Jeremiah did not answer, and Grandmother took this as confirmation of his guilt.
“Thank God the captain’s men stopped you before you ruined us,” she said. “Exposing our secrets is one of the highest acts of betrayal you could commit. Why? Why would you do such a thing?”
Bloody saliva oozed from Jeremiah’s mouth. Many of his teeth had been smashed during the interrogation. It took him a few moments to get any words out, and when they came, they were a wet whisper. “I do not believe. I do not believe in the destiny of Second Empire.”
Grandmother schooled herself to calmness, though his words made her want to cry. She’d known Jeremiah since he was a toddler, had taught him with the other children in the ways of the empire, and she loved him as she loved all the others.
Before she could speak, he continued, “I like…like my life in Sacoridia. Do not need empire.”
Grandmother wanted to cover her ears at his words, but she could not deny the truth of his betrayal. It had happened to others, other descendents of Arcosia who adapted to life as Sacoridians so well they gave up on the empire, turned their backs on it. Whole sects had faded away; others had watered down bloodlines so much by marrying outside the society they were shunned. Those of the blood who turned away but did not seem likely to expose Second Empire were left alone in the hope they would return to the fold. Others, like Jeremiah, who had actively tried to betray them, were dealt with.
“You would turn away from your heritage and all it means?” She shook her head in disbelief and he did not deny her accusation. “You would have destroyed us—your family, your neighbors, your kin.”
“Just want to farm,” Jeremiah said. “Didn’t like leaving my land. Have peace. Nothing wrong with Sacoridia. Don’t need empire.”
Grandmother closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “You know what this means, Jeremiah?”
“I do.”
Yes, he would know. Every one of them knew the consequences of betrayal. Second Empire had remained hidden for so long because of the doctrine of secrecy it adhered to. Punishment against transgressors was harsh to protect that secret.
“Jeremiah,” she said, “I have no choice but to pronounce you a traitor.”
He did not protest, he did not say a word.
“Was anyone else involved in this heresy?” she asked the captain.
“The king’s men he talked to were ambushed and killed,” the captain replied. “There was no one else. We were thorough in our questioning.”
She nodded. The evidence of their thoroughness sat before her. “You have brought this upon yourself,” she told Jeremiah.
He bowed his head, accepting his doom.
Grandmother beckoned Lala forward and took her basket of yarn from the girl. “Now be a good girl and go fetch my bowl. You know the one.”
Lala nodded and trotted off.
Grandmother gazed into her basket at her yarn. There were skeins dyed deep red, indigo, and an earthy brown, and a small ball of sky blue. She chose the red, drawing out a strand about the length of her arm, and cut it with a sharp little knife that hung from her waist. She set the basket aside.
Jeremiah rocked back and forth at her feet, mumbling prayers to God. Even if he betrayed his people, at least he had not assimilated so far that he had abandoned the one true God in favor of the multitudes the heathen Sacoridians worshipped.
From then on she ignored Jeremiah and concentrated on the strand of yarn, which she started tying into knots. Intricate knots, knots that had been taught to her by her mother, as her mother’s mother had taught, and down the maternal line of her family through the millennia. Only since summer, however, had she been able to call the true power to the knots.
As Grandmother worked, sparks flew from her fingers, though they did not ignite the yarn. Cook fires around the encampment dwindled and sputtered as though the life had been sucked from them.
“Feed the fires,” she instructed Captain Immerez. She barely registered him passing the order along to his subordinates.
With each loop and tug of the yarn she worked the art, speaking words of power that were Arcosian in origin, but not of the Arcosian language. She bound the power as she tightened each knot.
The energy of the cook fires flowed through her and into the knots. She did not see red yarn woven about her fingers, but a golden strand of flame. It did not burn her.
When she finished, she held in her hands what looked a mass of snarled red yarn to those not gifted with the art. To Grandmother, it was a crown of fire. She placed it on Jeremiah’s head.
“Safir!” she commanded, and it blazed.
There were easier, more direct ways to execute traitors, it was true, but this was uniquely Arcosian, and thus fitting. The annals of her people told of the crown of fire as one form of punishing a traitor. It also provided a graphic example to others who might harbor secret thoughts of rebellion. They could not help but recognize her power and authority when they witnessed nothing more than a harmless bit of yarn bring about an excruciating death.
Jeremiah’s hair smoldered and crackled, then burned away. The yarn sank into his skull, greedily feeding on flesh to fuel its flame of power. When Jeremiah began screaming, the captain stuffed a rag into his mouth that a soldier had been using to oil his sword.
Smoke rose from Jeremiah’s head and his body spasmed, his back arching. The skin of his face and skull blackened and bubbled with blisters as the flames burned from the inside out. With a final muffled scream, Jeremiah heaved over and died.