The Shadow’s Tithe

Chapter Three: The Blood Stained Veil

POV: Vera

The transition from the cold stone of the estate’s ground floor to the sterile luxury of the preparation chambers felt like a final stripping of Vera’s humanity, because the air grew thick with the cloying scent of jasmine and heavy ritual oils, and she understood that she was no longer a person but a procedure. They thrust her into a basin of scalding water where the steam rose to meet the golden skylights, yet she remained motionless as her skin turned a raw and angry red under the scrubbing brushes of the silent attendants, for she had learned long ago that resistance only invited worse punishment. Among the flurry of movement stood a girl with downcast eyes named Chloe, and she moved with a frantic sort of precision to wash the dried ink of the Inquisitor’s test from Vera’s chest, though her hands trembled just enough to betray her fear. The atmosphere was one of clinical preparation for a s*******r, so the servants treated Vera’s body as a canvas for the empire’s aesthetic, and they ignored the way her breath hitched whenever the hot water stung the fresh lacerations from the shattered sun glass orb, because noticing pain would have required seeing her as human.

Chloe leaned in close to arrange the heavy layers of white silk intended to shroud the bruises and scars that marred Vera’s back, and while the other attendants were occupied with the ceremonial headpiece, Chloe’s collar slipped slightly to reveal a jagged and blackened brand etched into the side of her neck, which marked her as one of the Blighted. Vera felt a sudden sharp pang of kinship that she had never experienced in the isolation of her cellar, for she realized that she was not the only soul in this house who had been broken by the light, and that recognition cut deeper than any lash ever had. For the first time in her life Vera felt the stirrings of a protective instinct that transcended her own survival, so she reached out to gently touch the edge of the girl’s sleeve as if to acknowledge their shared suffering, though her fingers barely brushed the fabric before she hesitated. Chloe flinched at the contact, but her eyes met Vera’s for a fleeting second, and in that look Vera saw a reflection of her own terror alongside a silent plea for a mercy that neither of them possessed the power to grant, which made the moment all the more devastating because neither could offer what the other truly needed.

The heavy doors swung open to admit Cynthia, and she glided into the steam with an air of triumphant grace that made the other servants retreat into the shadows of the room, for they knew better than to remain in her presence without permission. She held an ornate box made of polished bone, and she dismissed the attendants with a sharp flick of her wrist until only she and the two Blighted girls remained in the humid chamber, because Cynthia preferred an audience of the powerless when she delivered her cruelty. Cynthia claimed that she had come to offer a final sisterly gift to ensure that Vera would be able to contain the volatile nature of her new station without embarrassing the family lineage, but her smile never reached her eyes, and Vera had learned to trust the coldness behind such warmth. She pulled a delicate necklace of woven silver from the box, and it appeared to be nothing more than a fine piece of jewelry until she clasped it around Vera’s throat, at which point the silver felt unnaturally cold against Vera’s skin, and the air in her lungs seemed to turn to ice as the suppression collar activated and began to leach the burgeoning void magic from her veins.

Vera struggled to draw breath while the necklace tightened until it sat like a physical weight against her windpipe, and she watched through blurred vision as Cynthia’s smile turned into something sharp and predatory, because her sister had never been able to hide her true nature for long. Her sister leaned down to fix the bridal veil over Vera’s face, and she whispered into the thin fabric that the Archon was not the savior the empire believed him to be, for she took a particular pleasure in destroying hope before it could fully form. Cynthia revealed that the man Vera was about to marry had incinerated every wife who had preceded her on their wedding night, because his internal fire was too great for any normal woman to endure, and she said this with the same tone one might use to discuss the weather or the price of grain. She confessed with a chilling nonchalance that she was the one who had whispered Vera’s name into the Inquisitor’s ear, and she had done so with the explicit knowledge that the Archon’s touch would be the final solution to the problem of Vera’s existence, which meant that every cruelty Vera had endured had been orchestrated not by fate but by her own blood.

The weight of the betrayal settled into Vera’s bones like lead while she stood encased in the heavy wedding silks that felt more like a burial shroud than a garment for a bride, yet she did not weep because Cynthia had long ago stolen even that small release from her. They led her out of the chamber and toward the waiting carriage with the silver collar pulsing against her throat to keep her power locked in a cage of agony, and each step sent a fresh wave of dizziness through her skull, but she refused to fall because falling would have pleased her sister too much. As the carriage began to pull away from the estate Vera peered through the small rear window and saw the Inquisitors moving with torches toward the home she had known only as a prisoner, and for a moment she felt nothing at all because you cannot mourn a prison even when it is the only world you have ever understood. The first flames caught the golden tapestries, and the fire began to consume the only

world she had ever understood, yet the Inquisitors declared that the estate must be purified to erase any trace of the shadow’s upbringing, so Vera watched as the roof collapsed into a rain of sparks and ash without making a sound. She turned her gaze forward toward the looming Spire of Solis, and she realized with a sickening clarity that she was truly alone, for she no longer had a home to return to even if she survived the fire of the Archon’s embrace, and that absence of any safe place to fall might have been the most terrible discovery of all.