The Crimson Moth
WHEN THE BLOOD GUARD suspected a girl of being a witch, they stripped off her clothes and searched her body for scars.
During the Sister Queens’ rule, witches wore their casting scars with pride, putting their power on display like jeweled rings and silk garments. Scars signaled wealth and rank, and most of all, magic.
Now they marked the hunted.
The last time Rune laid eyes on a witch’s scars was two years ago, after the witch queens were murdered in their beds and the blood of their council flowed in the streets. The Blood Guard seized control of the city, and the purgings began.
It was sunset when a surging crowd gathered at the center of the fog-soaked city. Rune stood among them, unable to unsee the thirsty, fevered looks around her. The people wanted vengeance. Wanted to gulp it down like a rich red wine.
The gulls shrieked overhead as the old witch stumbled up the steps to the purging platform. Unlike those who came after her, the crone neither wept nor begged for mercy, but met her fate with a stoic glare. The Blood Guard ripped one sleeve from her shirt, revealing the evidence of her crimes: patterned scars flowing down her left arm, etched like delicate white lacework against her golden skin.
Rune couldn’t help but find them beautiful. Once a sign of superior status, the scars were now impossible to hide, making the old woman easy prey for witch hunters.
It was why Rune never cut herself.
She couldn’t afford to let them find the scars.
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