Spread Me on Your Cross

She could barely breathe. All of this has been too much.

She would usually insist on diving straight into the uncertainty and wonders of a dark abyss, but even as a born risk taker, this became too dark for even her to bear.

Take note that wherever there are a potent number of fears involved, the darkness grows stronger. Within the average human, a great number of fears lurk on the inside. The more you feed them, the more they are willing to destroy you.

You can bet that she was getting bombarded inside of her energy drained body.

Even though her skillfulness in psychological abilities would vary and reach impressive heights, she wasn't immune to the absurdity of the dark. No one was.

The cellar played several shrieking noises. The ambience was quite uncomfortable and, not to mention, full of pesky rodents.

It has been more than a day since the Marshal Capital has been notified about the seven's safe spot and has brought in the only traced survivor from the ruins, therefore a living witness, Parch Rosendale.

After a longed blackout, Parch had finally awoken.

The first thing that she saw was the bricked ceiling above her. From there, she would realize that she was in a lying position. Quickly, she glanced around herself only to realize the importance of all three walls surrounding her, joined with a set of daring metal bars.

Parch tried getting up and moving, however that resulted in a failure since, soon after, she had realized that both her arms and legs were coldly chained up.

Four hours in.

It was safe to say that Parch had slowly began approaching the brink of insanity.

She had been repeating the same sentences over and over again, to both the walls and herself.

To be fair, a behavior like this in such a situation can be purely justified. Post traumatic stress disorder, shock, bruises, cuts in the skin — both mental and physical damage were present, along with the mind draining tyranny of no given answers and confusion.

She kept repeating the sentences that pled innocence, until two officers unlocked her cellar. The officers kept silent, alas, approached her and got her on her bruised feet. While still chained up, the two officers led Parch out of her cellar.

After a couple of doors, their path led to a couple of grand staircases, followed by an enormous baroque hall. Within it resided dozens of mosaics, colored windows and all sorts of paintings, especially triptychs of historical figures and saints. The biggest painting of them all was a greenish landscape with a giant symbol of the Lord, placed in the center of the hall right above where the judge was fearfully placing his fat behind.

Meters in front of the judge stood a giant cross. It instantly petrified Parch as it looked like the ultimate tool for burning Witches to dust and ash.

The two guards removed the chains from all of Parch's wrists, helped her up the cross and tied her to it.

Several times she felt the need to knock the officers out cold, but as soon as she looked into the murderous eyes of the big men in front of her, she froze herself to death. Now that her body was morbidly placed on a cross that was bigger than her and now that the two officers left the hall leaving her with an unknown destiny, fear kept throwing her deeper into the darkness that was ripping her apart.

Right then, Parch was introduced to the leaders of this very capital. She felt grotesque shivers up her spine. She kept silent as the night and stared bluntly into the eyes of the big men. A couple of seconds slipped by until the judge started speaking up loudly.

"Parch Rosendale!"

"Gh" —

"Greetings and fellow salutations! We deeply apologize for the misdemeanors in the cellar. Safety is the main priority here in the Marshal Capital!"

[I-I'm in the… Marshal Capital…]

With a slight raise of the head and the widening of her sky blue eyes, realization hit her like a speeding carriage. This is when she realized in how much of an important building she was brought in.

"From here on out, I would like to welcome you and all that are present to your official testimony!"

[Testimony… I-I'm… ]

She made a ninety-degree turn with her head and noticed that there was no one there. If this truly was a legitimate testimony, there would be people sat down and attending it.

She turned her head back to where it was and started feeling the tightness and cramps in her wrists. She looked towards the judge and started counting and analyzing the people next to him, but before she could do so, the judge made a proper introduction.

"The individuals that shall hear you out today are the very leaders of Marshal Capital, Commander in Chief Javor Bewinsky, Commander Doctor Halten, their assistant Lielle Luther Bewinsky and I. However, we are also blessed with a fifth individual."

