---
They didn't take the gallows down.
The noose still swayed gently in the breeze the next morning, creaking like a door that should have been closed.
Elia stood at the edge of the square, watching it.
People walked by her differently now. Not with hatred. Not with whispers. But with wariness. They didn't know whether to be afraid of her or grateful.
She didn't care.
She wasn't here to be safe anymore.
Thorne found her there, hands in his pockets, a bruise still purple beneath his eye.
"They're still watching," he said.
"I know."
He stepped beside her, close enough that their arms brushed.
"They didn't hang you," he said. "But they didn't free you either."
"I wasn't looking for freedom," she replied. "I was looking for truth."
He looked up at the gallows.
"Well. There's one truth."
"What?"
"This town doesn't burn witches," he said. "It burns women who fight."
She turned to him.
"And what do they do to the men who love them?"
Thorne met her eyes. "They make them watch."
She leaned in, pressed her forehead to his. The air between them was cold, but they weren't.
"You still want to run?" she whispered.
"No," he said. "Not yet."
Later that day, they walked to Edith Corven's cottage.
The old woman was packing. Quiet. Efficient.
"I'm leaving," she said simply, when they asked.
"Where will you go?" Elia asked.
"North. There's a township past the river that doesn't light fires over fever dreams."
Edith studied her, then nodded once.
"Then take this," she said, and handed Elia a folded map. "Marked are the names of every family who lost someone to the lies. Start with them. They'll listen."
That night, in the quiet beyond the woods, Elia sat with Thorne under the willow tree.
A fire crackled low between them. Not a blaze. Just warmth.
She unrolled the map. Her fingers traced the red marks Edith had drawn.
"They'll strike again," she said. "Halden walked away too easily. And Wren… he'll crawl back into power if no one watches him."
"Then we'll watch," Thorne said. "Together."
She looked at him.
She smiled. Tired, but real.
Then she folded the map, tucked it into her satchel, and leaned against him.
Together, they watched the moon rise.
Not a full moon.
Not yet.
But close.
And beneath it, they didn't make promises.
They made a vow:
They would outlive the fire.
---
Reverend Halden did not ride out in disgrace.
He rode out deliberately.
Through the north gate, under a moon that dared not shine, with no followers, no farewell. Only a leather-bound satchel at his side and a destination already decided.
He traveled east—past the old mines of Greystone, beyond the frozen marshes of the Coldroot stretch, where the trees grew crooked and the frost never melted. Days passed in silence, broken only by the clop of his horse and the mutter of psalms under his breath.
But Halden did not pray for forgiveness.
He prayed for order.
Beyond Eldhollow – The Eastern Chapel
The Dominion of Sanctos was not officially tied to Eldhollow, but its reach extended through whispers, sermons, and contracts never written but never questioned.
In a fortress of black stone nestled into the cliffside—called simply The Tower—an Ecclesian Council gathered once each season. Halden had once been denied entry.
Now, they waited for him.
At the gates, he presented the satchel.
"Inside are records," he said to the guards. "Condemned souls. Confessions. Ritual evidence. Proof of the rot."
They opened the gates.
Inside the Tower, walls were lined with scrolls and flame-lit bookshelves. Here, theology blurred with politics, and heresy became economy.
He met with Cardinal Ferris, a man with skin like worn parchment and eyes that rarely blinked.
"You failed to execute the girl," Ferris said without welcome.
"I exposed the fracture," Halden replied. "That's worth more."
Ferris raised an eyebrow.
"You believe Eldhollow was the rot," Halden continued, "but I say it was only the beginning. The people hunger for purity. But they lack vision. They fear the flame—until someone makes it holy."
"You still speak like a zealot."
"I speak like a builder," Halden said. "Give me a new village. One with structure. One where dissent is ash before it can bloom."
"And what would you do differently?"
"Burn quieter," Halden said. "And with a longer wick."
The Network Beneath the Fire
Unbeknownst to most villages, Eldhollow was not the only place that hanged witches.
Halden had friends—clerics, scribes, and land barons—who profited off accusations. Every trial drove land prices down. Every execution opened a door for acquisition.
He hadn't just fed fear. He'd monetized it.
Now, with Eldhollow fractured, he intended to relocate—to a place called Dunlowe, a borderland town closer to the Sanctos trade road.
Dunlowe had soil rich with suspicion. A healer already under scrutiny. Children falling ill.
He would offer the Council a plan: expand the trials, distribute fear, keep order.
And keep himself untouchable.
As Halden stood by the fire that night in the Tower's upper chamber, he burned the last page of Eldhollow's record.
Not because he regretted.
But because the next chapter didn't need to be connected to the first.
Back in Eldhollow, the gallows still stood.
But somewhere else, in a village that didn't yet know his name, the wood was already being cut.
---
The map spread between them was soft with age, its corners frayed, the ink faded. But one name stood out, written in red—not like the others, not by Edith's hand.
Dunlowe.
