---
They started in whispers.
In Dunlowe, words could kill if they carried the wrong weight. So Elia, Thorne, and Calla spoke only where the ground creaked too loud for listeners, and the walls were thick with age.
The safehouse was beneath Calla's apothecary. A root cellar, lined with jars blackened by fire and soot. The only light came from two wax stubs. The air tasted like smoke and old salt.
"We don't just tell stories," Elia said. "We record them. Written, signed, hidden."
Calla nodded, scribbling Brenna Holt's name at the top of the first page.
Accused without charge. Hanged without trial. Child taken.
"She was the first," Calla said.
"No," Elia replied. "She was the first here."
They met others in stables, cellars, and crumbling barns.
A widow whose daughter had been called "unclean" for bleeding too early. A gravedigger who buried six women but knew four were still breathing when he did. A baker's boy who overheard the mayor promising a "cleaning season."
Thorne handled the movement. He mapped the town's paths, blind spots, and patrol schedules.
"The chapel's bell tower has a hollow crossbeam," he told them. "If we need to hide records, that's where they go."
But even as they gathered names and grief, Halden moved faster.
He spoke at the foot of the gallows that evening.
The villagers gathered—not from faith, but from fear. Children clung to their mothers. Shopkeepers stood with ash-streaked aprons, eyes on the rope.
Halden stepped forward in his black coat, his silver medallion glinting dully.
He didn't shout. He didn't need to.
"Purity," he said, "is not a matter of law. It is a matter of survival."
Murmurs. Movement. A breath held by the crowd.
"There are those among us who practice in shadow. Who heal what should be left to rot. Who listen to dreams instead of prayer. These are the seeds of ruin."
He raised one hand. The unfinished gallows behind him creaked in the breeze.
"We defend this town," he said, "by defending its soul. And if that soul must be cleaned by flame—so be it."
Elia watched from the edge of the square, hood low.
Thorne stood beside her, fists clenched.
Calla didn't speak.
She just turned and walked away.
That night, back in the cellar, the list of names had doubled.
Calla stared at it, then spoke without looking up.
"They're preparing to drown us before we speak."
Elia met her gaze. "Then we're gonna have to speak louder."
Outside, someone had scratched a symbol into the door of the apothecary's ruin:
A circle with a line through it.
The mark of the condemned.
The fire hadn't started yet.
But the spark was there.
Beneath their feet.
---
The mayor's office didn't keep guards.It didn't need them.The fear did the work.
Elia waited until just before dawn, when the clerks were gone and the candles were low. She slipped through the back window, her boots landing softly on the old floorboards.
Everything inside smelled like damp ink and wax. Quiet and tidy. As if order could make horror more polite.
She searched quickly. Bottom drawer. Locked.
She picked it open.
Inside—a thick bundle of papers tied with red string. Official seals. Tidy handwriting. Organized condemnation.
She untied it.
At the top: "Dunlowe Watchlist – Authorized for Monitoring and Detainment. Signature: Reverend Halden."
Her name wasn't on the first page. Calla's was.
Second on the list. Beneath her, a midwife. A childless widow. A boy who sketched what he saw in his sleep.
She kept reading.
Attached was a letter of religious transfer, also bearing Halden's seal.
"By decree of the Sanctos Ecclesia and the discretion of the Tribunal Inquisitor, full authority over trials, sentences, and disposals is granted to Reverend Halden, as acting Faithwarden of Dunlowe."
He hadn't just come here to stir fear.
He'd come to rule it.
She slipped out with the documents tucked beneath her cloak and ran until the village square blurred behind her.
Calla was in the cellar, sorting herbs that had been half-burned, half-usable. Her hands were shaking.
Elia dropped the papers on the table.
Calla read silently.
Page after page.
Then she looked up—eyes red, jaw clenched.
"I thought this place might be different."
"It isn't," Elia said softly. "That's the lie. That anywhere is different."
Calla slammed her fist against the stone wall. The sound echoed through the cellar like a scream.
"I've buried children. Held their mothers while they shook. I've brewed milk for infants when their fathers wanted to curse the wind. And they still... they still..."
Her voice broke.
Thorne stepped into the room, saw her face, and said nothing. Just walked over and knelt beside her.
They didn't speak. They didn't move.
They just let it sit—the weight of certainty.
That the rope had already been tied.
Later, when the list had been copied twice, Elia lit a match and burned the original.
