---
By morning, the snow had turned to slush—wet, heavy, dragging at Elia's boots as she crossed the yard. The night with Thorne clung to her skin like warmth she couldn't scrub off.
But peace didn't last in Eldhollow.
It never did.
The first sign was the smoke.
She saw it rising just over the tree line—thin, black, wrong.
Then the shouting. Distant. Male voices, angry and fast.
She ran.
By the time she reached the square, it was already too late.
The Weller house was burning.
People stood around it like mourners at a graveside—silent, still, watching it fall in on itself. No one moved to put it out.
Agnes stood near the edge, fists clenched at her sides.
Elia came to her. "Who was inside?"
Agnes didn't look at her. "They say it was a warning. That Weller was 'associating with accused women.'"
Elia's mouth went dry.
"Thorne?" she asked.
Agnes finally turned to her. "They came for him at dawn. Said he was hiding a fugitive in his father's shed. He's being held at the chapel."
Elia's heart dropped.
"And Mara?"
"Still at your house. I sent her to the cellar. But they'll be back."
Elia didn't hesitate.
She turned and ran.
Back at Thornbrook, Mara was curled in the cellar corner, blanket around her shoulders, her eyes far away.
Elia crouched beside her. "We have to leave."
Mara didn't blink. "They're going to hang him."
Elia's stomach twisted. "Not if I stop them."
"You can't stop them. But you can choose who you save."
Elia stared at her sister.
"You saw something again."
Mara nodded slowly."I saw a tree with no leaves. You were beneath it. But you weren't afraid."
"What else?"
The girl hesitated. "You were wearing white."
Elia didn't ask what that meant.
She already knew.
She packed quickly—just a satchel with dried herbs, a knife, a small pouch of coin. She left the rest. There was no point in weighing down the dying.
She took Mara by the hand and led her out the back, through the orchard, down the slope toward the river path.
They would hide Mara. Then Elia would go back—for Thorne.
For love.
For truth.
Or for vengeance.
Maybe all three.
In the chapel, Thorne sat chained at the wrist to a rusted post, his lip split, one eye swollen.
Reverend Halden stood across from him, arms folded.
"You broke the law," he said calmly.
"I broke your illusion," Thorne rasped.
"You'll confess tomorrow," Halden continued, "and the council will grant mercy."
"I won't lie."
"You already did. Years ago. When you saw what you saw and said nothing."
Thorne looked up. "And you? What lies keep you clean?"
The reverend didn't answer.
Instead, he stepped closer and said: "You chose her. Let's see if she chooses you."
He turned and left.
Thorne leaned back against the wall and closed his eyes.
He didn't pray.
He waited.
And somewhere in the woods, beneath a sky the color of blood and ash, Elia Thornbrook walked with a knife at her hip and fire in her chest.
Tomorrow, they would call her wicked.
Tonight, she would become something worse.
The chapel bell didn't ring at sunset.
It always did. For evening prayer. For curfew. For control.
But tonight, it stayed silent—because the council was meeting.
Elia stood beneath the elder tree behind the chapel, listening. A warm wind stirred the air, rustling the leaves like whispering ghosts.
Mara was safe now, hidden with the Carvers two villages west. But safety was temporary. They'd come for her eventually.
And Elia wouldn't let her sister carry her name like a noose.
She waited until the last of the horses were tied and lanterns lit within the hall before moving.
The council chamber sat behind the chapel—small, stone, sanctified by tradition more than truth.
She slipped in through the back, through a narrow window whose frame she'd memorized years ago while playing tag with the Weller boys.
She crept along the rafters.
Seven men and women sat at the table below, with parchments, seal wax, and a cracked ledger open wide.
"…no need for trial if the testimony is secured," said Reverend Halden.
"The boy is still stubborn," said Pike. "Give him another night with no food. He'll break."
Elia froze.
They were talking about Thorne.
Thatcher Wren cleared his throat. "We've condemned on less."
Myles Ketter leaned forward. "We shouldn't be condemning at all without a vote."
"There was a vote," Halden said coldly.
"No," Myles snapped. "There was a meeting. Not a vote."
Wren shifted in his seat. "We can re-vote in the morning. For the record."
Elia's eyes locked on the ledger—its spine cracked, pages curling at the corners. The votes. The secrets. All there.
She climbed down silently, dropping into the supply closet at the rear of the chamber.
They didn't hear her over the argument.
She opened the ledger.
And found her name.
Elia Thornbrook – Guilty (5/7)
The vote had already been cast. Not for accusation. For execution.
She stared at the five marks: Halden, Pike, Wren, Amsel, and Hale Weller—before he died.
Two abstained: Edith Corven. Myles Ketter.
Her hands shook as she flipped through the pages. Dozens of names. Some crossed out. Some listed as "burned." Some as "disappeared."
And then a name she hadn't seen in years:
Annalise Thornbrook – 1683
Her aunt.
Dead before Elia was born.
Listed under "self-slain."
And yet… someone had scrawled a note beside her name, long after the ink dried:
She never jumped. She was pushed. – E.C.
Elia shut the book, her chest tight.
Back outside, the wind had picked up.
She moved quickly, back through the orchard path, heart pounding.
Not just for Thorne now.
Not even just for Mara.
This was deeper.
The council didn't hunt witches.
They hunted those who remembered.
---
The chapel walls sweated in the cold. Stone didn't warm.
Thorne sat with his back to the wooden post, wrists bound by iron rings so old they smelled like blood even when clean. The chain bit into his skin every time he shifted. So he learned not to move.
