The Year of the Witching(87)

The Prophet dipped his quill to the inkwell and scribbled something at the bottom of his letter. “Guess.”

“I—I don’t know.”

He frowned. “I was told you were a girl of great imagination. I’m disappointed you have nothing to say.”

“I’m tired, sir.”

“Tired?” He arched an eyebrow. “Do you have any idea what time it is?”

Immanuelle glanced out the window, to the black of the distant plains. She shook her head.

“It’s high noon,” he said. “The sun hasn’t risen since the night my guards tracked you down. Some believe it will never rise again.” He appraised her with a glance, head to toe, and she wondered how many girls had been hurt in this room. “It’s hard to believe, even with you standing here before me. A girl with the power to darken the sun, snuff out the stars . . . on a whim.”

“I didn’t summon the plagues.”

The Prophet’s eyes glinted. He leaned down to open one of his desk drawers and withdrew Miriam’s journal. “Then tell me, what business does an innocent girl have with a witch’s spell book?”

The book blurred and doubled before Immanuelle’s eyes, and the room began to spin. Her knees buckled, and she staggered backward a few feet before catching herself on the bedpost.

The Prophet shifted his gaze back to his letter. She noted that he was wearing his holy dagger, the very weapon she needed to cast the reversal sigil. If she could but reach out and take it . . . “Do they not feed you down there?”

Immanuelle startled to attention, cast her gaze away from the blade. “Only on the good days.”

He motioned to the small bowl of fruit that stood at the corner of his desk. “Eat.”

Immanuelle was too hungry to bother with suspicion. She stumbled over to the desk and snatched an apple from the bowl. She devoured it in seconds, then wiped her mouth clean on the back of her hand.

“They’re going to sentence you to die tomorrow,” the Prophet said casually. “Has Apostle Isaac told you that?”

Her gut twisted, and she tasted apple at the back of her throat. “No.”

“Then consider this your warning. Tomorrow morning, you will be sentenced to the pyre for holy treason. After his trial, Ezra will receive the same verdict.” He paused to finish his letter. He had a poor hand, and Immanuelle noticed he held his quill wrong, pinching it between his thumb and ring finger. His knuckles bent at odd angles, so that they looked almost broken. “Still, despite the best warnings of my apostles and the Church, I’m of a mind to be merciful. I want to save you.” He looked up at her then and clarified, “Both of you.”

Immanuelle didn’t dare to hope. Not yet. There was a catch. There was always a catch. “Why would you do that?”

The Prophet didn’t answer her. Instead, he pushed away from his desk, the feet of his chair scraping across the floor with a screech. He coughed violently as he stood, and drops of blood flecked his shirt and spattered the floorboards at his feet.

Immanuelle knew enough to know this wasn’t the kind of cough that could be cured. His was not a passing bout of grippe or the chill that gets in your lungs when the seasons turn. No, that wheezing bark was nothing less than the gasps of a dying man.

When his fit finally passed, the Prophet wiped his mouth on the back of his hand and started toward her. He drew so close, she caught the scent of blood on his breath.

“I would do it because I care for you, Immanuelle. And I believe that, with time and atonement, we could be of use to each other.”

The consecrated blade was mere inches from her grasp. “In what way?”

The Prophet studied his hands. When he lowered his head, she could see the edge of his scar peering above his collar. “In a holy way, through the bond of marriage. If you’re cut with my seal, you’ll be exempt from whatever punishment they pin to you at the trial. You’ll be spared.”

It was an odd offer, given the Prophet’s state. Why would a dying man care to take her hand in matrimony? Immanuelle couldn’t imagine he would survive more than a few months, maybe a year, given Ezra’s rapid rise to power. Unless . . . he didn’t intend to let Ezra rise to power. A horrible idea occurred to her: What if the Prophet’s true plan was to extend his own reign by cutting Ezra’s life short? What if he intended to execute his own son?

The shock must have been evident on Immanuelle’s face, because the Prophet gave her a reassuring smile that might have been comforting, if it wasn’t for the sharpness in his eyes. “Oh, come now. There are worse things to be than a prophet’s bride. Here, in the Haven, you’d be safe to live a long life. You’d never know the pain of the pyre’s flames. My seal would absolve you completely, and you’d be free to begin again.”

An idea surfaced at the back of her mind, as clever as it was revolting. What if she humored the Prophet’s plot, agreed to follow him to the altar—let him cut his seal into her forehead and claim her as his own? That night, in the marriage bed, after she’d fulfilled her duty as a bride, when the Prophet was lying spent and prone, she would have the rare opportunity to take up his holy dagger, carve the reversal sigil into her arm, and summon the power of the plagues. If she did that it wouldn’t matter what the Prophet’s intentions were or what he planned to do to Ezra. All she had to do was act before he did.