“Ill-omened harlot!”

“You’re a curse upon us!”

“Never should have been born!”

A tidal wave of hatred and scorn crashed over Solona as she was dragged out towards the village green, folk she’d once called family and friends and neighbours unleashing all their pent-up rage against the unlucky young maiden, helpless green eyes staring out into the mob for any hint of sympathy and finding none. For generations, the people of Southglen had suffered countless tragedies and disappointments, their lives ever marked by bitter, galling failure, and now at last they had a target for their ire in the beautiful alchemist being dragged through their midst, bound and gagged and helpless. A rotten pear flew from out of the press, splattering her olive skin and sky-blue dress with filth, and from past the wooden bit occupying her mouth came a moan of pure despair. Gods, don’t let this happen! Help me! Please, someone help me!

Throughout all the Empire, there were few places as wretched, hopeless, or just plain unlucky, as Southglen. Local legend held that the village had been established at the site of a great battle, a titanic clash that saw thousands dead, with the survivors choosing to remain and settle on the land they’d fought so hard for. Perhaps it was the stain of that violence that had cursed the settlement from that day forth, or perhaps the ghosts of the slain worked their vile will form beyond the grave to harry the fortunes of the living, but whatever the reason, Southglen had become a place of misery, especially in these last few years. More often than not, the only harvest its inhabitants reaped was starvation as crops failed from strange blights, unseasonable weather, or simply failing to sprout at all. Men awoke in the prime of health only to collapse dead before sunset from sudden agues that could not be identified, much less cured, while furious storms sprang to life on cloudless days to sweep away villagers and visitors alike from the surrounding high passes, never to be seen again. More disasters followed as herds sickened and the wells became foul and the peddlers ceased to trade, and still came fresh miseries. Every settlement in the Empire experienced its share of misfortune, but this… this was more than being unlucky. Southglen was cursed, and only by shriving themselves of their sins could they hope to reverse the disasters that had befallen them.

Or so Father Tomen proclaimed. He was a travelling preacher, one of the many iterant rabble-rousers who plied the roads and byways of the Empire spreading their teachings, a gaunt, humourless scarecrow of a man in ragged grey robes who’d walked into Southglen’s tavern to proclaim its inhabitants cursed by their own vices. There was no such thing as being unlucky, he’d insisted the next morning in a fiery sermon upon the village green with the entire population in attendance. “There is only sin, and the consequences thereof!” he railed with an astonishing vigor for a man his age, face red with fury, voice ringing out louder than thunder in a storm. “Sin wrought by witches, by harlots, by disobedience, by falsehood! You must purge these evils from your midst and cleanse yourself white as snow, or suffer the wrath of the gods forevermore!”

His rantings found an audience. Within a week, the foundation was being laid for a new temple that Father Tomen might call home, fields going untilled and chores forgotten in the village’s haste to erect the first timbers. Within a fortnight, the Mayor and the rest of the Village Council were removed from power, exiled or locked in the town’s jail, each man condemned by the preacher and dealt with by a population desperate to cleanse themselves of their misfortunes at any cost.

Three days later, they came for Solona.

“Foreign bitch!”

“Kill her! In the name of the gods, kill her!”

“I knew she was wicked, I always knew it!”

In hindsight, she should have expected it, for she’d always been different than the rest of the villagers. She’d been born a day’s ride from the capital, a place as distant as the moon for the people of Southglen, and had travelled extensively when most of the villagers had stepped foot outside the valley, never mind seen the rest of the Empire. She was an avid reader when most lacked their letters, forward-thinking when her neighbours stubbornly refused to change, and at twenty-five, was both unmarried and showed little interest in finding a husband, despite both her beauty and numerous offers for her hand. All that made her a convenient target. Or perhaps she was merely unlucky.

It didn’t matter now. She’d been closing up her alchemist’s shop after another frustrating day without a single customer when a half-dozen of the preacher’s most fanatical supporters stormed in bearing ropes and clubs, the latter used to great effect as they laid waste to her home and business. Even as they set about smashing every vial and consigning every reagent and textbook to the flames, more still pinned her to the wooden floor and bound her fast, cruel cords keeping her arms secured behind her back, more digging tight into her ankles and leaving her unable to flee, a final length bound tight beneath her considerable breasts. Now, there she was, the unlucky scapegoat for all their ills, all the times she’d cured their aliments or tended to their children utterly forgotten in their paranoid frenzy, and she screamed into the bit gag forced between her teeth as grubby hands reached out to tear at her dress and long red hair, her muffled protests lost beneath the ear-splitting noise of the mob. “Mmmmppgghhh! MMMMPPGGGGHHH!”

“Bring her forward!” Father Tomen’s voice cut through the din, and Solona was hauled up to face him, her futile struggles earning her nothing but some harsh slaps on the rump for her trouble. “This is the viper in your midst, good folk! The sinful, subversive, selfish slut at the root of your troubles. What punishment does she deserve for her foulness?!”

“Death!” Someone spat from amongst the crowd, and within moments, all of Southglen had taken up the chant. “Death! Death! Death!”

“Mmmmppggghh!” screamed Solona. The terror was overwhelming now, shapely figure straining against her bonds and getting nowhere. Then the crowd parted enough for her to see the great wooden stake driven into the centre of the village green, bundles of wood stacked about its base, and she thrashed and bucked like some caged animal, the stout grips of her captors holding her fast. “MMMMPPPPPGGGHH! NNNNGGGHH!”

“Do you wish to be free of your misfortune?! Would you make being unlucky a thing of the past?! Then consign the impure to the flames, and be redeemed!”