Lord of Embers(The Demon Queen Trials #2)(48)

She pointed at me. “I saw her! I saw Goody Ashur signing the devil’s book!” She continued to point at me, her expression furious. “I saw a goat sucking on her witch’s teat!”

Four hundred years ago, the mortals hunted down others of their kind based on hearsay, paranoia, and the ravings of attention-seekers.

Right now, an actual demon stood before them, and they were still spouting bullshit because there was no devil’s book or teat-sucking goat.

This would be hilarious if it weren’t so terrifying.

Behind them, in the distance, I could see the road I’d walked in on, and the old Osborne Woods. A black house stood before the forest, and smoke rose from a chimney.

When I turned to look behind me, I saw the four women’s corpses rotting at the ends of ropes, their bodies gray and purple. Like me, their hands had been bound behind their backs before they’d died. The stench of death was overpowering.

To my left, two horses were hitched to the cart. A man stood near them, dressed in black with a wide white collar and a dark tapered hat.

I tried to stand again, but the pain shot through my head, so sharp that nausea started to take over. I doubled over, vomiting onto the wooden cart. My hands involuntarily tried to jerk forward as I was sick, but the ropes kept them bound. I nearly lost my balance. When I’d stopped vomiting, I wiped my mouth off on my shoulder.

I straightened again, staring out at the crowd. Goody Putnam took a step forward, pointing at me. “She bewitched the chowder. She made me feel lustful things.”

The sharp forms of this particular terror were starting to take shape.

I understood what was about to happen, and I could hardly breathe. I been warned. Why hadn’t Tammuz stepped in if he’d wanted me to h ad

have a chance against Orion?

“I didn’t bewitch anything!” I shouted. “Don’t I get a trial? A trial!”

“Listen to her strange manner of speech!” someone shouted.

The man in black nodded at two men in the crowd—a ruddy-cheeked man with a dark beard and a broad-shouldered man with piercing eyes. The two of them marched closer to the cart, then climbed inside.

“I haven’t bewitched anyone or touched a goat. I swear to you,” I said. “A trial! Even the Puritans had trials.”

One of the men grabbed me hard, and the other slid the noose around my neck. I struggled against them, but without my arms, there wasn’t much I could do. Once they’d secured the noose around my neck, the two men jumped from the cart.

With a hammering heart, I glanced at the horses. Once someone whipped them, the cart would disappear beneath me. My neck would break if I was lucky. I’d strangle to death if I was not. That could take twenty minutes.

At executions in the old days, loved ones would tug on the condemned person’s feet to make it go faster if the victim’s neck didn’t break. What a terrible task that would be. Maybe it was a mercy no one I knew was here, a grim sort of blessing not to have family around to watch you die.

I wasn’t really going to die, though, was I? This couldn’t happen.

I surveyed the angry crowd in front of me.

“Demon, demon,” they were shouting. “Wicked temptress!”

I struggled against my bound wrists, the ropes chafing my skin. I glanced down, my heart hammering, as I spotted the frozen, rocky earth beneath the cart. In the vision, I’d seen my own feet dangling above that very ground.

“Judge Corwin!” Goody Putnam’s voice rose above the din. “Make her confess!”

The man in black stepped in front of me, wearing a black coat and a silver hammer pin. He clutched a black book to his chest. His eyes were a cold, flinty gray. The family resemblance was unmistakable. Corwin.

He looked every bit as nice as his descendant, Jack Corwin.

My heart skipped a beat. I looked out over the angry crowd as if I were expecting someone to ride up and save me, but I saw only the forest.

Tammuz, you chaotic bastard. Was this all you’d wanted from me?

To die here surrounded by fucking morons?

The judge held up a hand, and the crowd went silent. He grinned, exposing long, yellowed teeth. “Confess, thou witch, and we might free thee.”

That was a trick, wasn’t it? If I told them I was a demon, they wouldn’t let me go. They’d kill me. “I’m not a demon,” I said desperately. That was a lie, of course. “I don’t have any magical power.”

That part was true, at least at the moment.

“Didst thou kill four men last night?” the judge bellowed, steam rising from his lips.

“No!” I shouted.

True. I’d only killed one of them.

His eyes narrowed. “And didst thou kill thine own kin? Because thou wert afraid?”

The temperature plummeted, and I started to shake. The cart was rattling beneath me, and the sky started to darken. Charcoal gray clouds were rolling in strangely fast. Thunder rumbled overhead.

I stared at him, too stunned to speak. How did he know that? Did he know I’d left Mom behind in these woods?

“Didst thou kill thine own kin?” asked the judge. “Thou hast chosen thine own life! Thy soul art corrupted with evil. Woe be unto thee with wickedness in thy blood!”

How the fuck would he know that? I thought the underworld had been frozen in time. He was talking about things from a few years ago.