---
The storm broke before midnight.
Not the kind that howls. The kind that lingers—slow and heavy, like regret no one speaks aloud. It soaked the gallows. Flattened the soil. Made the ropes hang limp and quiet.
Halden watched it all from the window of the chapel's bell tower, one hand resting on the pages he'd rewritten a hundred times.
"Ceremonial law invoked. Trial date: Equinox. Accused: Calla Brey. Secondary: Elia Thornbrook. Conditional target: Thorne Weller."
He didn't feel cold. The rain didn't bother him.
He thought of his father, briefly. A preacher in the northern provinces who screamed fire into stone halls and beat the devil out of children who yawned during prayer.
Halden hadn't feared him.
He had studied him.
"Fear fades. Control lasts," the man had said. "You teach a town to kneel before you, and it will never walk upright again."
Halden had taken that to heart.
But where his father had ruled by voice, Halden ruled by ritual.
The Dunlowe plan had always been simple.
Step One: Arrive as savior. Let the village fall into desperation and pretend to be the balm.
Step Two: Find the needle in the haystack. A healer. A dreamer. A questioner. Name them early. Let the people choose comfort over truth.
Step Three: Elevate fear to structure. Burn not as punishment—but as purification.
He'd done it before. In Greystone. In Fairvale. Eldhollow was supposed to be the last.
Until Elia Thornbrook crawled out of the ash.
He unrolled a fresh page from his satchel. The ink had dried. The heading was already written:
"Thornbrook Deconstruction."
Beneath it, four phases.
1. Break the Martyr. Don't kill her. Isolate her. Let the people question her integrity. Use guilt. Use Calla.
2. Disgrace the Healer. Calla Brey had once tended to the mayor's sick wife. That would become "evidence." There were witnesses ready. Purchased. Positioned.
3. Bleed the Romantic. Thorne would become the image of corrupted loyalty. A man who betrayed his people for flesh. If he ran, they'd say it was cowardice. If he stayed, they'd call it treason.
4. Orchestrate the Fall. On the Equinox, the gallows wouldn't be for justice.They would be a lesson.
He paused, tapping the page.
Outside, the thunder murmured.
He did not fear rebellion. Rebellion could be shaped. Rebellion was just grief without direction.
But memory? That was dangerous.
Memory was contagion.
He closed the plan, stood, and walked slowly to the altar at the back of the room.
There, wrapped in cloth, lay an old wooden cross—carved by a child's hand, long ago. Uneven. Ugly.
He picked it up, stared at it.
Then spoke aloud:
"Let them rage. Let them bleed. Let them write their names in ash and pretend it matters.In the end, they will kneel. Or they will burn standing."
And in the square, beneath the rain, the gallows waited.
But three names already carved beneath the beam.
---
Halden didn't believe in mercy.
He believed in order. And mercy was the enemy of order. A softening. A crack in the spine of obedience.
He had learned this not from scripture, but from her.
From Isolde Thornbrook.
She wasn't the first woman he burned.She was the first who looked at him and didn't flinch.
He was twenty-three then. The youngest tribunal aide in Eldhollow's history. Eager. Precise. Obsessed with scriptural law.
And she was a midwife. Older than the council. Respected, loved, and listened to. Which made her dangerous.
She had a sharp voice and slow hands. She brewed peace from bark and memory. She told stories to children. She carved sigils into cradles.
She was a whisper in the bones of the town.
And she saw right through him.
"You think fear is faith," she once told him in the council hall."you're not leading them to God. You're just keeping them small enough to step over."
He tried to have her dismissed.
She returned the next day with a list of every birth she'd helped deliver—including two of the mayor's own sons.
So he waited.
Watched.
Until one of her patients died from infected wounds after childbirth.
The baby survived. The mother didn't.
Halden used it.
He declared it evidence of spiritual imbalance—claimed Isolde had interfered with God's judgment.
The trial was swift. Public. Disguised as a reckoning.
Isolde never begged. Never cried.
