The world was trembling with the first hint of morning when they came for her again.

  The cathedral doors groaned open, spilling a harsh slice of torchlight into the frost-bitten courtyard. Maria blinked at the sudden brightness, her vision blurring at the edges, wrists still burning from ropes that felt braided from fire instead of hemp.

  The dawn did not bring warmth; it only brought the light necessary for a killing. When the great oak doors of the cathedral groaned open, the sound was like a bone breaking in the silence of the morning. A slice of harsh, orange torchlight cut through the frost-bitten courtyard, blinding Maria. She stumbled, her vision blurring at the edges, her wrists burning where the heavy hemp ropes bit into her skin.

  Two White Iron soldiers seized her arms.

  "Stand," one barked.

  Her legs barely obeyed. Her knees buckled, but they hauled her upright, dragging rather than guiding. Her bare feet scraped across frozen stone, skin splitting with every step. Behind her, the faint echo of chains rattled like a mourning bell.

  Her legs were like water. Her knees buckled, and her bare feet scraped over the ice, leaving small, dark smears of blood behind. The heavy ropes around her wrists burned like fire.

  She was no longer Maria, the fragile queen; she was the vessel of the dark, cold, quiet, and impossibly ancient. The priests saw only shock and terror in her stillness. They seized her and bound her wrists tightly with heavy, brittle hemp ropes, ropes that Eldrin's power already treated like strands of dry grass. They dragged her up from the crypt and through the narrow corridors of the cathedral, the air thick with incense and the sound of their own zealotry.

  They pulled her through the courtyard arch and into the waiting crowd.

  When the massive oak doors of the cathedral finally groaned open, they released Maria into a square awash in the chaotic, gray light of early morning. The sun had yet to clear the eastern mountains, but the entire city seemed to be awake and gathered.

  The world was waiting for her. The entire city of Eldrath seemed to have gathered in the gray, suffocating light. Thousands of faces stretched back to the city walls, a sea of people drowning in their own fear. Torches hissed in the damp air, held aloft by priests whose eyes shone with a terrifying, holy hunger. Maria's gaze drifted over the front rows. Her heart, which she thought had turned to stone, gave a painful throb.

  People she had fed, sheltered, and loved. She saw them. She saw the laundry women who she used to sit with when the palace felt too lonely. She saw the old baker who always gave her an extra loaf for the orphans. She saw a young boy, no older than ten, clutching a wooden toy she had gifted him during the Midwinter feast. He was crying, his small face twisted in a mask of confusion and grief. She saw mothers clutching children she had once healed. She saw old men who had once bowed to her with smiles. Now, they looked at her with a mix of terror and heartbreak.

  A gasp rippled outward as they saw her, hair tangled, gown torn, rope bruising her arms, her skin cold as dawn frost.

  The Faithful Guard formed a stern, armored wedge, shoving their way through the throng. Maria was forced forward, her humiliation made public and complete. The air was deafening, choked with clashing sounds:

  "My Queen..." a voice cracked from the shadows.

  "She bewitched him!" a woman shrieked, her voice high and hysterical.

  "She poisoned the King's mind! Look at her, she doesn't even cry! Only a monster has no tears!"

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  A man nearby lunged forward, his face red with rage.

  "She healed your infant when the fever took him, you ungrateful wretch! She gave us grain when the King gave us nothing but taxes!"

  "Silence!" a soldier roared, bringing the butt of his spear down on the man's shoulder.

  The square descended into a nightmare of sound shouts of "Witch!" clashing against cries of "Mercy!" People were shoved, children were trampled, and the White Iron guards formed a wall of steel, pushing Maria toward the center of the square. There it stood. The platform.

  A tense scuffle broke out near the fountain as a few citizens tried weakly to breach the White Iron line, only to be clubbed back.

  She wanted to tell them to go home. She wanted to tell them not to die for her. But her throat was too dry to speak. They dragged her onto the wooden platform. The wood was slick with frost. They tied her to the stake, the rough hemp biting into her skin.

  The Temple Guards hauled her up the steps. Every inch of her body ached, toward the raised wooden platform at the center of the square a scaffold drenched in morning frost, ropes swaying like patient serpents.

  The soldiers stepped forward. They began to loop the heavy hemp rope around her waist, pinning her to the stake. They pulled it so tight she felt her ribs groan. They tied her wrists behind her, the rough fibers digging into the raw sores left by the chains.

  The sun appeared, painting the world in pale gold. It touched her face like a final farewell.

  Silence rippled outward across the crowd.

  When they turned her around to bind her to the post, she finally looked at the horizon. She looked for the one person who should have been there. Aedric. Her husband. The man who had whispered promises into her hair while she slept. She remembered the warmth of his chest, the strength in his arms, and then the memory shifted, turning black and jagged.

  She felt the phantom sting of his hand across her face. She remembered the way he had looked at her in their bedroom, not with love, but with a cold, calculating hunger for power.

  The "Iron Wolf" had sacrificed his mate to appease the sheep. He had ordered this. He had signed the parchment. And yet, he didn't have the courage to stand on the balcony and watch his work. He was hiding in the shadows of his castle, leaving her to burn alone.

  High Priest Rameon stepped forward on the cathedral balcony, his white robes shimmering like a shroud. He looked down at her with eyes like obsidian. He didn't speak himself; he was too holy for such a task. He handed a scroll to a junior priest, whose voice was high and shrill as it cut through the morning air.

  A priest stepped forward, dressed in heavy white robes, gold thread glinting.

  He unfolded a long parchment, its edges already stained with candle soot and cleared his throat.

  "By decree of His Majesty's Council—"

  A collective gasp rippled through the crowd. The name of the King felt like a curse.

  "...the accused, Queen Maria, stands condemned. For the crime of consorting with shadows, for the practice of forbidden arts, and for the corruption of the Royal Blood, the accused consorted with unholy forces, practised forbidden sorcery, and brought the stain of witchcraft into the royal bloodline."

  Cries of denial erupted.

  "—and under the authority of the Holy Temple, we present the conclusion of the investigation into the crimes of Maria of Sareen, Queen Consort of His Majesty, Aedric Veyne."

  "Lies!"

  "She healed our children!"

  "She is blessed, not cursed!"

  Others screamed in fear.

  "She deceived the King!"

  "She cursed the heirs!"

  "Burn the witch!"

  "Lies!" a woman screamed, throwing a piece of bread at the platform. "She is the Mother of Eldrath! You are the monsters!"

  A soldier swung his staff, cracking the woman across the ribs. She collapsed, and the crowd roared in a mixture of fury and impotence.

  The priest raised his hand.

  Silence fell like snow.

  "For these acts," he read,

  "To preserve the sacred heart of Eldrath and to cleanse the impurity from the Royal Line, this witch shall be executed and purified by fire at the rising of the sun! Let the flames claim her body, and let her soul be given to the mercy of the Lord God!"

  Maria closed her eyes.

  A murmur swept across the square shock, heartbreak, fury, horror like the wind before a storm.

  A girl no older than twelve broke into sobs.

  "She gave me bread when my father died! She is not evil!"

  A man near the front fell to his knees.

  "Mercy... she showed us mercy. Show her the same."

  But the soldiers didn't look at the people.

  They tightened the ropes.

  They stacked the wood.

  Maria lifted her head, her gaze sweeping the crowd, the loyal, the fearful, the broken-hearted.

  then she looked down at the straw. A single tear, the first and only one, escaped her eye and fell onto the wood.

  The High Priest raised a burning brand. He looked at Maria, a small, cruel smile touching his thin lips, and then he dropped it into the straw.