Chapter Twenty-Two
Miranda finished wiping Sienna’s last bite mark on her thigh with a wet rag. Sienna sucked in a hiss but still could hardly move on her own. Miranda dipped the rag in the water swirling red with Sienna’s blood, then set the bowl aside.
“Let me help you sit up,” she said, her pitying gaze flicking to Sienna then away as she pulled her into a sitting position on the edge of the bed.
Sienna’s ankle chain rattled as she settled her bare feet on the floor. The aftereffects of Volkov’s elixir left her somber, and the loss of blood left her fragile. Her body and spirit sagged under the weight of his attack and the unknown that was yet to come.
“Do you know what their plans are for me?” whispered Sienna, her voice broken.
“No, my lady,” said the maid, walking over to retrieve the thin white slip she’d brought in with her. “Come. Stand if you can.”
Miranda hauled her up gently to a standing position.
Sienna’s knees threatened to buckle, but she kept herself steady.
Miranda removed the torn and bloodied chemise from Sienna’s body, then slipped on the sleeveless, gauzy nightgown which dropped to her calves. It fitted snug at the torso, somewhat more substantial than a shift, but not by much. Her arms were bare, and the bodice scooped low on her back and breasts, tied with a white satin bow at the center of her bosom.
“What happened to Volkov?” she asked.
The maid’s lips pressed into a thin line. She feared betraying her master.
“Did he die?” Sienna asked, hoping the fire she’d given him would do him in.
Miranda shook her head. “No. But he is very sick.”
The lock on the door sounded. Miranda hopped away and stood next to Sienna with her head bowed. In stepped a parade of Legionnaires in arms who lined the far wall followed by well-dressed gentlemen with their winter coats and top hats still on their heads. They brought with them the winter chill. Then Sienna’s gaze landed on the tallest of them at the center, wearing a white silk vest and silver cuff links that twinkled in the dim torchlight.
“Lord Barker.”
Her formerly betrothed had not changed very much. The wrinkles around his mouth had deepened and the cruelty in his eyes was sharper. But other than that, he was the same man she had left behind for a solitary life outside society so many years ago.
“Lady Sienna.” He dipped his head in a slight bow as if they were meeting at a ball or in a parlor. His gaze roved over her body down to her bare feet then back up again, stopping at the bite mark on her breast before he met her eyes. “I am here on official business for the town of Dale’s Peak. As the senior lord of the town, I am acting on behalf of the bailiff to bring you forward for crimes committed.”
Sienna huffed out a small laugh. “And what crimes have I committed, seeing as I haven’t been in Dale’s Peak for over five years now?”
He puffed up his chest and sauntered closer. “Witchcraft.”
“Witchcraft? You must be joking.”
“I am not.” He pulled from under his coat a scroll of parchment tied with a black ribbon. “Bentley.”
A scrawny man in gentleman’s attire stepped forward, took the scroll, opened it, and read aloud. While he did so, Lord Barker walked a slow circle around Sienna.
“The province of Dale’s Peak does hereby accuse and convict Lady Sienna, formerly of Worley House, of practicing witchcraft abroad. From her home in Silvane Forest, which is dubbed a residence solely for paranormal creatures, she has practiced numerous nefarious spells upon the locals of Sylus. Many of her spells ended in mutilation and bloody death for her victims which have been found within the bordering forest of her home, Larkin Wood.”
“Lies,” said Sienna. They were trying to pin the victims of sanguine furorem on her.
Lord Barker touched her right shoulder. She flinched away. Then he circled back around as Bentley returned to finish reading the decree. “Upon witnessed accounts corroborated by the good people of Sylus, Lady Sienna is hereby sentenced to death by order of Queen Morgrid of the Glass Tower.”
Bentley finished by flourishing the scroll toward Sienna so that she could see the queen’s signature and the crown’s seal in a scripted V. He then marched back behind Lord Barker who edged toward her in an intimate way.
Lord Barker fingered the silk bow above her cleavage and said, “You could’ve avoided all of this had you simply married me when you had the chance. Even now, I could still save you.” His dark eyes flicked to hers, his forefinger trailing a line along her breast just above the cut of the fabric. “I would not marry you now. You’re too soiled for that. But perhaps if you were my mistress, I could keep you alive. Protect you.”
“And who would protect me from you?” she asked with a sneer. Sienna batted his hand away and injected as much venom as she could into her voice. “I would rather burn at the stake than lie with a cruel, loathsome man like you.”