But when they tied her hands and looped the rope, she looked at him.
Not with hate.
With certainty.
"You'll live long enough to see your fire collapse beneath the weight of the names you erased."
He never forgot it.
That stare.That tone.That warning.
It stuck with him more than the screams.
After her death, four women vanished. Two were burned quietly. One drowned herself. The last—Annalise Thornbrook—tried to expose it.
And so he pushed her.
Not off the cliff, exactly.
But close enough.
Close enough for gravity to handle the rest.
He turned those deaths into precedent. Codified it. Made it holy.
Fear became scripture.Loss became ritual.Grief became his kingdom.
And now Elia Thornbrook stood in his way.
He had tried to erase her grandmother.
Erase her aunt.
Now he would erase the last of the line.
He returned to the bell tower and dipped his quill again.
Wrote slowly. Carefully.
"The witch line persists. One branch left.Trial confirmed. Public spectacle required.Elia Thornbrook: Target of Memory.Recommendation: Break her before the noose."
---
There was no scripture for what Halden had become.
Not in the hymns.Not in the gospels.Not even in the buried texts he memorized at fifteen when the other boys were lighting candles and sneaking kisses behind the chapel.
But he believed.
More deeply than any man in Dunlowe. More fiercely than the cardinals who sent him. More purely, he told himself, than the wretches who cried into their prayers and begged for outcomes they never earned.
"Truth," he had once said aloud in the Sanctos library, "does not ask permission to be cruel."
He lived by that.
And every hanging, every cleansing, every woman who screamed beneath the gallows—he framed it as mercy denied by God, carried out by him.
A hand of judgment.
A shepherd with fire.
Still, there were nights when silence pressed too long.
When memory pressed harder.
He would stare into the candle on his desk and ask the question:
"Am I right?"
And always, the answer came—not as comfort, but as need.
He had to be.
If he wasn't, then every rope he tightened was a mistake.Every motherless child, a wound he made.Every scream, his name written in hell.
So he didn't let doubt live long.
Now, with Calla Brey's trial looming, he knelt before the chapel's altar.
The rain hammered the roof above. The sky wept, they used to say.
He whispered aloud, his hands folded, forehead pressed to the cold stone.
"I ask not for clarity. Only for obedience."
He reached beneath the altar and pulled out a cloth-wrapped box.
Inside: tokens. A lock of hair. A torn page from Isolde's final journal. The binding of a child's cradle marked with protective symbols.
Evidence, he called it.
But it wasn't evidence.
It was memory.
And memory was his most dangerous possession.
"You gave me the rod," he whispered. "So I will strike.And if they curse me, so be it.Let their curses rise as smoke. I will stand."
He planned Calla's trial to mirror Isolde's—the same night, the same moon phase, the same script.
It wasn't coincidence.
It was cleansing.
One Thornbrook had escaped the rope.The other had challenged it.Calla? She had become the symbol. The tool to break the spine of sympathy.
And if Elia screamed, if she fought back—she would follow.
He dipped his pen again.
Wrote on Calla's parchment:
"Public spectacle required. Display strength. Invite doubt. If she resists, allow it. Turn resistance into prophecy. Let her burn with her pride in her mouth."
He paused. Added a second note, in smaller script:
"If Thornbrook intervenes—offer clemency. Then take it back."
The god Halden worshiped wasn't the one the people prayed to.
It was the god of memory erased.
The god of order upheld by smoke.
The god that burned every question before it found a voice.
And in the square, the gallows waited.
Not for justice.
For scripture written in blood.
---
Calla had always believed that dying was the easy part.
It was the waiting that turned the mind inside out.
They kept her in a room below the chapel—stone walls, no windows, and a rusted hook where a lantern should've been.
The air smelled like wet wood and dried prayers. The kind of place where even your breath felt sinful.
She sat in the corner, legs pulled in, wrists still bruised from the last restraint.
They hadn't shackled her again.
They wanted her to walk to her own execution.
That was the performance.
The ritual.
She thought of the first time she'd seen someone hanged.