The names were safe. The names were real.
But the ash smelled like someone they'd already lost.
Outside, it had begun to rain.
No thunder. No wind.
Just the slow, steady kind that soaked everything before it broke.
---
They built the stage overnight.
Not just the gallows—a platform, wide and high, draped with banners sewn hastily from chapel cloth. Two iron poles flanked its steps. One bore the seal of the Sanctos Tribunal.
The other held a bell.
It rang three times at midday.
By the third chime, half the village was gathered.
Mothers held their children tighter. A few men came armed, though not openly. The silence didn't feel sacred. It felt like it had been fed.
Halden stood at the center in full vestments, his voice louder than before, his posture taller.
"A new order is declared. Trials by confession are flawed.Trials by testimony—compromised. From this day forward, the Word alone shall judge."
Behind him, two guards dragged a young mother up the steps.
Her name was Brena Calloway.
She was twenty-three. A widow. Her infant swaddled and asleep in her arms.
She'd been accused of mixing herbs into milk. Of whispering over her child's cradle.
"These are signs of charm," Halden declared. "Signs of craft."
"No," Elia said under her breath, standing at the back of the crowd. "They're signs of being a mother."
She looked to Thorne.Then to Calla.Then to the platform.
The guards pulled the child from Brenna's arms.
She didn't fight. She just whispered a name—maybe a prayer.
A man in the crowd shouted, "Where's her defense?"
Halden raised a hand.
"She stands before righteousness. If she is innocent, God will deliver her. If she is guilty, flame will claim her. No more speeches. No more tricks. Only the Word. The crowd may bear witness. But the truth does not debate."
He turned to signal the guards.
"Now," Elia whispered.
She and Thorne shoved forward, Calla behind them.
"Stop!" Elia called out, loud enough to split the hush.
Halden turned, face unflinching.
"You speak in defiance," he said.
"You speak in script," Elia snapped. "Where's the proof? Where's the hearing?"
Halden stepped down slowly.
"She was caught with jars marked by forbidden runes."
"Which were dried chamomile for colic," Calla barked. "You'd know that if you ever touched a sick child."
The crowd murmured.
The baby began to cry.
Halden stepped forward, gaze fixed on Elia. "You again. The girl with the tongue sharpened by grief."
Elia stepped between Brena and the guards. "Touch her, and you'll answer to more than just your lies."
One of the guards hesitated.
The other didn't.
He reached.
Thorne moved—fast. A shoulder to the ribs. The man hit the boards hard.
The baby wailed.
Chaos.
Brena fled down the steps, child in her arms. A young man from the bakery opened a cellar door nearby and waved her in.
She disappeared.
By the time Halden called for order, the crowd had split—not in favor, not in rebellion, but in doubt.
And doubt, in Dunlowe, was a firestarter.
That night, Elia stared at the list of names again.
Brena's name stayed.
But beside it, in a new column, she wrote one word:
Escaped.
Then she folded the page, pressed it to her lips, and whispered the same name Brena had:
Hope.
---
They met beneath the ashes.
Calla's apothecary had burned down a month ago. What remained was stone and soot and memory.
But the cellar survived.
That's where they gathered now—beneath the blackened beams, under silence thick with fear. One narrow staircase. One hidden door. One candle burning low.
Seven people sat around the table.
A weaver. A butcher's wife. A boy whose brother was taken for "blasphemy in sleep."
And Elia, Thorne, and Calla—no longer strangers. No longer careful.
"This isn't about survival anymore," Elia said. "It's about record. Memory. Witness."
"They control fear," Calla added, "but we can control truth."
So they built something the gallows couldn't reach.
The Ledger of the Condemned.
Not just names. Stories. Descriptions. Dates. Signs. Lies. Last words.
If they were going to burn, they would do it as evidence.
The messages went out the next day.
Folded into loaves by the baker's daughter. Carried in empty seed sacks by a farmer too old to be searched. Sewn into coat linings.
They reached the edge of Eldhollow within three days.
By the fourth, Edith Corven arrived.
She rode in just after dark, wearing a shawl pulled low and a knife on her hip.
"They think I'm dead," she said, stepping into the cellar. "Let's make use of that."
She brought more documents. Names. Maps. Property deeds tied to Halden's manipulations—land taken after executions, then sold to men loyal to the Sanctos Tribunal.
