Elara's POV
Commander Thorne doesn't say a single word as he drags me through the cathedral doors.
His grip on my arm is iron-tight. Not cruel, but impossible to break. People scatter out of our path, crossing themselves and muttering prayers. A little girl points at me and her mother yanks her away, shielding her eyes like looking at me might curse her too.
Maybe it will. I don't even know what I am anymore.
The Commander throws me into a black carriage with bars on the windows. A prison on wheels. He climbs in across from me, and for the first time, I get a clear look at his face.
Young. Younger than I expected—maybe thirty. Sharp jaw, storm-gray eyes that show absolutely nothing. They call him the Stone Heart, and now I understand why. Looking into those eyes is like looking at a statue.
"Please," I whisper. "I didn't mean to—"
"Silence."
One word. Cold as winter. I shut my mouth.
The carriage lurches forward. Through the barred window, I watch the cathedral disappear behind us. My whole life, destroyed in minutes. Everything I was, everything I thought I'd be—gone.
We're heading toward my family's mansion. My stomach drops.
"Why are we going there?" I ask, then flinch, expecting him to tell me to be quiet again.
Instead, he studies me with those dead eyes. "Standard procedure. Family testimony is required for Inquisition records."
Testimony. Against me.
"They'll tell you the truth," I say desperately. "That I never practiced magic before today. That I didn't know—"
"The truth," Commander Thorne interrupts quietly, "is rarely what families provide in these situations."
Something in his tone makes me go cold.
The mansion appears ahead—three stories of white stone, rose gardens, fountains. Home. Except it doesn't feel like home anymore. It feels like a trap.
Commander Thorne hauls me out of the carriage. Inquisition priests in gray robes swarm around us. One of them chains my wrists together with heavy iron. The metal burns against my skin.
The mansion doors burst open. Mother rushes out—but not toward me. She runs straight to the head priest, a thin man with a hawk-like nose.
"Thank the gods you've come!" Mother's voice breaks. She's crying, actual tears streaming down her face. "Please, you must take that thing away from here!"
Thing. Not daughter. Not Elara. Thing.
"Mother—" I start.
"Don't you dare call me that!" She whirls on me, face twisted with rage and disgust. "You are no child of mine! What you did today—destroying your sister's wedding, revealing your devil nature—you've shamed this entire family!"
"I didn't choose this!" The words rip out of me. "I didn't ask to be—"
"A witch?" Father appears in the doorway. He looks older than he did this morning, like he's aged years in hours. "You were always strange, Elara. Always reading books you shouldn't, asking questions about things that weren't proper for a lady. We should have seen the signs."
"What signs?" I'm shaking now, cold despite the afternoon heat. "I'm the same person I was yesterday! The same person I've always been!"
"No." Seraphine steps out from behind Father. Her wedding dress is gone, replaced by a simple blue gown. Her face is pale, her eyes red from crying. She looks fragile and innocent and broken. "You're not."
She walks toward me slowly. For one wild second, I think she's going to hug me. Going to tell them they're wrong.
Instead, she stops just out of reach and whispers, "You were always strange, Elara. Always watching people with those cold eyes. Sometimes I'd catch you staring at me at night, and I'd wonder what you were thinking. What you were planning."
"That's not—Seraphine, that's not true!" Panic claws at my throat. "You're my sister! Tell them the truth!"
"I am telling the truth." Her voice is soft, sad, perfectly convincing. "You always seemed jealous of me. Of my friends, my happiness. When Lord Pemberton proposed to me instead of showing interest in you..." She trails off, dabbing at her eyes. "I should have known you'd try to ruin my wedding."
"I DIDN'T RUIN IT ON PURPOSE!"
The head priest steps forward, pulling out a leather journal. "Please continue, Lady Seraphine. Every detail is important."
Seraphine glances at Mother and Father. They nod encouragingly. She takes a shaky breath.
