CHAPTER 20: BURNT ALIVE
The pyre burned in the clearing like a funeral for the truth.
Flames licked the twilight sky, stretching high as if trying to reach the Moon Goddess herself. The thick scent of charred flesh and ash curled around the onlookers like a noose, suffocating and inescapable.
Cassidy knelt in front of it, draped in white, her hands trembling, her lips quivering with practiced despair.
She did not weep—she wailed.
Loud. Broken. Raw.
It was a performance for the ages.
Beside her, Jane Lockhart stood still, the very image of a grieving mother, with a handkerchief pressed delicately against her cheek, though not a single tear dared fall.
"She’s gone…" Cassidy whispered hoarsely. "My sister… she’s gone."
Her cries echoed through the trees, bouncing back like ghosts of