She was twelve. The woman's name was Mirelle. A midwife. A singer. She used to hand out dried lavender to crying children in the market.
They said she'd spoken with spirits during a stillbirth.
She'd only said, "I think he's with his sister now."
It was enough.
Calla had stayed quiet after that.
She learned to treat fevers with water instead of salves. To mask sigils with stitching patterns. To bite her tongue so hard it bled rather than call a priest a fool.
She stayed quiet through every false trial, every hush-whispered confession from women who couldn't read their own names, let alone inscribe runes into a teacup.
Until now.
Now she would be the one they gathered to watch.
Now they would say, "See? Even her."
Even Calla Brey.
She didn't fear death.
She feared what would be left behind.
Would they say she confessed?
Would they erase her with two words: guilty witch?
Would they bury her in the earth, or just scatter her memory like salt?
In the silence of the cell, she touched the hem of her ruined sleeve and felt something small, rough, and threaded inside.
A knot.
One Elia had sewn into her robe weeks ago.
Protection.
Or maybe just a reminder.
Calla closed her eyes and leaned her head against the wall.
"I am not firewood.I am not a tale to scare daughters from being loud.I am not proof that healing is sin."
"I am a woman.And I remembered too much."
When they came for her at dawn, she stood on her own.
She did not cry.
She did not pray.
She simply said, "Is Elia watching?"
A guard grunted. "They'll all be watching."
Calla smiled faintly.
"Good."
As they walked her into the square, the crowd parted.
The sky above was a sheet of pale gray, and the gallows stood like a sermon waiting to be spoken.
Halden waited too—hands folded, robes pristine, expression unreadable.
But Calla didn't look at him.
She looked past him.
Toward the crowd.
Searching.
For a familiar face. A flicker of hope.A final, impossible rescue.
But she knew better.
Calla wasn't here to be saved.
She was here to remind them all what they let die.
---
They didn't storm the safehouse.
They waited.
That was Halden's way—not to strike, but to prepare the ground, and let the roots rot from underneath.
Calla's capture wasn't dramatic.
It was precise.
The Day Before the Trial
The rain had stopped. The air was thick with the kind of quiet that came before the crows. Elia had gone to meet a contact outside the village—someone who claimed to have documents from Sanctos. Thorne was leading a night patrol after one of the resistance's younger scouts went missing.
Calla stayed behind in the ruins of the apothecary, stitching a wound on a girl's hand. The girl's name was Lessa. She had a burn from grabbing a lantern during the last sweep.
"You're not a witch," Calla said as she worked, "you're just reckless."
Lessa laughed. Nervously.
Calla didn't.
She wrapped the hand carefully, checked for swelling, and stood to gather more herbs.
That's when the knock came.
Three taps. The signal for allies.
But it wasn't.
When Calla opened the door, Mayor Ebbin stood there. Behind him, two guards. No weapons drawn. No fight.
Just a folded paper, held out like a gift.
"Calla Brey," he said calmly. "By order of the Sanctos Tribunal, you are to be escorted for evaluation under ceremonial law. No harm will come if you cooperate."
She stared at him.
"No defense. No hearing?"
"No delay."
She didn't scream.
She didn't run.
Calla turned to Lessa and handed her the stitched cloth from the table.
"Give this to Elia," she whispered. "Tell her I walked by choice. But they closed the road behind me."
Then she stepped out.
They didn't drag her.They didn't bind her hands.
That was the point.
She passed no fewer than twelve villagers on the way to the chapel, escorted like a guest instead of a prisoner.
Some looked away.
One man bowed.
One child asked, "Is that the herb witch?"
And no one stopped it.
In the chapel's lower hall, they gave her water.Offered her a blanket.
Then took her shoes.
A small humiliation.
A ritual stripping.
And when the bell rang that evening to signal the morning execution, she asked a guard if she could write a letter.
He gave her a sheet of blank parchment.
No ink.
She stayed awake all night.
Not because she couldn't sleep.
