It was then that she heard the drum.
Bang-dera-bang-dera-bang.
It vibrated her chest and set her hair on end.
Bang-dera-bang-dera-bang.
She followed the sound of it, and it grew louder. Was it a party? A street festival?
Bang-dera-bang-dera-bang.
There was a crowd of Dusters up ahead. Anoor weaved between them, searching for the source of the beat. Her arms loosened, ready to dance.
But no one was smiling. No one was dancing.
Someone was standing on a podium up ahead. A captain of the army. At least if the man who had been chasing her turned up now, she’d have someone to protect her.
The drum stopped, and the captain spoke.
“In the name of the four wardens, blessed by Anyme, our God in the Sky, we bring forth the accused.”
A young woman, no older than Anoor, was dragged through the crowd by two officers. She hung limp, like a knitted doll, her dark hair obscuring her face.
“And so we begin the trial of Gala of Nar-Ruta.”
Trial? This wasn’t how trials went. Normally they were held in the great veranda and overseen by the Warden of Truth’s guild members. Some went on for days.
“The accused was found consorting with a citizen outside of their blood color. A crime punishable by death. May Anyme be our guide. May Anyme absolve you of your sins.”
“Death?” Anoor whispered against her palm. “Death?”
The woman had made love to an Ember and she was being put to death? This was a menial crime, and warranted five lashes, maybe a week or two in jail. Not death.
That’s for Embers, a voice said in her mind. The truth of it sickened her.
There was a jail near the army barracks in the Keep; it was often empty. But Dusters weren’t allowed there. Anoor knew that the jail that housed Dusters and Ghostings had collapsed behind the Keep over a hundred years ago, bringing on reforms.
This didn’t look like reforms.
Anoor had thought the wooden monstrosity behind the captain was part of the stage. A scenic backdrop maybe. She made a horrified cry, turning a few heads, as the prisoner was brought onto the podium and strapped into four shackles, spreading her star-shaped. Her clothing was torn, as if her arrest had been violent, and dark blue bruises blossomed on scraps of skin.
Someone coughed. Such a mundane sound in the face of such violence.
The crowd parted, and a tall woman with a blue blazer walked to the stage. Her face was solemn, verging on bored. Her hand snaked out, and she pulled on a lever next to the rack where the prisoner was strapped.
Click.
Click.
Click.
The staccato of the wheel turning struck Anoor in the heart. And with every notch the victim’s body was stretched further. The jaws of the table opening wider, and wider…Anoor couldn’t look away, didn’t want to look.
The skin around her midriff grew taut, her cries turning into screams of pain. But Anoor could barely hear it over the silence of the crowd. Their silence was the most horrifying sound of all. They had seen this happen before.
Anoor vomited when her organs burst from her midriff. The Dusters around her stepped back with looks of disdain.
She had never seen so much blood. Blue, the blood of her people. In the Keep, Ember blood was manipulated to create power; here Duster blood was spilled to instill fear.
Power and fear. Red and blue.
It wasn’t only the gore that raised the bile to her throat, or the cries of the dying woman. It was the realization that if she won the Aktibar, she’d be the one turning the notches on every rack in every city, even if her hands weren’t moving the wheel.