"Sometimes I'd hear her whispering at night. Strange words in languages I didn't recognize. And the garden—" She gestures toward Mother's rose garden. "The plants always grew strangely around her. Too fast. Too wild. Like they were reaching for her."
Lies. All lies.
But the priests are writing it all down. Commander Thorne watches silently, his expression revealing nothing.
Then Adrian pushes through the crowd.
My heart lurches. Maybe he's come to defend me. To tell them I'm not evil. He loved me once. He asked me to marry him. He knows me.
He walks straight to the head priest.
"I need to confess something," Adrian says. His voice shakes, but his eyes are hard. "Lady Elara tried to use dark magic to trap me into marriage."
The world tilts.
"What?" I breathe.
"She was losing her beauty," Adrian continues. Everyone's listening now. "Getting older. She knew I was her last chance at a good marriage. So she tried to enchant me. Love potions, perhaps. Or worse."
"That's insane! Adrian, you asked me to marry you! You—"
"I was under a spell," he insists. "It all makes sense now. Why I ever thought I loved someone so cold. So unnatural." He turns to the priests. "Check my blood. See if her magic still corrupts me."
The priests exchange meaningful looks. One of them actually starts examining Adrian, waving incense around him and chanting.
I'm drowning. This can't be real. These people—my family, my fiancé—are inventing stories, rewriting history, painting me as a monster I've never been.
"Why?" The word comes out as a sob. I look at Mother, Father, Seraphine, Adrian. "Why are you doing this?"
Mother's face hardens. "Because you brought shame on this house. Lord Pemberton is already threatening to break off Seraphine's engagement. Do you know what that means? Do you understand what you've cost us?"
Understanding crashes over me like ice water.
This isn't about truth. This is about reputation. Money. Status.
I'm being sacrificed so Seraphine can still marry a rich lord.
"Please," I whisper one last time. "Seraphine, you know who I really am. Tell them."
For just a second, guilt flashes across my sister's face. Her mouth opens—
"The witch has clearly corrupted this entire household," the head priest announces. "We must purify it. As for her..." He looks at Commander Thorne. "The dungeons?"
Thorne nods once.
"No!" I struggle against my chains as guards grab me. "You can't do this! I'm innocent!"
"Innocent witches don't exist," Father says flatly. He's already turning away, walking back into the mansion. Mother follows without a backward glance.
Seraphine stays for a moment longer. Our eyes meet.
"I'm sorry," she mouths silently.
Then she turns her back on me too.
They drag me to the carriage. The chains cut into my wrists. Blood trickles down my hands. Through my tears, I see neighbors watching from their windows. Former friends. People who smiled at me last week.
Now they look at me like I'm a monster.
The carriage door slams shut. Commander Thorne sits across from me again, silent as stone.
"They lied," I tell him desperately. "Everything they said—all lies."
"I know."
I blink, certain I heard wrong. "What?"
His gray eyes meet mine for just a moment. "I've heard those exact same stories fifty times. Different names, same lies. Families always protect themselves first."
"Then why—"
"Because the truth doesn't matter to the Inquisition." He looks away. "Only the conviction."
Hope dies completely.
We ride in silence toward the cathedral dungeons. Toward the cells where witches wait to burn.
The carriage stops. Commander Thorne opens the door, and I see them—stone steps leading down into darkness. The dungeon entrance.
He helps me out, surprisingly gentle. Then he leans close and whispers four words that freeze my blood:
"You burn at dawn."
He starts to pull me toward the steps.
That's when I hear the screaming.
It comes from inside the dungeon—raw, agonized screaming that doesn't sound human anymore. Other voices join it, begging for mercy, for death, for anything to stop the pain.
"What are they doing down there?" I whisper.
Commander Thorne's jaw tightens. For the first time, emotion cracks through his stone mask. Not pity. Not kindness.
Fear.
"Preparing you," he says quietly, "for what comes next."
He pushes me toward the screaming darkness, and I realize something that makes my heart stop.
The cathedral dungeon isn't just a place to hold witches before execution.
It's where they break them first.