But because someone had to remember.
At sunrise, when they returned, she stood before they spoke.
"Let's not pretend I'm going to resist," she said. "You've planned the story already. All I can do is make sure I say nothing you can twist."
One of the guards paused. Not out of pity. Out of respect.
He'd seen rebels cry, plead, break.
He hadn't seen one walk into silence like she owned it.
As she crossed the square, barefoot, head high, she thought not of Halden.
She thought of Mirelle. Of Isolde. Of the clerk boy.
Of every woman who had been told their breath, their touch, their knowing—was too loud to be holy.
And in her final steps, she whispered:
"I am not afraid of flame.I am afraid of forgetting."
And so when the bell rang, it did not toll for judgment.
It tolled for memory.
And for what they were about to kill.
---
They expected a noose.
The gallows had been readied. The rope hung perfect and still. The villagers gathered, some in fear, some in guilt, most in silence.
Even Elia and Thorne had positioned themselves inside the crowd, hidden among shawls and cloaks, fists clenched, waiting for the right moment—to scream, to run, to fight.
But Halden had rewritten the script.
And they didn't know it until it was too late.
Calla stood center-stage beneath the platform's arch. Her hands were bound, but loose—more symbolic than secure. She looked pale, but unshaken. She faced the crowd, not the priest.
The silence was so full, it rang.
Then Halden stepped forward, hands folded, voice sharp.
"Ceremonial judgment is a privilege. But mercy cannot be given to those who spread rot."
Murmurs.
People exchanged confused glances.
Where was the sermon? The final words? The sentence?
Halden turned slowly and gestured toward the gallows.
And then… to the platform floor.
Two guards appeared. Not with the rope. Not with chains.
With rods.
Thick. Wrapped in leather. Capped with iron.
Calla blinked once.
"You're not going to hang me."
Halden answered without turning. "No."
"You want them to see what fear does to a body."
Still calm. Still steady.
"You want them to watch me break."
"You were never meant to die," he said. "You were meant to demonstrate. A sacrifice."
Then he turned to the crowd and spoke louder:
"This woman believed her touch could replace the hand of God.That her herbs were more powerful than prayer.That her word could stand against scripture."
"Let the bones remember what the soul refused."
He stepped aside.
The first blow came quick—across her back. The sound cracked like splitting wood.
Calla grunted but did not fall.
The second struck her side.
The third across her shoulder.
By the sixth, her knees buckled.
By the ninth, the crowd began to shift—not toward protest, but revulsion.
Children were pulled away. A woman sobbed. Someone vomited behind the candle vendor.
Thorne moved to step forward.
Elia caught him.
"Not now," she hissed. "Not yet."
"They're killing her."
"They're trying to."
Blow after blow, her body began to slump—skin broken, lips torn from clenched teeth. Her left arm hung limp. Her temple was bleeding now, dark and slow.
But she still breathed.
And Halden stood over her like a prophet, unmoved.
Then Calla coughed.
A single sound.
Blood on her teeth.
And she looked up—not at the guards.
At the people.
"You're all going to pretend this didn't happen tomorrow," she rasped.
"And the day after that, they'll pick a new name."
"And then it will be your daughter.Your brother.Your hands that are bound."
Her voice cracked—throat ragged.
"But you'll remember this.And I'll still be here."
"Even if all you find is blood on wood."
She collapsed before the final strike.
Unconscious.But not dead.
Not broken.
Not enough.
Halden stared down at her ruined form and nodded once to his guards.
"Let her live," he said.
"Let her linger."
No one clapped.No one cheered.No one spoke.
The people left the square like shadows leaving the light—shamed, haunted, changed.
Elia waited until dark, then slipped into the infirmary where Calla had been dumped. Thorne stood guard outside.
Calla lay on the table. Barely breathing. One eye swollen shut. Her fingers twitching.
Elia knelt beside her and whispered:
"You weren't supposed to survive this."
"Then I guess," Calla murmured weakly, "they'll have to try harder."
---
To Be Continued...