His mouth slanted into a brutal smile. “Then so you shall.” He took a large step back and pronounced, “Escort Lady Sienna to the carriage.”
“Pardon, sir,” said Miranda, dipping a curtsy with concern on her brow. “But it’s cold. Please, sir. She can’t go out in nothing but that.”
Lord Baker paused and glanced around the room. “Fetch that red cloak. Scarlet fits the witch well. She won’t be cold for long anyway.”
He stormed out, the gentlemen following in his wake. Two vampires gripped her arm while a third unshackled her ankle. Miranda popped over and draped the cloak around her shoulders, clasping it at the neck, then lifted the hood over her.
“I’m sorry,” whispered the girl.
Sienna smiled at the poor maid who felt pity for her when she was the one who was a prisoner of this vampire mansion, used repeatedly as a bleeder and a slave.
“Thank you, Miranda. Good-bye.”
The Legionnaires jerked on her arms and ushered her roughly into the hallway and down a dark corridor. It opened up into a foyer with a crystal chandelier casting prisms on the walls by dawn’s light seeping through the window. They shoved her out the door into the bitter cold, her feet scraping on the stone as she stumbled. Two black carriages awaited them at the foot of the steps. The Legionnaires pushed her in the second one. Lord Barker and his men loaded in the first.
Upon entering the dim cabin of the carriage, she realized that Volkov’s partner Boris sat on one side. She took the seat opposite him. He simply glared at her in silence. She pulled her cloak tighter around her shoulders, her one source of comfort. The windows were curtained so there was no place to look except at the beast sitting across the short aisle.
“Did Volkov die?”
The vampire, his appearance more feral than the other Legionnaires, muttered hoarsely. “Oh, he’ll be all right, witch. He’s a might upset knowing you’re going to your death.” The creature leaned forward, black eyes glinting like a demon’s. “He wanted the pleasure of watching you burn. Now that pleasure falls only to me.”
Sienna turned away and closed her eyes. The vampire laughed low in his throat. Sienna sought a place of peace within herself as the carriage rattled on. Her mind drifted…
She stepped lightly under the great black oaks of Silvane Forest, luminous sable leaves shining silver by the morning light. Then she rode atop Duchess, who sped through a meadow, her brothers and her mate keeping chase with playful yelps. Sienna laughed, her head back and hair flying in the wind. Then she was in her cottage with a cozy fire crackling in the hearth. She smiled as she poured two cups of tea and walked to the sofa. She handed one to her friend Arabelle, who smiled back. Arabelle faded, replaced by the handsome form of Nikolai. Her lieutenant. Her protector. Her lover. Her love.
The carriage jolted to a stop. Sienna held his image in her heart before opening her eyes. The carriage door swung open, and the sounds of a murmuring crowd hit her along with a biting wind. The sea of accusing faces parted as the Legionnaires marched her roughly along the cobblestone to a platform at the center of the familiar town square, a place where she’d walked and shopped as a young girl. Upon the platform was a separate raised dais with a solid shaved trunk jutting toward the sky and encircled with a stack of fresh-cut pine for a fast burn. One of the Legionnaires jerked her arm to twist her about and face the crowd once they stood upon the platform.
Lord Barker stood forward and to her right with his lackeys in a line. The icy wind billowed the hem of her cloak and sheer gown, chilling her bare feet. She stared out at the horde who’d gathered in the cold to watch a witch burn. Her arms and legs trembled from the cutting wind and the fear and the hatred, but she held her head high nevertheless.
Lord Barker cleared his throat. “I hereby condemn Lady Sienna, formerly of Worley House and now of Silvane Forest, for witchcraft.” He emphasized the last with a loud bellow, letting it echo through the square.
The horde watched in wide-eyed silence.
Sienna wondered who among them might have been planning to join the cause of the Black Lily, for she saw no allies among them now. Only the faces of a blighted people who had been choked by fear too long, seeking one to blame for their misery in this frightful world.
She bit her lip to hold back the well of tears. Regret was a bitter beast, a solid stone in her chest. It had all been for naught. Nikolai had begged her to relent and surrender the search for more recruits, but she had convinced him otherwise. If she had listened, they’d be back in her cottage among the black oaks, safe and sound. Even so, she held on to the belief that they had to try. Despair and surrender only gave the wicked more strength. She had to hold on to hope, even as she looked on her own death.
Lord Barker continued. “For her numerous, murderous crimes against the people of the village of Sylus. And for the murder of our very own Widow Winchester here in Dale’s Peak.”
