Heir of Beasts

Ch. 5.4- The Price of Dignity

                   

Whew! This chapter took a long time to get right for some reason. The next chapter will be 4.5, The Martyr, and then we'll cut back to Shira. The end of chapter four is finally in sight! And please, if you love it or hate it, leave me a comment. This is a rough draft and I need all the input I can get!

- Swpoet

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Sholu Verlaina stands at the base of the gallows in shining metal boots, the tails of his grey kata trailing behind him like a flag. His dusty blonde hair blows in the same wind, partially obscuring his expressionless face. The face of a statue, not a man, unbothered by human emotions such as triumph or empathy.

         I try not to look at him but he draws my eye with unexpected gravity. Just the sight of this man, this murderer wrapped in steel colored silk, drags me back in time to the night of the Founder's Feast. I can hear their screams echoing in my ears, as fresh and raw as the first night. My mother's pleas, 'please, I'm his ally- he wants me alive-'

         My own blood-stained hands gripping the guard who shot her, bashing his head against the stone floor until his face looked like a bruised fruit, spilling overripe pulp onto the ground beneath him. Rivers of blood, bits of brain, shards of bone and skin under my nails. Other guards dragging me off of him as inhuman sounds tore from my throat. The keens of a dying animal.

         And Sholu Verlaina there, watching it all. A puppet master, a traitor, a demon wearing the skin of a man. And now he's in front of me, waiting for me. I grip Halima's hand tighter still, grasping wildly for an anchor to the present. I turn my eyes up towards the sky and let the sun blind me again, just to sear the image of his face from my vision.

         I know the exact moment he notices me. I can feel his eyes on my face, probing, the smile lighting upon his lips too familiar. Like I'm a friend come to visit and not the girl he's going to kill.

         I look back, holding his gaze, I will not be afraid. His grey eyes, the color of clouds pregnant with an impending storm, trap me. Or if I must be afraid, I will not show it. I will not give this bastard the satisfaction.

         His smile widens as I glare at him, inclining my chin towards the sky in an open show of defiance. He surprises me by tucking his chin in an almost invisible bow, a showing of respect.

What is he doing? Mocking me, I decide. He's mocking me.

         I look away but not down, pretending he's bored me, that I'd rather let my eyes trace the sides of sandstone buildings. My heart is beating as fast as a bird's, erratic and flightily, daring me to try and disappear into the crowd. I might be able to do it-

         I focus on the feel of Halima's hand in mine and plaster Shira's face in the space behind my eyelids. No, I will not run.

         It's only a few minute walk, but like isolation, fear distorts time. It feels like I walk for years, weighed down by the gaze of two thousand eyes. After a month of seeing no one but Halima and the occasional guard outside my door, the size of the crowd alone threatens to overwhelm me. Too many faces, too many bodies, pressing in on me on both sides, giving me barely enough room to pass. A few hands reach out to touch me, in love or scorn, I can't tell. A sharp word from Matachai stills them.

         I think strange things as I walk, remember fragments of days long past. Alya's laugh, high and tight like the ring of a bell. My uncle Nather's baritone as he sung me to sleep. The way the sunset looks from the top of a sand dune, the colors of the sunrise from the palace roof. Which plate for salad and which bowl for soup, the proper way to bow, the cover of an old atlas I coveted for a while, the wind rustling my bed sheets. As if the memories are fleeing from me, peeling away like leaflets in the wind.