Chapter One
SERAFINA
Fates save me,I hated fire.
Flames crackled and heat licked my cheeks despite the wall of onlookers between me and the smoking corpse on the pyre. The stench of burned hair rode a macabre breeze, curling into every corner of the manor’s courtyard. It was my nightmares come to life—visions of my own body bound to an altar, wrists restrained, fire devouring my flesh.
Seeing it while awake was even worse.
Lumpy porridge churned in my gut, souring at the back of my throat.
Do not throw up. Do. Not.
Not while the steward of Rottbarry Manor posed like a conquering hero before the burning woman.
“Magic must be extinguished,” he bellowed, bony arm trembling beneath the weight of his blazing torch. Soot smudged his starched cuffs, ash dusting his greasy hair, making it appear as though lice skittered across his skull.
“It is a curse upon this land, bringing nothing but pain andsuffering.” Otto Mortis’ oily gaze swept the crowd, then landed on me. “It is we Puritans who walk the righteous path. Let none who sets foot here be led astray.”
That piercing stare dragged a shiver down my spine. Did he know?
Sweat trickled down my temple, my heart pounding in my ears.
He did. No. He couldn’t.
If he knew, I would be the one on that pyre.
Angry voices erupted around me.
“Unnatural heathen!”
“Burn the abomination!”
“Death to the heretic!”
Prickling heat clawed my nape, and I dug my fingernails into my palms. I dare not scratch the mysterious brand that recently appeared on my neck. One that represented Goddess Hathor, mother of all magic.
I might as well have worn a glowing sign that read,Burn me now.
Mortis’ dark glare pressed down like a boot on my throat, and I pinned unfocused eyes on the woman’s scorched remains. As an indentured slave, my place at Rottbarry was more precarious than any servant’s. More than once, Mortis had tried to beat the defiance out of me. And failed. All I’d learned from his so-called lessons was to hide it better.
Rather than shout my outrage at the injustice before me, I sank my teeth into my tongue, biting until the metallic tang of blood filled my mouth. The woman’s screams still echoed in my ears. Her crime? Using magic to bring rain to her drought-stricken crops. A desperate act forced upon a mother whose children faced starvation.
“Let none forget the threat this deviant posed to our lands.” Mortis’ nasally voice scraped against the stone walls. Nostrilsflared, he swept us with a gaze steeped in contempt. “And that it was I who saved the great Village of Nefarr.”
Heads lowered. A baby cried, its mother quick to hush her child. A cough rattled.
“You are dismissed,” Mortis barked, and those gathered quickly disbanded.
Eyes pinned to the ground, I hustled along the walkway toward the outer wall, moving just shy of a sprint lest Mortis single me out. Curse that disgusting blowhard and his wandering hands.
A hard shoulder slammed into mine, jolting the basket in my grip.
“Hey, watch it, you stupid wench,” the affronted man shouted.
I swallowed my retort. This was not the place to lose my temper.
Not with Mortis lurking.