Sienna snapped her head in his direction. The audience gasped. One petite woman, her face withered with age, put her hand to her mouth in shock. Sienna couldn’t bear for them to think her guilty of such abhorrence. But what was worse was knowing she would be put to death without ever seeing Nikolai again.
Lord Barker walked toward her and unclasped her red cloak, whipping it off her body with a violent tug. The wind pushed the fabric of her nightgown against her body. He grabbed her arm and twisted her around, then tore the strap down below her shoulder, exposing her breast. She covered herself with her arms and hands though her back faced the crowd.
“Do you see!” He shoved her closer to the edge of the platform. “She has the devil’s mark! She is his bride and colludes with him to cast sorcery against mankind.”
More gasps and mumbling amongst the people of her hometown. Simple people could always be goaded into belief with something as small as a red birthmark as unusual as Sienna’s. He needed little evidence other than that to condemn her to death.
He turned her body once more to face the horde and gripped the wrist of her arm trying to cover her exposed body. He tore the gown from both shoulders down over her hips to let it pool at her feet. Sienna closed her eyes, unable to witness her own humiliation as he exposed her bare and bruised body to all.
“Do you see how freely she gives her body as a bleeder? She gives herself to many vampires at once. Only a witch and a harlot would show such disgrace. This woman who was once a lady among our town gave all of it up for a life of the damned. To pleasure the immortals and to cast her spells.”
It did not matter that it was all lies. It did not matter that she’d been taken by force and abused, then accused and wrongfully condemned. This was the queen’s orders, to kill her in the most brutal of ways. First with humiliation and then with fire while the people of her birth looked on. The winter wind stung and prickled over her skin like a thousand needles.
One boy said, “She is a witch.”
Another woman shouted, “Then burn her!”
“Yes, burn the harlot.”
And that was all it took. The people of Dale’s Peak had always shunned those who gave themselves up as bleeders. Lord Barker knew this. Volkov’s prize of biting her ruthlessly in more than one place and leaving open, savage puncture wounds was all part of the plan to prove to the people of Dale’s Peak that Sienna was nothing more than a whore for the vampires and an evil witch, deserving of a death on the pyre.
“Good-bye, Lady Sienna,” whispered Lord Barker with a sneer.
She snapped her eyes open then spat on the true face of evil. He merely pulled a handkerchief from his coat pocket and wiped it away, nodding his head to the Legionnaires behind her. She was lifted bodily and set on the dais with the wooden pole along her spine. Her hands were bound behind it. Then her ankles were bound at the bottom. The ugly, contorted faces of the throng drove into her heart like a hundred daggers. Her naked and bruised body exposed for their condemnation only added to the damage to her spirit.
Sienna stared up at the gray sky, trying to block the angry cries and vehement demands for her burning death. There would be snow today. The wind swirled, stirring her hair around her face and her breasts.
“Nikolai,” she whispered to the winter sky, wishing she could hold him one last time. With all her heart, she prayed he would survive somehow, that he would not mourn her death too long. That he would fight the cause against men like Lord Barker and vampires like Volkov, all in her name.
The popping and crackle of pine pulled her back to the present. She stared down where the torchman had lit the kindling at the bottom. The heat wafted up quickly. The din of the crowd died as the fire flared to life. The rising wave of heat blurred her vision as she stared at Lord Barker with his menacing glare.
A cloud of black smoke billowed up and choked her. She coughed, twisting her body to the other side, but there was no escaping the smoke and the imminent flames. The heat reached up to her toes and feet. A piercing pain shot through her body as the flames licked her skin, rising up her legs. She screamed, tears of pain streaming down her face. The fire danced high along her right leg and hip, a giant spark popping up on her cheek with a burst of pain.
Now she wished for death. Wished for the sweet release, for this pain was unlike anything she could imagine, her flesh being baked on the fire, the smell of her own skin melting away. She wept and stared straight ahead, hoping her heart would give out before the fire reached her face.
She repeated her mantra, calling her soul to still.
Nikolai, Nikolai, Nikolai…
Her mind drifted as the pain grew too intense. Beyond the crowd, through the rising flames and the smoke clouding her vision, a tall figure barreled forward, his blond hair a streak of lightning as he knocked one person after another out of his way, zigzagging and pounding his way through. Her avenging angel stormed closer to the platform, the look of a malevolent demon come to collect his souls. Her mind floated into darkness, her voice dying among the smoke and flames but not before she whispered…
“Nikolai.”