Toran
Despite the murky morning, the Drowning Square was packed with people. It was clear to Toran no one wanted to miss the chance to see the Witch drowned. No one could resist the pull to be a part of history.
One week had passed since Toran was recruited to the hunt. And it was one week since the guards at the Northern Gate were murdered. After the King’s issued response to the attack, the entire city now knew the Witch was among them.
This would be the third Witch drowning this week. And it was only Tuesday. Everywhere he looked, people pointed fingers at their friends, neighbors, sisters, daughters—Witch accusations thrown about like birdseed. It made Toran’s job of finding her all the more difficult. But he was determined. He had already failed the King once. He did not plan on doing so again.
Toran knew he couldn’t fight the crowd. One word from him against the forthcoming drowning and they’d take him down, too. Hysteria was its own kind of beast. A monster with no head to cut off, no heart to skewer. But there was one person he could fight—a person who definitely had a head. Though whether or not the man had a heart was up for debate.
He took the steps to the platform two at a time. In the center stood the opening for the Witch’s Well and, beside the circle of stones, a single guard.
Captain Embley Fell’s dark hair was slicked back to show the entiretyof his forehead and his nose so high in the air it could have touched the clouds. But nothing beat the scorn in the older man’s eyes when he turned his gaze on Toran.
Though Toran had been just as tall as the older captain for several years now, Embley Fell still found a way to look down on him.
Fell was captain of the King’s Fifth Legion and praised like no other for being the one to kill the previous Witch. Before Toran was promoted to captain at seventeen, Fell had been the youngest guard to make captain. But the animosity they held toward each other had started long before Toran turned seventeen.
“You need to stop this,” he hissed to Fell.
Fell raised an eyebrow at him. “Why would I do that?”
Behind him, four more guards climbed onto the platform, a weeping, quaking girl between them.
“She’s not the Witch.”
Fell snorted. “Marnie Sorphel was found consuming magic. We don’t know where she got it, and she refuses to tell us.”
“That doesn’t mean it came from inside her.”
“It doesn’t mean it didn’t.”
Toran swallowed and brought a hand up to tap the engagement ring resting on a chain against his sternum. Though the King had given him this mission, he did it for Loriana, and it was her conviction that would bring him courage. “The King ordered me to find the Witch. Until I do, you have to stop the drownings.”
Fell stared at him like he was seagull poo on his shoulder. “Until you find the Witch, I will continue to do my job. Do you have any idea how many names have come across my desk since these attacks started? Hundreds.” Fell waved an idle hand in Marnie’s direction. “These are just the lucky ones.”
“I think you mean unlucky.”
“No. Lucky. Because when she dies, we’ll all be damned lucky to see a green spark light up the sky.”
The green spark everyone so desperately wanted to see: the Goddess’s stolen magic, leaving the body of the drowned only when the true Witch had been killed.
“So you’re willing to drown a bunch of innocent girls on the off chance one of them might be the Witch?”
“Watch yourself, Roada,” Fell snarled. “The Witch is pure evil. I will do whatever it takes to drown her again.” He gestured to the Witch’s Well. “None of these girls are innocent. And if you think I’m going to put my trust in you—the man who, not a month ago, could be found passed out in a puddle of his own vomit—then you’re even more delusional than the Aeosch. Now, step aside, or I’ll have you forcibly removed from this platform.”
Toran remained still, but his eyes turned to the crowd. “She’s not the Witch.”
Somewhere out there was Marnie’s family. And when Marnie proved not to be the Witch, her family would be compensated for the loss. But it wouldn’t be enough.
Fell stepped close enough that Toran could smell grapefruit on the captain’s breath. When Fell spoke, his voice had dropped below a whisper. “She’s the right age and she was found using magic. That’s more than enough evidence against her.”
And Toran heard what Fell wasn’t saying. He’d drowned others for less.
With a flick of his wrist, Fell summoned two guards to his side. They took hold of Toran, escorting him away from the Witch’s Well. He did not descend into the crowd. He remained there, at the top of the stairs, facing the well.
Only finding the true Witch would make the drownings cease. Until he found her, he was just as responsible for these girls’ deaths as Fell was. He vowed to remember each and every one. Starting with Marnie Sorphel.
He stared at the pleading girl being dragged before the Witch’s Well, the King’s words from the other night resurfacing.
