He never wakes up screaming, because he didn’t scream. He never wakes with a start, because he wasn’t startled. Sometimes, he wakes up sweating, because he remembers the heat, and sometimes he can taste smoke when he draws his first conscious breath, but above all else, he never wakes up crying – 

– and, deep down, past the devotion and faith and furious righteousness, he hates himself for it.

—

They’re just children, cries the schoolmarm. They’re just children. Don’t do this. Don’t take them too. You don’t have to do this. They’re just children. 

It doesn’t matter, he hears himself say. Quiet yourself. This is for their own good. They’re ruined, now, and if we don’t cleanse the corruption, they’ll suffer longer. 

This way is better.

This way is better, he tells himself again, under his breath, turning away from the sobbing woman. They’ll take her to the pyres, too, in two days’ time, after they find out what was in her schoolhouse. He’ll remember the look of hatred on her face for the rest of his days. 

She shouldn’t have had those books. She shouldn’t have done what she did. He’ll remember the brutal pleasure he took in the way her infuriated expression broke into a despaired wail when he told her:

We would never have to take the children, if it wasn’t for you. You did this to them. You ruined them – with your lies, with your hideous magic. We saw what you brought forth from the dark. We saw how you tried to defend yourself. We know what you did.

Sometimes, he wakes up smiling, and he hates himself for that, too.

—

The first rule of the Witchfinders is that you, as a person, have ceased to matter; your soul belongs to Erastil. You are a tool of Erastil. You are the Good Hunter’s weapon. You are the head on His arrows, the blade on His sword, the flame on His torch. Your name has been hewn of its previous definition and given a new one: Witchfinder, living weapon.

They aren’t shy about whose name they go a-cutting, either, if they’re in a hurry.

He remembers the rain, pounding down around them; in a bid to bolster their ranks, they’d dragged children out of their homes and given them a conscription-cum-baptism, right there in the storm. He remembers sputtering his way through the prayer and the promise. He remembers the heavy, assuring hands on his shoulders and back as they spoke their answer.

Sometimes he wakes up sputtering, as though he’s choking on water, and he catches himself whispering the prayer.

—

In the sweet and solemn silence
Of a church upon the hill,
In the deep’ning blue of evening
When the air is cool, and still,
You’ll find him there a-sleeping,
There in the gentle dark,
A church inside a church inside
His hale and holy heart!
Say ay, our king is gentle!
Say ay, our king is kind,
Say ay, there goes our king
Where’er graces we will find.
In the crushing, crashing clamor
Of a bloody battlefield,
In the deepn’ing red of evening,
When the air is filled with steel,
You’ll find him there a-roaring,
His sword a grieving arc,
His eyes alive with wrath inside
His hale and holy heart!
Say ay, our king is righteous,
Say ay, our king is kind,
Say ay, there goes our king
Whe’er vic’try we will find!
—The Witchfinder’s March

—

They’d come back to his hometown of Pyke, a couple of years later, after crusading in the northeastern reaches. Lots of small villages like Pyke ‘long the southern coast, the commander had said. Perfect hiding holes for witches. Best to start a new campaign down that way, establish firmer control. Monasteries and pyres in every town.

He’d been consumed wholly by the faith, then; he remembered the utter surety with which he’d marched into the village, collar buttoned, armor whirring away beneath his coat, sword at the ready. 

There were witches here, they’d said, witches and warlocks, too, and it were time to root them out. It was the giant crystal pillar in the middle of town, they said, the one that had stood there since he could remember – it was doing something strange, and drawing demonic influences toward it. The town had to be cleansed.

The brand new monastery was built in a couple of days; the pyres were erected in an afternoon, and what prisoners weren’t going to be burned immediately were to be kept in the mines. The deacon had seized the place wholly within a week, and then the trials began.

He barely remembers what it was like to drag her out of their home, this frightened, teenaged girl who kept crying his name. Was it numbness? Was it love? Did he truly believe he was helping her? There wasn’t so much as a dull lump in his throat as he lashed her to the pyre; there wasn’t a quiver in his voice when he recited the Prayer and assured her: this way is better.

Sister. Sister. 

This way is better. 

—

Every now and then, his mind wrests itself from his faith and wanders into that memory again, when he’s asleep. 

He doesn’t wake up screaming, but he hears her scream in his dreams. He doesn’t wake up with a start, because his faith was sure and his mind was true. Sometimes, he wakes up sweating, because he remembers the heat of her fire and the taste of the smoke.

But what’s worst of all is that he never wakes up crying, because he never cried, and he hates himself for that.