Elara's POV
The screaming stops on my second day in the dungeon.
Not because the torture ended. Because the woman in the cell next to mine finally died.
I press myself against the far corner of my cell, trying not to think about the silence. The terrible, heavy silence that's somehow worse than the screaming was.
"First time in the cathedral dungeons, sweetheart?"
I jerk my head toward the voice. In the cell across from mine, barely visible in the dim torchlight, a woman watches me through the bars. She's maybe forty, with tangled gray hair and burn scars covering half her face.
"Yes," I whisper.
She laughs, but there's no humor in it. "Lucky you. Most of us have been here for weeks. Months, some. They like to make us wait. Makes the burning sweeter for the crowds."
"How long have you—"
"Three months." She scratches at her scars absently. "Got these during my first interrogation. Priest wanted me to confess I'd cursed my neighbor's cow. I told him I didn't even know magic. He heated up his iron anyway."
My stomach turns.
"Did you?" I ask. "Know magic?"
"No." She smiles sadly. "But I do now. Turns out when you're desperate enough, hurt enough, magic finds you whether you want it or not. That's the Inquisition's little secret—they create more witches than they kill."
Before I can respond, footsteps echo through the dungeon. Heavy boots. Everyone goes silent.
"It's him," someone hisses from a cell I can't see. "The Stone Heart."
Commander Thorne appears in the corridor. He walks past my cell without looking at me, stopping at the cell three doors down. A man starts sobbing.
"Please, Commander, please! I have children! I never meant—"
The cell door opens. Closes. Then nothing but quiet talking I can't make out.
Five minutes later, Commander Thorne walks back past my cell. Alone.
The scarred woman watches him go. "That's the thirty-seventh."
"Thirty-seventh what?"
"Witch he's personally escorted to the execution square." She counts on her fingers. "Started keeping track last year. He never sends guards. Always does it himself. Always at dawn. They say he watches every single one burn from beginning to end, never looking away. Never showing a drop of mercy."
"Why?" The question slips out.
She shrugs. "Some say he's making sure the job's done right. Others say he's making himself watch as punishment for something. Doesn't matter. Point is, if the Stone Heart comes for you personally, you're already dead."
I curl up tighter, wrapping my arms around my knees. Three days ago I was planning my wedding. Now I'm waiting to burn.
"How old are you?" the woman asks suddenly.
"Twenty-five."
"Too young." She shakes her head. "Way too young. You got family who'll miss you?"
I think about Mother's disgusted face. Father turning away. Seraphine's lies. Adrian's betrayal.
"No," I say quietly. "No one will miss me."
"Lucky again, then." She settles back against her cell wall. "Dying's easier when no one cares."
But that's the problem. I want someone to care. I want someone to realize this is wrong. That I'm not a monster. That I don't deserve this.
The hours crawl past. Other prisoners whisper in the darkness, sharing stories.
"The Stone Heart burned a girl last month who couldn't have been more than sixteen," someone says. "She cried for her mama the whole way to the stake. He didn't even blink."
"I heard he killed his own sister when she showed signs of magic," another voice adds. "That's why he's so cold. Killed his own blood and felt nothing."
"No, no—I heard he was cursed by a dying witch. That's why they call him Stone Heart. His actual heart turned to stone."
The stories pile up, each one more horrible than the last. Commander Thorne, the unstoppable monster. Commander Thorne, who's burned hundreds. Commander Thorne, who feels nothing but hatred for people like me.
By the third day, I'm numb.
They bring food once a day—stale bread and water that tastes like rust. I can't eat it. Can't do anything but sit and wait and try not to think about fire.
On the third night, the scarred woman speaks again.
"Tomorrow's your day, isn't it?"
I nod. Can't speak around the lump in my throat.
"Want some advice?"
I nod again.
"Scream," she says seriously. "Soon as the smoke hits your lungs, scream as loud as you can. Gets it over faster. You pass out quicker from the smoke. Don't try to be brave and hold your breath—that just makes it last longer."
Tears stream down my face. I've cried so much these past three days that I thought I had no tears left. I was wrong.
"I don't want to die," I whisper.
"Nobody does, sweetheart. But at least you'll be free." She closes her eyes. "The real prisoners are us—the ones they keep alive just to suffer a little longer."
I cry myself to sleep that night. When I wake, pale dawn light filters through a crack in the dungeon ceiling.
Execution day.
Footsteps echo through the corridor. My heart hammers against my ribs. This is it. This is how I die.
But the footsteps pass my cell. They stop at the cell three doors down—the one Commander Thorne visited yesterday.
The door creaks open. The condemned man starts praying loudly, desperately.
Then the Commander's voice, cold and clear: "It's time."
I hear them walk past. Hear the man's prayers turn to sobs. Hear the dungeon door slam shut behind them.
Hours pass. The sun moves across the crack in the ceiling.
Then the dungeon door opens again.
Everyone goes silent.
The footsteps are slower this time. Heavier.
They stop directly in front of my cell.
I look up.
Commander Thorne stands there, his gray eyes fixed on me. In his hand, he holds a ring of keys.
"Elara Morgrave," he says formally. "It's time."
The scarred woman was right. When the Stone Heart comes for you personally, you're already dead.
I stand on shaking legs. At least I'll die on my feet.
But when Commander Thorne unlocks my cell, he doesn't grab my arm like before. Instead, he steps inside, closes the door behind him, and does something completely impossible.
He drops to one knee.
"I need to ask you something," he says quietly, urgently. "And your life depends on your answer being the truth."
My mind goes blank. This isn't how executions work.
"Can you sense curses?" he asks. His hand moves to his chest, pressing against his armor. "Dark magic attached to a living person—can you feel it?"
"I... I don't know. Maybe? I felt something strange at the wedding before my magic exploded. Like the air was thick with—"
"Touch my hand."
He extends his right hand, palm up. His eyes bore into mine with sudden, desperate intensity.
And in that moment, I realize something that makes my blood run cold.
The Stone Heart is afraid.
I reach out slowly. Our fingers touch.
Magic slams into me—dark, ancient, angry magic wrapped around him like chains. It's crushing him, killing him slowly from the inside out. I gasp and jerk my hand back.
"You felt it," he breathes. It's not a question.
"What happened to you?" I whisper.
He stands abruptly, his stone mask sliding back into place. But his hands shake slightly as he locks them behind his back.
"Can you break curses?" he asks.
"I don't know! I don't know anything about my magic—"
"Learn." He turns toward the cell door, then stops. "You're not burning today, Elara Morgrave. I'm taking you somewhere else. Somewhere no one can find you."
"Why? Why would you—"
He looks back at me, and for just a second, raw desperation cracks through his control.
"Because you're the first witch in three years who could feel my curse. Which means you might be the only person alive who can save me from it." His voice drops to barely a whisper. "And if you can't, we're both already dead."