Hexed

Look into my mind, please, look into my thoughts and you will see.”
    I was naked down to my waist, my arms stretched between two posts, manacled with iron that was lined just enough so that pain seeped through from the metal but not the actual burns. My hair had been draped over my shoulder, spilling strands down to coil at my knees. I had never felt so vulnerable, so exposed or ashamed. I wanted to wrap my hands in front of my body, to cover myself, to curl in a ball weeping, but the manacles prevented all of those.
    “Pirkitta, please. Tell us why you did this thing?”
    “I don’t know if I did! I have no memory. Please stop . . .”
    The Priestess-Mother bit her lip and I saw blood swell, trickling down the side of her mouth. “My child. This is the way—there must be tradition. If you won’t tell us the truth, then we have to administer punishment. And the punishment must fit the crime.”
    As she backed away, I gazed up into her eyes. She was old, old past counting, and I had been chosen to take her place. I knew now that would never happen. There would be no future for me here, if anywhere. I would die here, at the hands of those who believed I’d killed my sweet Vikkommin.
    There was no tomorrow. No yesterday. Only today and the looming pain waiting to descend.
    And then the lash fell, burning with white agony. I managed to keep from screaming the first time. The flames of ice licked at me, magical fire that hurt worse than the whip itself. Cold fire, the fire of deep ice, leaving marks but no wounds. Leaving no lasting damage but pain—and the memory of that pain—beyond what any normal lash could ever hope to achieve.
    The second strike. The pain bit deeper, into my body and blood.
    The third strike , and the pain wormed into my soul, jolting like lightning.
    The fourth strike , and everything began to spin, the world falling away as the pain flayed apart my soul, opened me up, let every secret I had in the world come spilling out into the minds of my torturers. I could feel them poring over my innermost thoughts, my memories—everything I’d heard, seen, done, including my most private moments. Melting from the shame of exposure as well as the pain of the lash, I tried to sink to the floor, but the manacles held me fast in their iron grasp.
    And on the fifth strike, the exquisite pain became all there was in the world, and I started to scream. And I went right on screaming until the lashes had counted to thirty.
    “We could not find the truth,” the Priestess-Mother said, staring down at my prone form on the floor. “It is cloaked so deeply in your psyche that we have no hope of ever knowing. We cannot allow you to stay in the temple, but neither can we punish you for his death if we don’t know for certain you’re guilty.”
    I sobbed, all my tears long shed but the pain unending. Ishonar would stay in my system for days, tearing at me every time I moved. “Please, don’t send me away. I loved Vikkommin. Just send me to him now if you’re going to get rid of me. Please, please just kill me.”
    The Priestess-Mother ignored me. “You are excommunicated from the Temple of Undutar, turned away as pariah. You are stripped of your title, no more the Ar’jant d’tel. You are stripped of the mightiest of your powers.”
    And a new hell rushed through me, a great hand tearing power and spells out of me like it might rip weeds from a garden. The pain sent me into a convulsion, and next I knew, I was on the steps of the temple, and the Priestess-Mother stood there with shears and my hair in her hand.
    “Pirkitta, as our last punishment, we take away your power to bear children and the symbol of your power as a woman. You shall never carry a child to term until you can find out what happened to Vikkommin and put to right what went wrong. You may grow your hair back, but it will never be the braid you were born with.” Holding out the shears, she clipped off my hair at the nape of my neck.
    I screamed, but she tossed the strands onto a fire and as the smell of burning hair filtered through my nostrils, the heavy doors swung shut and I lay sobbing for what seemed like hours.
    Something inside took hold—an anger, a fury, a desire for revenge and to prove them wrong. I forced myself to my feet, and, still in agony from the ishonar and having my powers stripped, I trudged to the trail leading down to the portals. A voice calling my name on the wind led me forward, and I followed it until I