, hesitantly reaching for the bread.

“Hm?” he mumbled, giving the wine a bit of a tilt. I took it from him before it had a chance to spill and quickly spoke up.

“Why am I still in a cage.”

“Because it is the only way I can get you to sit still and listen. I needed you to see. To understand,” he mused without malice.

He took his time eating his chunk of bread and sipping his wine. It wasn’t even good, but he put on a show. No one sipped peasant wine that slowly.