Chapter 5 The Winter Night
I read the letters again even though he told me not to.
I tell myself I'm only skimming. I tell myself I'm being careful. I tell myself this is research, not defiance. None of that is true. My hands shake as soon as I open the notebook, the paper whispering softly beneath my fingers like it knows what I'm about to ask of it.
The room around me the stone walls, the shelves, the quiet presence of Alaric just beyond my line of sight begins to fade.
Not disappear. Just… loosen.
The letters pull.
And suddenly, I am not alone.
---
It is winter.
Not the polite kind that arrives with soft snow and quiet mornings, but the brutal kind that bites and refuses to let go. The cold seeps through wool and skin and bone. It stings my eyes. It cracks my lips. It makes every breath feel earned.
I am standing in a village square.
No she is.
I feel her before I see her. Isolde. The name settles into my chest like it belongs there. She is small, wrapped in a heavy cloak that does nothing to hide the way she's shaking. Her hair is dark, loose around her shoulders, already dusted with snow. Her hands are bound, the rope rough against her wrists.
She is not screaming.
That's the first thing that feels wrong.
The crowd presses in around her, faces red with cold and fear. Men with pitchforks. Women clutching rosaries. Children peeking from behind their mothers' skirts. Their breath fogs the air, sharp and uneven.
"Witch," someone mutters.
"Monster's whore," another spits.
Isolde lifts her head.
Her eyes search the crowd, not wildly, not desperately. She is looking for someone specific. I feel the ache of it like it's my own.
"He won't come," a woman hisses from the front. "The beast won't save you."
Isolde swallows.
"I don't need saving," she says.
Her voice is steady. Too steady.
A man steps forward broad-shouldered, wrapped in a fur-lined cloak, his beard stiff with frost. He smells of smoke and iron and fear.
"You brought this on us," he says. "Crops failed. Children sickened. And always the wolf seen at the edge of the woods."
"There have always been wolves," Isolde replies.
"That one walks like a man."
Murmurs ripple through the crowd.
Isolde closes her eyes for a brief moment. When she opens them again, there is grief there. And resolve.
"I loved him," she says simply.
The words hit the square like a thrown stone.
The man laughs, sharp and ugly. "Then you'll burn for it."
They pull her forward.
I feel her stumble. Feel the way her boots slide on the packed snow. Feel the rope bite deeper into her skin.
She looks up at the post waiting at the center of the square. The wood is dark, scarred by old fires. There are bundles of kindling stacked neatly at its base. Too neatly.
Something tightens in my chest.
This has been prepared.
"Do you repent?" the man asks.
Isolde's gaze drifts, just slightly, toward the tree line at the edge of the square. The forest stands dark and silent, heavy with snow.
"I repent nothing," she says.
The crowd erupts.
"She admits it!"
"Burn her!"
"Do it before night falls!"
Hands grab her. Push her. Bind her to the post. The rope is wound carefully, methodically. Not rushed. Not cruel.
Almost… gentle.
Isolde's breathing quickens. Not with panic, but with something else. Anticipation. Grief sharpened into something harder.
She lifts her chin.
"I chose this," she says, though no one has asked.
A young boy near the front looks up at her, eyes wide and wet. "Will it hurt?"
Isolde meets his gaze.
"Yes," she says honestly. "But it will pass."
The man with the beard signals to another. A torch is lit. The flame flares bright against the gray sky.
Isolde closes her eyes.
And then
Nothing happens.
The torch is held there. Too far from the wood. The man hesitates, glancing to his left, then to the crowd. Someone coughs. Someone shifts their weight.
"Do it," a voice urges.
But the torch-bearer doesn't move closer.
Isolde opens her eyes.
Her gaze snaps to the forest again.
A sound rises not a howl, not quite. A low, resonant call that ripples through the trees. The crowd stiffens. Several people cross themselves.
The man with the beard swears. "He's here."
Panic flares. Not enough to scatter them. Just enough to make them sloppy.
"Light it!" someone yells.
The torch dips finally toward the kindling.
It should catch.
It doesn't.
The wood smolders. Smoke curls, thin and gray, but no flame takes hold. The wind shifts, sudden and sharp, blowing the smoke back into the torch-bearer's face.
He coughs, swears again, steps back.
Isolde exhales.
It is the smallest sound. Relief and sorrow tangled together.
She whispers something under her breath.
I can't hear the words.
But I feel them.
Go.
The crowd begins to argue. Voices overlap.
"This is wrong."
"She cursed it."
"We should wait."
Night is coming on fast. The sky darkens. Snow begins to fall harder, thick flakes swirling between torchlight and shadow.
The man with the beard steps back from the post. "Enough," he says. "Let God judge her."
Hands move again. This time not binding, but cutting. The rope falls away.
Isolde stumbles forward, nearly collapsing. Someone catches her elbow an older woman, eyes averted.
"Run," the woman whispers. "Before we change our minds."
Isolde doesn't hesitate.
She runs.
Into the forest.
The crowd shouts. Someone gives chase. Then another howl echoes through the trees, closer now, deeper.
The men stop.
No one follows her past the tree line.
The snow swallows her footprints almost immediately.
---
I gasp and stumble back into myself.
The room snaps into focus the stone walls, the lamp, the smell of old paper. My heart is pounding so hard it hurts. My cheeks are wet.
Alaric is there. Closer than before. His face pale, eyes dark.
"You saw it," he says quietly.
"It wasn't " My voice breaks. I swallow. "They didn't kill her."
"No," he agrees.
"They let her go."
"Yes."
My hands curl into fists. "They meant to be seen letting her die."
His jaw tightens.
"The story spread faster that way," he says. "Fear always does."
I shake my head, breath unsteady. "The wood was wrong. The fire. The way they hesitated."
He closes his eyes briefly.
"She was never meant to burn," he says.
I look at him, understanding it is dawning slowly and heavy in my chest.
"The execution scene feels staged."