The priests began to chant louder.
The King kept reading.
“They who forget the Veil shall wear its teeth.
Let the blade remind her spine of scripture.”
He turned the blade sideways and drove it into her thigh.
Bone grated. Her body spasmed.
Another cry tore loose, less human now, more like a wounded animal. Her hands clenched against the shackles, nails tearing as she pulled. He sliced again, across the ribs this time,opening skin with practiced ease. Blood soaked the altar. It dripped onto the symbol drawn below her, turning the Eye red.
The King’s voice did not waver.
“This is the baptism of pain.
This is the gospel of the blade.
This is how we purge the beloved.”
He dropped the knife.
Another priest brought forward a set of hooked irons, still glowing faintly from the brazier.
He didn’t hesitate.
He drove one into her shoulder, just beneath the collarbone, dragging it down as if rending parchment. Flesh curled away. Muscle twitched. Blood sprayed, hot and bright.
Ilys screamed again, but only once. Then she went silent. Her eyes open, staring.
She remained. Breathing. Watching. And somehow… still defying.
The King leaned close to her ear, voice low. “I can carve until your bones are clean,” he whispered into her skin as he took the final tool, a holy brand shaped like the Veil’s tear. And he pressed it over a fresh wound, where skin and flesh were already open.
She bucked. Her throat arched to howl, but no sound came. Her mouth opened, blood on her teeth. Then she stilled.
Not unconscious. Just beyond. A breath passed. Then another.
The King turned to the assembly, arms wide, robe soaked at the hem with blood.
“She has been cleansed. Witness her repentance!”
No one moved.
Even the priests faltered in their chant. They had not seen repentance. They had seen something else entirely.
And though her body hung broken on the altar, and blood still dripped steadily from her wounds, Ilys did not weep. Her lips had parted. A single wordless shape had formed there, curled like defiance on her tongue. And it was not Vasha. Not forgiveness. Not surrender.
“Liar.”
She mouthed it over and over, the word slipping through her teeth. She would say it despite every flesh wound. She would say it til her heart stopped. She would give the word life until her very last breath. It was important, she knew. Even now, the false worship of this man exhausted her more than any mutilation. Any laceration.
The King raised his hands one final time. “Let her be carried to the Sanctum. Let her wounds fester in darkness, and let the Veil decide what remains.”
Two guards stepped forward.
They unshackled her wrists, lowly, almost reverently. One reached for her arm as she slumped sideways, catching her beneath the shoulders. The other tucked a coarse shroud over her bare chest. Her blood soaked it instantly. She made no sound.
