The Year of the Witching(102)
The Guard faltered, and a few lowered their rifles, unable to point their guns at their wives and mothers . . . their sisters and aunts. Slowly, more and more women, and a few men, stepped forward to join the throng.
A chant began. At first it was little more than a murmur, like the sound of distant thunder. But then the chorus spread through the crowd, rising to the rafters and blasting through the cathedral, “Blood for blood. Blood for blood. Blood for blood.”
The Prophet cowered in the shadows of the altar, watching in horror as his flock raised their voices against him. They left their pews behind them and spilled into the aisle, surging to the front of the church. “Blood for blood. Ash to ash. Dust to dust.”
Ezra raised his hand and they stopped dead, like hunting dogs trained to heel at the foot of their master. He turned to Immanuelle. “Give me the blade.”
No one moved.
No one uttered a single word. Not a curse. Not a prayer. Not a protest. The whole flock looked on in silence.
Immanuelle’s gaze shifted from him to the Prophet. From father to son. She didn’t move.
Ezra extended his hand again. “For your father,” he whispered. “For your mother. For Leah. For Abram. For us. Let it be over. Let it be done with.”
Immanuelle stared at the Prophet, cowering there on the ground, pleading for his life. Then she raised her gaze to Ezra. “Is this what you really want? Is this what you want to be?”
Ezra drew a little closer, stepping with care like he was afraid he’d spook her. “What I want is to make sure this never happens again. I want a world where sins are atoned for. A world where evil men suffer for their wrongdoing.”
“So did Lilith,” Immanuelle whispered. “So did my mother.”
Ezra winced a little at that, like her words cut him. “He deserves to die for what he’s done. He would have put a blade through your heart. He killed your father. He preyed on your mother and countless other girls. We can’t let him walk free. Blood begets blood.”
“The boy is right, Immanuelle.” Vera shouldered to the front of the crowd, limping badly. “Think of your father burning on the pyre. Think of the people in the Outskirts, resigned to a life of squalor and suffering because of the greed of this man, and all of the others that came before him. You have a chance to seek recompense for their suffering. So raise the knife and take it.”
Immanuelle’s hand tightened around the hilt. All at once, she knew what she had to do.
“The world you want can’t be bought with blood. You build it with the choices you make, with the things you do. Either we can keep purging, keep the pyres burning, keep hoping that our prayers will be enough to save us—or we can build something better. A world without slaughter.” Immanuelle held out the gutting blade to Ezra. “It’s your choice. I have no right to take it from you.”
Ezra studied the blade in her hand, reached for it, then stopped. “No. You have the only right. The choice is yours, and yours only.”
Immanuelle paused, lingering in the shadow of the altar. The Prophet scrabbled at her feet, pleading for mercy.
“Please.” He wheezed and hacked like he had to fight for every breath. “Please. Please.”
Immanuelle turned to study the faces in the crowd—Anna and Honor, Martha and Glory, Vera and Ezra, people from the Glades and the Holy Grounds and the Outskirts alike. What she did, she did for them, for all of Bethel, for the dream of making their home something better than it was, so that those who followed in their footsteps would never know the heat of a pyre, or the pain of its flames.
A world without killings or cruelty: That was the fate she wanted.
And it was the fate she would have.
Turning to face the pews in full, Immanuelle dropped the blade, and it struck the floor with a clatter that echoed through the cathedral. “Today, we choose mercy.”
The flock answered her as one. “Now and forevermore.”
EPILOGUE
IMMANUELLE SAT ON the stairs of the Haven and watched the sun rise through the trees. In the days after the attack on the cathedral, she’d spent many a morning on those steps, cradling a cup of tea or a book of poetry, waiting for the sun to climb above the treetops, just to make sure it would. Sometimes, when she was alone, she would peel back the sleeve of her dress, trace the puckered scar of the sigil she’d carved into her arm all those weeks ago.
In her darkest moments, she would hope—even pray—that her recompense would hasten, if only so she wouldn’t be made to wait in a state of perpetual dread, under the threat of some faceless affliction she didn’t yet know. Better to settle the matter quickly, face her reckoning so she could put all of the strife behind her once and for all. Because if she didn’t do that, who would she be? What honor was there in a girl who could fight to save everyone except herself?
“You’re drifting again,” Ezra said, his eyes on the horizon. He sat close beside her, as he always did when he had the time to. “What’s on your mind?”
Immanuelle drew her knees to her chest and gazed out across the sun-washed plains, watching light flood between the trees. She grasped her forearm, fingertips pressing painfully into the scar of the sigil. So much had changed in the span of a few short weeks. The Prophet’s condition had worsened, and preparations for his death were being made. Some of the flock remained loyal to him, but others looked to Ezra as the new leader of the Church and faith. Immanuelle hoped that the tensions between the opposing groups wouldn’t implode into a schism—or worse yet a holy war—but whispers emerging from the bastions of the old Church suggested that the matter of the Prophet’s succession would only be settled through bloodshed.