A quiet village east of Eldhollow, nestled near the old Sanctos trail. Forgotten by most. But circled, and beneath it, a note:
Watch this place. It hungers. – E.C.
"They're next," Elia said softly, fingers tracing the worn parchment.
Thorne sat beside her, sharpening his blade by firelight. "You're sure?"
She nodded. "Edith circled every village with a pattern—sickness, hysteria, land disputes, clergy interference. Dunlowe fits all of them."
He exhaled slowly. "You think Halden went there?"
"I don't think-" she said. "I know."
She stood, crossing to her satchel. Inside: the surviving council records, wrapped in cloth, pages of false confessions and forged seals. Enough to bury Halden if the right people listened.
But the truth had no power if it came too late.
She turned to Thorne.
"I'm going there. With or without you."
He didn't answer right away.
Then he rose, walked over, and pulled her into a quiet, steady embrace.
"You're never going without me."
They left Eldhollow before sunrise—no fanfare, no trail.
Behind them, the gallows remained. Untouched.
Ahead, the road curled through the frostbitten hills and thinning trees. The wind carried the scent of wet pine and ash.
The first signs came quickly.
A girl on the trail with bruises she wouldn't explain.A shuttered home with chalk marks on the door. A farmer who asked too quickly if they were "from the Tower."
Something was wrong in Dunlowe. And it was spreading.
Dunlowe – Days Before.
The healer's name was Calla Brey.
She had been tending to the sick in Dunlowe since she was fourteen—mostly mothers and children. She brewed teas, tend broken bones, stayed out of politics.
But that didn't save her when the whispers began.
"She heals too fast. She touched a dying baby and it lived. Her herbs smell… wrong."
And then came the fire—burned in the woods near her home. A warning.
Now, she rarely left her cottage.
Until one day, a stranger in a fine black coat came to the village square and spoke softly to the mayor:
"You've let the rot in," he said. "But I can cut it out."
The gates of Dunlowe weren't locked. But the stares they received as they rode through said enough.
This town was wound tight.
Paranoia hung like fog.
A notice board near the chapel read:
"All unregistered healers must report to the Mayor's Hall." "All visitors subject to
inspection." "Suspicion is enough."
Thorne looked at Elia. "They're already halfway to the gallows."
She stared at the paper. Her jaw clenched.
"This time," she said, "we don't wait for someone to get hang."
---
Calla Brey knew what poison smelled like.
It wasn't just in herbs or roots—it was in words. The way people shifted their gaze. The way they asked questions they already thought they knew the answers to.
She'd heard it in the market yesterday when a boy scraped his knee and his mother pulled him away from her:
"Don't let her touch you. She'll leave something behind."
And in the chapel last week, when Reverend Darrin's sermon grew sharper:
"Some are born with the devil in their blood. It hides behind good deeds. Behind soft eyes."
They were preparing the rope.
She could feel it.
And then, as if summoned by instinct, she opened her door that morning to find a charm nailed to her wall—a crude doll with roots for limbs and a smile carved in dried sap.
A warning.
Or a promise.
She pulled it down. Didn't scream. Didn't curse.
Instead, she burned it in her hearth and swept the ash outside.
Later that day, she walked the edge of the village, watching faces she once trusted avoid her. Watching the sky turn low and gray.
And that's when she saw them.
Two strangers approaching from the northern trail.
The woman walked like someone who had survived something. The man beside her carried tension in his shoulders like a blade ready to be drawn.
And Calla knew—they weren't from here.
But they knew something.
She could see it in the way the woman looked at the town: like someone studying a familiar wound.
---
Elia felt it instantly.
The atmosphere of Dunlowe wasn't like Eldhollow's—where fear buzzed in corners and shadows.
Here, it stood in the open.
The chapel had new timber scaffolding. The gallows were already being built.
Thorne whispered, "They don't even pretend here."
Elia said nothing.
She watched as a young girl—no older than Mara—was pulled away from a woman selling teas at a booth. The woman smiled, but her hands trembled.
Elia turned and caught eyes with someone standing beneath the awning of an old brick apothecary.
A woman with wind-bitten cheeks, loose brown hair, and a stare sharp enough to cut glass.
Calla.
She didn't look afraid.
She looked like someone ready to ask the right question.
They met at dusk.
Calla had left a chalk mark on her doorframe—a healer's symbol. An invitation.
Elia and Thorne knocked.
"You're not from here," Calla said flatly.
"No," Elia said.
"But you know what's coming."
Elia pulled a scroll from her satchel and unrolled it across Calla's table. Names. Towns. The same pattern. The same cycle.
"Your village is next," Elia said. "They've already picked you."
Calla nodded once.
"I know."
Outside, a bell rang—slow and methodical.
A summons.
Not a trial.
A declaration.
Calla's face hardened.
"They're announcing a new law tonight," she said. "One that makes it easier to arrest without proof."
Elia rolled the scroll back up. "Then we need to act before they do."
Thorne pulled the shutters closed.
And for the first time in Dunlowe's long, silent unraveling—three people planned to stop the fire before it started.
---
To Be Continued...