She brought a plan.
But Halden moved too.
The morning after Edith's arrival, the bell rang early.
Four times.
It wasn't a sermon.
It was a sweep.
Guards began door-to-door inspections. Not for weapons. Not even for fugitives.
For herbs. Journals. Paper.
Anything that could be called "unrighteous correspondence."
A woman was arrested for owning a copy of The Midwife's Leaf. A boy was taken for sketching an herb from memory.
Calla's name was called twice at two homes.
She didn't answer.
She was already below.
Thorne kept watch from the rooftops. Two more villagers were dragged out before noon. One never returned.
By evening, the safehouse was full.
Fifteen people.
No more air to breathe. No more names to write.
Elia stood at the base of the stairs.
"We can't hide everyone," she said. "But we can make sure the ones who disappear don't do it quietly."
"They'll find this place," Thorne warned.
"Then we burn the ledger first," she said. "Not to erase it. To spread it."
And in that moment, they weren't hiding.
They were plotting.
Outside, a crow landed on the chapel spire.
Inside, Halden dipped a quill in black ink and wrote the words:
"Let mercy end where memory begins."Authorization: Public trials to resume. Equinox.
---
They lit the first candle at dusk.
Calla stood in the center of Dunlowe's square, head uncovered, cloak discarded. She held the flame in her bare hands, trembling only slightly. No one had seen her in public since Brena's escape.
Beside her, Elia placed a second candle on the stone step beneath the unfinished gallows.
Then Thorne lit the third.
One for the accused. One for the lost. One for the ones who still might burn.
The townspeople watched from windows, from alleyways, from doorways.
Silent.
Halden had warned them all:
"Gather, and you condone. Condone, and you share the sentence."
But the trio didn't speak.They didn't chant.They just lit more candles.
One by one, people stepped forward.
A woman with shaking hands placed a flame near the post and whispered a name: Luce. A man who once cursed Calla left a wax stub and walked away without a word. A child carried a tiny lantern carved from a turnip.
No signs. No slogans.
Just fire. And memory.
Halden watched from the chapel steps.
He didn't interfere.
Not yet.
But Elia saw his posture—rigid, hands behind his back, eyes cold.
He was waiting. Measuring.
"He won't act tonight," Thorne muttered. "Not in front of them."
"No," Elia said. "He'll wait until we think we've won something."
Near the gallows, Calla knelt to fix a candle that had tipped in the wind.
Elia bent down beside her.
"You sure you want to be out here?" she asked quietly.
Calla's eyes never left the flame. "If they're going to burn me, I want them to see I'm not afraid of it."
As the night thickened, the flames glowed brighter than the torches ever had during sermons.
The square was full.
But no one made a sound.
And then, Thorne stepped forward.
He didn't plan to speak.
But his voice carried like it had always belonged here.
"My name is Thorne Weller. My father was a reverend. He watched them hang my friend. He told me it was justice. But justice doesn't look like a girl dangling from a tree because she knew how to ease a fever."
A murmur.
He pointed at the gallows.
"That's not righteousness. It's a monument to cowardice."
Halden's gaze cut sharper than a blade.
"And every time you light a candle, you're saying you remember. And they fear that more than they fear sin. Because memory… doesn't burn the way bodies do."
Gasps. Some cried. Some just stood, too stunned to move.
And still, Halden didn't speak.
Not until the last candle was placed.
By Edith Corven.
She limped forward in full view and lit one wick.
She didn't say a word.
She just stared at Halden and turned her back to him.
That night, Elia, Calla, and Thorne returned to the cellar. They were followed by six new people—none accused yet. All ready to stand.
But as they reached the bottom step, Thorne froze.
There, nailed to the wall, was a symbol drawn in blood:
A circle, with a jagged X through it.
Calla paled.
"That's not a warning," she whispered."It's a countdown."
---
Reverend Halden lit his study candle with the same care he gave his sermons.
No wasted wax. No flicker.
He sat alone, as he preferred. The chapel behind him was dark. The town quiet.
Only the sound of dripping wax. And the slow ticking of the birch clock on the mantle.
Tock. Tock. Tock.
He reached for the scroll that had arrived at dawn—a thin roll of parchment, damp from the messenger's ride.
He read the words twice, though he didn't need to.
"They lit forty-seven candles.Thirty-one participants were unregistered. Five names matched former Eldhollow associates."