At first, they came to question him.
Then to beat him.
Now they just left him here—to think.
But all he thought of was her.
Elia's hands, calloused but gentle, the way she cradled Mara's fevered head that first night. Her laugh when she let herself forget. The way she kissed like she was starving, like nothing was guaranteed.
Because it wasn't.
Not here.
Not in Eldhollow.
He'd loved her long before he admitted it—to himself, to her, to anyone. Back when she was just the stubborn midwife's niece, the girl who stole books from his father's shelf when she thought no one noticed.
He noticed.
He always noticed her.
"Still haven't confessed?"
The voice was Reverend Halden's. Cold and clean like a blade left in snow.
Thorne didn't look up.
"No need," he said. "You already wrote the ending."
Halden stepped into view, hands folded behind his back.
"You disappoint me, Thorne."
"That makes two of us."
Halden tilted his head. "You were supposed to be a leader. Like your father. Like me"
"My father was a coward who used scripture to mask silence."
That struck. Halden's eyes narrowed.
"You know why we hang the guilty, don't you?"
"To make the rest obedient."
"To make the rest survive," Halden said. "Without order, there is nothing."
"Order built on burning the wrong people isn't order. It's fear in a crown."
The reverend didn't respond. Instead, he walked to the small altar against the far wall and knelt to adjust something.
Thorne leaned forward, straining to see.
A rope.
Freshly knotted. Thick. Waiting.
Halden smiled faintly. "The vote has passed. You swing tomorrow."
Thorne's mouth was dry. But his voice stayed steady.
"Elia won't let that happen."
Halden turned. "She won't even get the chance."
That night, as the fire burned low and the footsteps above faded, Thorne lay back and let himself feel it:
The regret.The love.The want.
He pictured her face—bruised with worry but defiant. The way she pressed her forehead to his, like she was trying to memorize the shape of his breath.
He whispered her name aloud, as if the stones could carry it to her in the dark.
"Elia…"
Then he closed his eyes.
If this was the last night he had, he would not waste it in fear.
He would dream of her.
Of the orchard in summer. Of her hand in his. Of a world where love wasn't treason.
---
The wind was sharp the next morning, cutting through the branches of Eldhollow's bare trees like a whispered warning.
Elia moved with purpose through the back lanes of the village, her hood pulled low, the stolen ledger hidden in a cloth satchel pressed against her ribs.
Inside it: names, false votes, her own death sentence.And a message scribbled beside a name she had never dared to speak aloud.
Annalise Thornbrook – She never jumped. She was pushed. – E.C.
Edith Corven.
The oldest midwife in the Hollow.
She had helped deliver Elia. She had delivered most of the council's children. She was quiet, calculating. Never took sides.
But now Elia needed her to speak.
She found her in the garden behind her cottage, sleeves rolled to the elbow, dirt under her nails, digging.
"Looking for something?" Elia asked softly.
Edith didn't flinch.
"Not looking," the old woman said. "Burying."
Elia stepped forward. "I need to talk to you."
"I know." Edith rose, brushing soil from her apron. "I expected you last night."
They went inside, where the air was warm and smelled faintly of sage.
Elia placed the ledger on the table.
Edith stared at it for a long time before she spoke.
"That book's been chained in Reverend Halden's office for twenty years. You're lucky you still have your hands."
"I need to know what happened to her," Elia said. "To Annalise."
Edith sat down.
"I was there," she said. "I saw the bruises on her neck. She never jumped from the cliffs. She was dragged there."
"By who?"
Edith didn't answer immediately. She stared into the hearth, eyes glossy with something unspoken.
"She was too clever," Edith said finally. "Too bold. She questioned the vote counts. Asked how a girl accused on Monday could be sentenced by Sunday without a hearing."
"She was trying to stop it?"
"She was trying to expose it. And she nearly did. But Halden… he was younger then. Hungrier. He claimed she'd been seeing visions, hearing voices. Said she confessed."
"She didn't."
"No," Edith said. "But I was afraid. I told myself I couldn't do anything. That silence was protection."
"Was it?"
Edith looked at her. "No. Silence is just slow dying."
Elia's jaw clenched. "They've already sentenced me."
"I know."
"And Thorne."
Edith looked down.
"He's not like his father," Elia said. "He's not one of them. He fought to protect Mara. He fought to protect me."
Edith's voice was gentle. "You love him."
Elia hesitated.
But she nodded.
"Yes."
The old woman rose, went to a drawer, and pulled out a thick bundle of parchment.
"What's this?"
"The real vote records. Hidden copies I kept. Every false condemnation, every bribe. Enough to bring half the council down."
Elia stared at them.
"You kept them all this time?"
"I was waiting for someone who might finish what Annalise started."
Outside, the bell finally rang.
Once.
Twice.
Then again.
The rhythm unmistakable.
The Hanging Bell.
Elia felt something drop inside her. "They're moving early."
"You have hours at best," Edith said. "If you run, take the records. They can burn the church, but not the truth."
"I'm not running," Elia whispered.
"Then you need a plan."
"I have one," she said.
But her voice cracked.
Because plans meant nothing if Thorne died before she could stop it.
She left the cottage with the records hidden beneath her cloak, her pulse hammering in her throat.
As the townsfolk gathered toward the square, Elia turned in the opposite direction—toward the chapel, toward the boy she wasn't supposed to love, toward the edge of a reckoning she could no longer avoid.
---
To Be Continued...