Chương 237: 10.4

As the noon day sun reached its zenith Jewel began to notice the signs. Spiraling in curling loops of faux fire, a ritual was building. Not intentionally, not in any singular union. But in furtive spurts and starts they spun out briefly into the cold winter air. Flailing out in a thousand rhythms from just as many roofs and houses. Spilling from the hearts of those revelers in the streets around her. More flinging their lives into the air then giving a concerted effort to bind and weave something.

The wildness of the ritual welled up in the wall fort's training yard. Amidst the festival tents, braziers and pastie peddlers. But more so it slowly built up over the streets of the city itself. It hung over the bridges and docks. It threw itself against the winter winds that still blew in spite of the sun's warmth. Kaeketeh was humming with ever growing power in a way that Rochford never had. Uncoordinated, without union, but breathing, swinging, moving by a hundred tempos and in its thousands of heart beats.

And all through the day it had been building. Seeping in with her every breath, sliding down her throat, flowing up like heat into her wings and scales. It made her feel light. Saturated and fed while it mingled with her own wyrmflame in a way that had never happened before. Jewel could barely keep track of the crowds by the time she was called to speak for the day. But the way that the air was humming with it she found emotion and intent building in her throat anyway.

The air was soaking in a veritable uncoordinated fury. There was joy in the people. But also a burning heat. A rage that boiled like water in a pot over a too hot fire. Restrained behind smiles and deep cupped indulgence. But that only smothered the yet unspilled scream of relief buzzing in the air. All of it was nearly drowning Jewel but instead of choking her fire, it burned all the brighter in her flame. Whether the searing was in faux flame or literal scent Jewel could not even quite say anymore.

All she knew was that the festival air was filling her up like nothing ever had before. Jewel had planned a speech, she was meant to welcome and promise her vigil over winter, acknowledge and put at ease the people. But the spirit of the city already drunk and dripping with its furious revelry had been slipping into her every breath since breakfast. Maybe even longer. At noon she had only started to notice. But it was all rushing through her in a torrent now and she could barely even see or think for it.

And now it was suddenly being released as words foreign and familiar. It echoed and mirrored her own pain, her frustration. All the labor she and her household put in. In the simmering rage for those that sought to bring pain undeserved. Yet there was so much more. She spoke but the words barely felt like her own." Kaeketeh, My city, you have suffered long in a fear you did not deserve. You have huddled in the dark." Her voice was not at all restrained. The stones rumbled, the icicles rang sharply with her tone.

She was speaking with the fullness of her entire throat, she could feel and hear it echoing back from the bones and hearts of those in the square. It was carried into the air far beyond. It should have been everything that was unlike Jewel. All she strained to not be. Beastly and wrong. But despite all its depth and resonance it still was hers. It still was the voice of a lady, a Countess. It was not, however, the voice of a girl.

Jewel spoke with a fullness of womanhood in her tone she had not even realized could exist. This book is hosted on another platform. Read the official version and support the author's work." You have been ruled by fear, for your daughters, for your mothers, for your sisters. I have seen it in your streets, I have felt it in your river's waters." She gave a deep, audible inhale, then snorted in a booming hoot that no man or beast without a throat and snout as voluminous as Jewel's could match."

I heard it in your hearts, I smelled it on your breaths. Kaeketeh, My City, you have been shackled by your fear." The people in the square were frozen. They could not even shiver. But Jewel could feel the fire they had frivolously spent like a thick cloud around them. It touched her flame and through it she touched theirs. Her words blew with a hot wind and it curdled and twisted and rode the lines of spurious, faltering sparks that their hearts had offered. Flew along and into them.

She could feel the air itself like she felt the flesh of Gem. She was in their chests and throats as they breathed." You have been owned by your fear. It has dragged your fingers around knives, it has pulled blades into the flesh of your family. The rule of fear has pushed down your boots onto the throats of your fellows." Their eyes were on Jewel, all of them, she could feel their ears drinking at her words as much as Gem's but the current, the anger, the hate, the pain of the city.

Fury and rage wrapped in revelry and joy. Kaeketeh was nothing like Rochford. Rochford was practically a family compared to the city of Kaeketeh. This festering tomb of living strangers. This slaughterhouse for Bathory's larder. A teeming multitude of prisoners trapped together, chained and walled in by a terror older than Jewel. Fear and pain so deep it was all they could do to push back the dark each year." But you are free Kaeketeh. That which you fear is gone, The Blood Countess Bathory is dead."

Jewel should have offered reverence for the passed spirit. But the rush of the city and its heady waves of hate mingled in her own boiling need to release. All that had been unsaid burned beyond even a pause to consider saying such right off her tongue. It could barely flicker in her mind before being barreled over by the words she had wanted to scream from the sky to all the city for seasons!" But it was not by my word, claw, tooth or breath that she was finished!"

Captive to her every word, stilled in early evening light, just before the sun dipped past and behind the first pillar of the western firmament. They could not help but hear Jewel now. They had to listen. The satisfaction of finally being sure they would understand and know the truth made her scales shiver. All the criers, all the declarations before. No one believed her. And why should they?! The criers had been the mouths of the Blood Countess Bathory!

But she had Kaeketeh held as assuredly and at attention as if it was somehow a beast in her jaws. She could feel it. They had to hear her. But the roiling fire inside her pushed on, the first crack dragging more words." It was by your own hands! It was by the will of Kaeketeh that the bloody countess was slain! By the act of a few who had been bent but unbroken under her chains of fear." The shock and surprise mostly seemed to befuddle. They did not yet understand. But Jewel could make them see."

It was by the act of a few guilty accomplices of the bloody countess that your fear was slain. By those that acted as her hands in the slaughter of Kaeketeh's daughters that she met her end." That finally caught their attention. Faces turned to eye widened shock, others glared. But she could still feel it, the city was practically resting on her tongue." I have judged and sentenced them for their part in her reign. But it is still by the waifs that you were delivered this year from your chains."

The sun was dipping behind the pillar of the firmament. Its shadow began to sweep towards the city. When the darkness fell so would begin the longest night. An early evening and a start to the revelry. It was important. Jewel still felt the rush building, getting stronger. It was chaos and fury. A wildfire of ephemeral passion brimming over in the city, her city." Rejoice Kaeketeh!"

The proclamation almost felt like thunder blooming in Jewel's throat for how it snapped in the burgeoning swell of fauxfire in the square of the wall fortress." Exult and be merry at last, for you are finally free!" She arched back her neck, this had not been the plan but there was too much wyrmflame filling up her body, trying to force its way into her throat. The last words breaking free even as white hot power was spilling from her lips, barely contained behind her teeth." The Blood Countess is Dead!"

And then as the sun fully slipped behind the western pillar of the heavens and night fell she released a screaming torrent of anguish into the sky. A white hot column of purest wyrmflame. Carrying her own raging anguish and then dragging up the roiling hate and misery of decades of terror up and out of the city. Jewel could feel how the rush of it pulled on Kaeketeh's hearts and voices. A roar of thousands answering her own call." Long Live the Shining Wyrm!"