He folded the parchment, placed it in the flame, and watched it curl to ash.
Then he opened the ledger.
He did not scribble. He did not rush.
He wrote, carefully:
"Name: Calla Brey Action: Incite public unrest Symbol: Witch's circle, confirmed. Status: Escalate. Recommendation: Sacrifice."
He dipped the quill again.
Another name.
"Name: Elia Thornbrook Action: Seditious address by association Noted: Survived Eldhollow trials. Status: Warranted. Recommendation: Deferred. Observe reaction post-Brey."
He paused.
Then added one more line beneath her name:
"Do not kill her yet. Fear deepens when hope breathes."
A knock.
Halden didn't raise his head.
"Enter."
The boy stepped in. Seventeen. The clerk from the mayor's office. Pale, sweating.
"They… they think I left a mark. On the cellar wall."
"You did."
"I—I didn't mean to. I was just—"
Halden stood.
The boy flinched.
Halden didn't shout. He placed a hand on the boy's shoulder. Calm. Heavy.
"You think you serve righteousness. You think loyalty grants you safety. But fear isn't what we give. It's what we maintain."
The boy shook. "I won't do it again."
"No," Halden said, "you won't."
He turned to the guard at the door.
"Deliver him. The boy can confess in the square."
The guard blinked. "Confess to what?"
Halden smiled. Just a hint. Just enough.
"To knowing. And saying nothing."
That night, the boy's body was found tied to the roots of the old birch tree behind the chapel.
Mouth stuffed with pages. Pages from a prayerbook.
On his chest, carved deep:
"Mercy favors the useful."
Halden watched from the bell tower.
He saw the townspeople gather. The way their eyes flicked over the message. The way they looked, not at the gallows—but at each other.
He closed the window shutter.
No candle lit.
Just the sound of the birch clock ticking behind him.
Tock. Tock. Tock.
---
The symbol hadn't changed overnight.
It was still there—drawn in blood, smeared across the cellar wall above the storage crates. The circle and jagged X. Deep. Measured. Deliberate.
But it was wetter now.
Elia touched it. Her fingers came back sticky. Fresh.
"It wasn't here when we locked up," she said, low.
Calla stood frozen, one foot on the stairs. Her lips parted but no sound came out.
Thorne moved first, drawing his blade and searching the shadows. No signs of entry. No tracks in the dust. Just the mark—and what was nailed beneath it.
A torn ribbon.
The kind worn by the mayor's junior clerk. Thin. Frayed. Red.
Elia grabbed it, hands trembling.
"This is his. He came to us. He said he wanted to help."
Calla stepped forward and took the cloth. Then her knees gave out.
She collapsed against the stone wall, fingers digging into her hair.
"He told me... he was scared. He asked if it was wrong to feel guilty for surviving. I told him—God helped me—I told him he was brave for staying."
Thorne crouched beside her. "This isn't on you."
Calla didn't answer. Her eyes fixed on the blood-painted symbol.
"You don't mark the enemy unless you're preparing the execution," she whispered."That's not a threat. That's a Judas mark. He turned on us. And Halden turned him into a message."
They climbed from the cellar at dawn, hoping—somehow—it wasn't true.
But it was.
In the courtyard behind the chapel, they found the boy.
Hung low, like shame. Mouth stuffed with paper. Hands bloodied.
On his chest, carved with care: Mercy favors the useful.
The same message Elia had read in Wren's trial notes back in Eldhollow. The same line used when Annalise Thornbrook was killed.
"He's not just repeating the cycle," Elia said. "He's refining it."
They gathered what few allies remained that afternoon. The air in the apothecary's shell was heavier now. No one sat. No one spoke for long.
"He knows our names," Edith said. "He has since before we lit the first candle."
"Then why wait?" Thorne asked. "Why not arrest us outright?"
Elia didn't blink.
"Because he wants it public. He wants us in front of everyone. And he wants the village to cheer."
Silence.
Then Calla stood.
Her hands still shook, but her voice didn't.
"Then we don't give him a clean trial. We give him a crowd with doubt in its throat."
That night, Elia scratched out another name in the ledger.
The clerk's. She didn't write "traitor." She wrote:
"He wanted to help. He died trying to belong to something better."
And beside it, for the first time, she wrote her own name too.
"Elia Thornbrook. Witness. Condemned by those who fear memory."
---
To Be Continued...