Page 157 of Nightshade

Eyes scanning over them, Lustina pushed to her knees and slowly backed away. Something hit her back, and she turned to see Pentash Mother, the priests, and the elder Van Croix standing behind her.

“You asked to be baptized, did you not?” Pentash Mother asked.

Fear gripped Lustina’s stomach, and she climbed to her feet. The crowd of villagers parted, and at the edge of the river stood Bishop Venable.

She closed her eyes, listening for the voices in the sky, but there was only the quiet crackling of torches and the trickling sounds of the river over the incessant thump of her heart.

“Come, girl. Let our Holy Father embrace you in the arms of the eternal.” The bishop held out his hand toward her, and although Lustina wanted nothing more than to run, she knew there was no escape. The baron had been tricked, and she could only pray that he would live.

Tears spilled down her cheeks as the defeat stretched before her in the torch-lit path leading to the river. Not a single face that stared back at her offered anything more than an expressionless stare.

A voice rose above the quiet, and she turned toward a woman, singing a chant in a language she did not understand. At the prod of her back, she stumbled forward, toward the bishop.

“Your dress is soiled, child,” the bishop said, waiting for her. “Come bathe in the river and cleanse yourself. For our Holy Father only welcomes the purest of souls.”

Glancing around showed no chance of escape. Even if she ran, they’d find her. Capture her.

She thought of her mother in that moment. How utterly defenseless, hopeless, she must have felt, when they came to their cottage in the woods and seized both of them. Another nudge from behind pushed her forward. And another. Another still, until Lustina found herself halfway down the path toward the bishop.

But it was as she remembered her mother, burning on that platform, that a cold rush coursed through her. A defiant breath in her lungs. She spun around, fist swinging, and knocked the Pentash Mother in the face. On a scream, the old woman fell to the ground, and the surrounding onlookers gasped.

Lustina dashed in the opposite direction, away from the bishop. A sharp sting streaked across her scalp. Hands reached for her dress. The tearing sound was the only warning before her sleeve tore away, exposing her skin to the winter cold. A whack of pain struck her legs, and she cried out as she tumbled face-first into the mud. Still, she clawed to get away, her fingers burning with bent nails that tore as they scraped across the dirt.

Screams echoed around her. Angry screams, demanding blood and retribution.

A harsh blow to her ribs left her curling into herself. A hand wrenched her onto her back, and she looked up to find the mother of the young girl, Agnes, who Lustina had pulled from the cold, deep river, tearing at her with vengeance.

More kicks and punches turned her flesh numb and cold, while breath sawed in and out of her battered ribs. Someone gripped her ankle and dragged her over the gritty forest bed, where broken branches and sharp rocks tore at her back.

“Whore!” someone screamed, spitting at her.

Others slung rocks and manure, which hit her body in punishing blows of agony.

When she finally reached the bishop, the fight within her flared with a vengeance. She thought of Lady Praecepsia and her own mother. Maria and Aurelia, who she was convinced had been murdered for their knowledge of the room she’d shown them. How the man had destroyed the strongest women in her life.

A scream ripped from her chest, as she hobbled toward him on battered, aching legs. She only just managed to scratch her nails across his face, before a hard whack to her spine knocked the air from her lungs. On a gasp, she fell to her knees before him, choking for one sip of breath.

“Evil has no place here, child,” he said over her. “For we are in the presence of His mercy and light. Now stand. Stand and give yourself to the light in a way your mother never could.”

If she could’ve talked right then, she’d have told him that her mother never had a choice, but the air still failed to fill her lungs.

She looked around at the crowd, who didn’t cheer the way they had when her mother had been led to the platform to burn. Instead, they remained silent. Watching. Waiting.

And still, something told Lustina it was all a lie.

She would die like her mother. Like Lady Praecepsia, and all the other outspoken women of the village who dared to challenge the bishop. If she closed her eyes, she could feel their presence around her, their hands on her shoulders, lifting her from the mud, guiding her forward with grace and dignity.

She glanced down to see the wrinkled hands of Pentash Mother and those of two other women from the village. Their fingers gripped her with so much force, her skin burned.

As she stood before the bishop, listened to the words he spoke in a language that was not her own, she wondered if death would be painful, or peaceful.

The bishop clutched the back of her neck and laid her back into the water. A frigid cold numbed her body, a welcomed sensation against the crippling agony of her wounds. She stared up at the sky, eyes searching for Jericho. Surely, he’d come.

Instead, she found only the blood red moon, so beautiful the way it hung in the sky like a fiery orb.

Lustina closed her eyes over tears and whispered, “Until we meet again, my love.”

A sob shook her body, as she took in all that would never be: his gentle hands and soft kisses. Words he’d spoken only for her. Love he’d given, only to her.