The cold knife touches my back. It shocks me into action, and I leap away.
Or I try to.
But everything… stops. My legs stop. My arms stop. I don’t know what’s happening to me. All I know is that I’m desperate for my body to move, and it’s not going anywhere. I try to scream, but my throat is squeezed shut.
Then my eyes focus on the woman in front of me.
It’s the watercrea. She’s using her magic on me. She’s taken control of my blood.
Something is roaring in my ears, but over the noise, I hear the snick of the guard’s knife cutting into my gown and my corset. He starts to wrestle them off.
I try to look away from the watercrea, but I can’t. She’s even taken control of my eyes.
I hear my clothes hitting the floor. I feel the cold air on my skin, and then the guard is cutting off my underpants. They fall away, and nearby, Ale’s mamma stifles a gasp. I know exactly what she’s seeing. I know what they’re all seeing.
The mark on my hip doesn’t look like much. It’s just a small red smudge. But to the people of Occhia, it’s everything.
“Quickly,” the watercrea says. “Before it spreads.”
No. It’s not going to spread. They have to let me go. They have to let me explain.
The guard slides off the gold engagement ring I’ve been wearing since I could fit it on my finger. He tries to pull the crown of roses from my head, but Paola pinned it within an inch of her life, and it doesn’t budge. A moment later, I feel his knife sawing through my hair, and clumps are ghosting down my back.
He’s ruining my hair. He’s not allowed to do that.
And then my feet aren’t on the floor anymore. They slide out of my silk slippers as I hover a breath above the carpet, and I’m gliding down the aisle toward the watercrea.
They say the watercrea’s power comes from her eyes. As I feel myself drift past her and continue toward the back of the cathedral, I know her gaze is following me.
It feels like nobody in this whole huge room is breathing. I’m not sure if I’m breathing. I can’t see Ale or my family and I can’t blink and all I know is that everything is happening too quickly and too quietly.
It’s not like I haven’t had nightmares about this. But the nightmares were different. In the nightmares, I could talk. I could fight. I was dragged to the tower kicking and screaming, defiant and alive.
But I’m already at the double doors of the cathedral. There are guards on either side of me, pushing them open, and we’re descending into the night.
The veil overhead is inky black. The guards swarm around me with glowing red lanterns, their boots heavy on the cobblestone, and I just keep gliding along against my will. We round the corner of the cathedral, and when we reach the back, the watercrea’s tower is there, waiting. Its spike of a roof looks like it’s about to poke right through the veil. It’s the only building in Occhia that’s taller than the cathedral.
I’ve never been this close to it. The closer we get, the less real the black stone walls look.
This is where people with omens on their skin go. This is where people with omens die. I know that.
But not me. They’re not just going to put me in here. Not on my wedding day. They can’t pull me from the altar and leave a pile of ruined clothes where I used to be. The whole city gathered there for me. They want me there. They need me there.
The inside of the tower is pitch-black and quiet, and the heavy, sweet smell in the air fills up the back of my throat. Blood. The blood of dying people. I know the watercrea is somewhere behind me, because I’m floating up the narrow spiral stairs. We pass a hole in the wall, then another, then another, then so many I lose track. They all have bars over them.
Finally, we slow to a stop. A guard opens the door of the nearest cell with a creak, and I feel myself climbing obediently into the dark, even as everything inside me screams in protest. It’s barely big enough to hold me, but I turn around and lie down on my back on the freezing stone. The shadowy form of the watercrea leans over me. She smells like rosy perfume.
Something pricks me in the neck. A needle. So she can drain my blood. So she can turn it to water, and everyone else in Occhia can drink it while I wither away.
The cell door closes and locks.
And the magic is gone. I can move again.
I rip out the needle without even thinking. I ignore the hot blood that runs down my fingers and turn over to grab the bars. I press my face to them and peer out at the black staircase.
The guards and the watercrea have disappeared. It’s so quiet.
“Wait!” I scream, and it echoes in the stairwell. “I demand an audience!”
Silence.
“Hello?” I say, as imperiously as I can.
Nothing.
There’s no reason to panic. There’s no reason to let her think I’m afraid, because I’m not. I’m not afraid, and I’m not weak, and I’m not about to die.
This isn’t going to happen. Not to me.
I was seven years old, and Paola was undressing me for bed. More accurately, Paola was attempting to undress me for bed while repeatedly cursing my existence. I slithered out of her arms and informed her that I wasn’t cooperating until she brought me another hot chocolate, which forced her to chase me around in a very undignified manner. I chucked my dolls at her feet and tipped a burning candle onto the carpet, but I had the disadvantage of tiny legs, so eventually, I lost. She grabbed me and started to wrestle me out of my clothes.
And then I felt a strange pressure on my hip. It was quick but insistent. Like an invisible finger had reached down and poked me. My gown was already off, and I reached for my underpants and pulled them aside to look at the red smudge that had just made its home on my skin. It was like a small, bloody wound. The moment Paola realized what was happening, she stopped everything and rubbed it, like it was merely dirt. But it didn’t budge.
I knew exactly what it meant. Everybody says the omens are put onto our skin by the hand of God. One day, out of nowhere, a small red mark shows up on our body. In a matter of hours, they spread across our skin, and when our body is completely covered, we disappear. And that’s the end.
Some people make it well into their thirties before their first omen appears. Some people get them when they’re only children. Nobody can explain why. They say it’s God’s decision. We’re born from the veil that he created, and when our time is up, the veil takes us back. It’s nothing to be afraid of. It’s just the way things are.
The moment an Occhian discovers their first omen, they turn themselves in to the watercrea. That’s the honorable way to die. Nobody would ever dare to hide their omens. The moment we know we’re dying, we have to give up our blood, or it will disappear along with the rest of us. The city needs every drop it can get, and running from that would be selfish and shameful. It would be sacrilege.
When they feel the first sign of death touch their skin, dukes run out in the middle of Parliament meetings and priests stop in the middle of sermons. There may be a lot of powerful men in Occhia, but nobody is more powerful than their omens. Nobody is more powerful than the watercrea.
I knew exactly what the mark on my hip meant. Death was coming for me. It was time to go. But I didn’t move. I just stared at Paola, and she stared at me.