Chapter 22
Katharina
The cart stopped moving. I heard murmurs, the creak of hinges, the hollow echo of a lock opening. Then hands grabbed my arms and hauled me out. My knees buckled when I hit the ground, cobblestones biting through the thin fabric of my skirt, but they did not let me fall. They simply dragged me forward, my feet scraping uselessly against the stones as I tried to find purchase.
The air changed into something colder, damper, crueler.
The sounds of the city faded behind me, swallowed by something thick. We’d passed the threshold and were inside.
The Drudenhaus.
They dragged me down a corridor that seemed to stretch forever, the darkness beneath the hood absolute. I counted my footsteps, trying to map the space in my mind, trying to hold on to something, anything real. But the fear was creeping in now, cold fingers wrapping around my heart, squeezing until I thought it might stop beating.
Iron groaned as a cell was opened. The hands on my arms shoved me forward, and I stumbled across a threshold into air colder still, thick with the stench of old blood and shit. Blinded, Itripped and crashed to the floor, unable to catch myself with my hands still locked behind me.
Pain radiated from my nose and brow, then flared as someone grabbed my hair, yanking me back.
The hood was ripped from my head.
I blinked against the torchlight, my eyes watering, and the Drudenhaus revealed itself to me.
Stone walls, caked with filth, cut only by the horrible drag of fingernails. No windows, the only light from the torches that lined the hallway of cells. Multiple sets of iron manacles lined the walls, the floor beneath darkened by the fluids of those who’d been chained there.
A man pulled me back against his hard chest. His hands gripped me where they shouldn’t, and rough stubble scraped the back of my neck, along with the hot stink of his breath.
“You’re a pretty one. I bet you taste good.” A wet, unbearable feeling crept up my neck as he licked me. I threw my head back, satisfied by the crunch of his nose, before I tried biting the hand on my shoulder.
More pain shattered through my face, then my ribs, as he struck me, sending me sprawling across the floor.
“Witch whore. You’ll probably like this.” I screamed as his knee came down on my back, pinning me down. I was helpless. I was fucking helpless.
I looked for that fire again, but there was nothing—only fear as he fumbled with his clothes.
I hated that all I could do was cry.
Then suddenly his weight shifted back, and that voice I hated more than anything filled the cell.
“No, not this one. This one is mine.” Vicar Förner.
The scarred guard grunted, and I tried to roll over. My body screamed in protest, but I forced myself toward my knees when a hand closed around my throat.
The guard slammed me backward into the wall, and the impact drove the air from my lungs. Before I could recover, he’dseized my wrists, wrenching them above my head. A sharp click echoed as he locked me into the chains on the wall.
I kicked at him, but he stepped back easily before punching me in the stomach again. I collapsed.
Get up, Katharina! You will not die on your knees before this man.
Förner stood in the doorway, torchlight flickering behind him, casting his face half in shadow. To me, he looked more like the Devil than Heinrich ever had. His gaze held the same cold certainty it had when I was a child, kneeling in his confessional, trusting him with my childish fears.
He stepped inside the cell, nodding at the scarred man, who left without another word.
“Little Katharina, you have tried so hard to be a good girl, but as I predicted, you could not resist the corruption in your heart. I have waited a very long time for this.”
I spat at his feet.
He smiled, but it did not reach his eyes. “Your mother had that same defiance.” He stepped closer, his robes whispering against the filthy floor. “She screamed so beautifully in the end. But she would not give you up.”
My stomach lurched. I pressed my bound hands against the iron that held them, using the pain to anchor myself.
