“Uhm, are you finished with all that…whatever you were doing?”
Bron screamed a little and sat up, pulling the flaps of her bodice together. Dear goddess, she’d been caught masturbating. She looked up and saw a guard staring through the cell door. There was a small window that opened from the opposite side. The guard shoved a tray of food through the slot in the door.
She remembered him from the day before. She’d fed him while he stood guard for the mayor. Now he was her jailor. So much for kindness.
She pulled her dignity around her. Well, whatever dignity she had left. Now he probably thought she was a whore along with being a witch. She carefully schooled her features. No matter what she was accused of, she was still Bronwyn Finn. If she was going to be burned tomorrow, she wouldn’t let her fear show.
She forced herself to stand and walk across the cell. Her legs felt a little wobbly, like a newborn lamb just learning to walk. Crossing the cell floor with small steps, she held her head high. She grasped the wood tray. There were slices of bread and an apple that been quartered. Nothing else. Still, she took it.
“Don’t forget this, Isolde.” The guard regarded her seriously through the small window, his hand pressing through the slot. A small, folded piece of paper was in his hand.
She took it, placing it under the tray so anyone else looking wouldn’t be able to see it.
“Eat well, witch. Tomorrow you burn.”
The window slammed closed, and she heard the guard’s boots ring down the hallway.
Bron forced herself to eat the bread and the apple. She let an hour go by and then two. When she was sure no one was watching, she finally pulled out that little slip of paper.
Trust Niall. He’s working with us. I won’t let you burn. G
Niall? She stared at the door. The guard. The one who had looked pissed when the mayor had talked about purification. The one who had told her to hide the brownies.
The one who had passed her the note.
Bron tore the note into tiny pieces, taking her time to make sure no one could ever put it back together. She shoved it into the seams of the mattress and lay back.
Her head still hurt, but her heart was worse. She would follow instructions. She would trust Niall, but she wanted her Shim and her Lach, and they didn’t really exist. She was damaged. So damaged.
She closed her eyes, but sleep wouldn’t come.
Chapter Eight
The light streaming in from the high window brought Bron out of her sleep. She sat straight up on the hard cot and tried to remember her dreams.
She could only remember one, but it had been a little wild. Shim and Lachlan. They had names after years and years of dreams. Odd. She’d never heard the name Shim before, and she wouldn’t have picked Lachlan. She’d always liked Padric and James.
She stretched and saw a wooden tray. A guard must have brought it in this morning while she slept. A wooden mug of water and a dry crust of bread. Her last meal.
She shuffled over and sipped the water, her throat a parched mess. She couldn’t even look at the bread, her stomach churning at the thought. She put down the mug. Even the water tasted bad here.
She shook her head, trying to gather her thoughts. What was happening to her? Her mind flew back to so many years before. She’d been just a child, listening in on her parents talking. Her father had worried that Bron was touched in the head. Her mother tried to say that imaginary friends were normal for a six-year-old. Her mother had touched her father’s face and asked him to spend more time with Bron and Cian. She vaguely remembered her father saying something about them not needing his steadying hand the way Beck did. Then her father had been gone and her mother wept.
Bron had stopped talking about her Dark Ones that day. Even at six she’d known something was wrong, despite what her mother had said. Six-year-olds might have imaginary friends, but the Dark Ones didn’t seem imaginary.
And now Bron was twenty-seven.
She could still feel Shim’s hold on his cock. He’d gripped it with the confidence of long use. She could practically see him winking at her flirtatiously.
We’re coming, Bron.
That voice in her head was accompanied by the candle at her bedside flaring to life. But she’d blown it out.
Mad. It was the only explanation.
She forced herself to take another drink and then tried the bread. If she had any chance at running, she would need some strength. After taking another small sip and chewing through some of the bread, she turned to the window.
She could hear activity and stood on her small cot, straining to see out the window above her. Grasping the bars that covered the window, she went up on her tiptoes and could barely see the courtyard outside. Guards worked, hauling logs into the clearing. They were directed by the sheriff to place them in a circle surrounding a giant pole.
The maypole. Bastards. Yesterday it had been decorated with colorful ribbons, the center of the children’s joy. Today it would be the center of the bonfire that would take her life. They would lash her to the pole, and the executioner would tie her down and they would set her on fire.
She stared out, recognizing a few of the guards. They had laughed and danced with her at the festivals and now they would be the ones who lit her body on fire, the final payment for defying the pretender.
There was the sound of footsteps coming down the hall. Loud and lumbering. Not Niall. Bron slipped back down to the bed. She’d been so afraid the night before, for Ove, for herself. Now there was a horrible nothingness as the window in the door opened, and the mayor’s puffy face showed through the opening.
“Traitor bitch.”
Yes, she would likely hear a whole lot of that. “Tell me something I don’t know.”
His face twisted, contorting into a mask of fury. “I’ll tell you something you don’t know. I’ve placed wards around the village. No magic is going to save you.”
She hadn’t expected it to. It was standard procedure to ward the jail against all magics. The sheriff certainly didn’t want prisoners to be able to escape death by way of magic. Bron wouldn’t be surprised if Micha had the whole damn village warded after yesterday. “I didn’t expect it to. I don’t really know what happened yesterday, Micha. I know you won’t believe it, but I don’t care. I didn’t mean to torch your guard.”
“He died, you know.”
Bron was surprised to not feel a thing. It had been the guard or Ove, and Ove hadn’t done anything wrong. In that moment, she would have killed anyone who was going to try to hurt the innocent youngling. She would do it again. She would never be able to sit by and watch. If she hadn’t felt that power surge, she would have attempted to stop the guard in some other way. She would never be able to sit idly by and watch as someone was killed for no reason.
But that’s what you’ve been doing for thirteen years, Princess Bronwyn.
“You don’t even care. I never knew you at all. Know this, I’ll find that little brownie and I’ll throw her on a fire, too.” Micha huffed as though he’d expected something more. Some groveling perhaps or offers of her body in exchange for a bit of mercy.
That wasn’t going to happen. She wasn’t stupid. After what had happened yesterday, there would be no mercy for her. She was just happy someone had thought to take Ove away. “What do you want, Micha?”