"—"

"Due to the Lord's law, the fifth individual's name and presence is to stay hidden as the individual came directly from the Lord himself."

[A Lord's insider?!]

"Worry not! Every word you say shall be registered by all five of us! In addition to that, Commander Javor will have the right to speak to you directly, aside from myself. I shall now read the Lord's laws for us to recall them once more, followed by the rule set of the testimony. Segment one" —

At this moment, Parch completely stopped listening to the judge's words and started recollecting herself.

Firstly, she tried to grasp the situation she was in, however everything around her felt most definitely unreal. It was the finished product of all the trauma she had went through.

She started screaming in herself. She knew she was innocent.

She did not know what had happened — who or what caused the blow. The last thing she remembered was the preparations to joust off to Einstudht district (strangely now she's here) and her talk with the Vulture, Maurice Megwire.

After that, she remembers blacking out and waking up in a dark room. She knew that she was still in the cave due to the hard textures and wetness, however she could not recognize which part of the cave it was.

When she tried moving around, a high-pitch noise kept irritating her eardrums. Suddenly everything became unbelievably bright and a large explosion occurred. Then she woke up in her cellar.

All she knew was that she was innocent.

But what would she say in her defense? Every possible answer would be crazy to deliver and every outcome seemed to be negative.

Still, it was even harder to think now due to the tantalizing screaming going on inside of her head. After the words and the rules she did not bother to hear, the judge had stopped talking. The hall had turned silent for a couple of moments, until Commander Javor slowly stood up from his cushioned chair, walked down to the center where Parch was held tied to the cross and started his speech.

"Parch Rosendale. What a prudent type of woman. It is an honor to meet you."

Parch stood silent, covered in her screams.

"Do you not wish to speak? You do know, if you stay silent throughout the whole testimony, you will be considered as purely guilty. I just hope that you're aware."

No reply. The commander tried a different approach.

"I've been dreaming of meeting someone who was even remotely connected to the seven. The dream formed when I started serving the Lord and the military capital of Einstudht district. You can ask my daughter Lielle right over there."

Lielle gasped as her father started pointing towards her. Even though aroused, her reaction was far from negative. She even released a gentle smile in one moment.

"Quite a beautiful young woman, isn't she? To be honest with you, Parch Rosendale, there isn't much difference between you two. The only difference is that my daughter chose the right path."

[R-Right… Path…]

"Nevertheless, my long awaited dream had finally turned into a reality. What's most unbelievable is that there is all of this passed time behind us, and yet I find myself blessed within only these two recent days. To think that I would stumble upon the Wolf's corpse — if anyone told me I wouldn't believe it. And only a day and a half later, I would end up interrogating an official insider of the seven, rather say, data collector."

[W-Wolf's corpse…?]

"W-What are you talking about?"

"It speaks! Welcome to your testimony, isn't it grand?"

"You said… Corpse…"

"Hm? Not acknowledging it is useless. We have complete information about your life and your past."

"When and… Where… Did you stumble upon the corpse of the Wolf?"

Lielle and Halten, who were right next to the confused judge, were somewhat startled. Commander Javor looked at Parch bluntly and gave her an empty stare. He then sighed and looked upwards, following the direction of the giant cross.

"Is this what the masses rely on? Is this what the military fears? Could it be? Do you not know? I will be completely devastated if I find that you are not informed."

"Informed about what?!"

"So it is true! My, my, you are not familiar with the death of the third out of seven, the deadly Wolf!"

Another wave of brutality jousted within Parch's insides. She left her tired eyes wide open, staring only at the shining ground and nowhere else. The screams had stopped and she could suddenly think straight, but only for the couple of the upcoming seconds, anyway.

[Master Rö… Is he really…?]

"Heavens… The more I seem to find out about the seven, the less I seem to fear them. This tells us a lot about your profession and the group you worked with, Parch Rosendale. But please, let me proceed to the most important question of the testimony.

What happened at Azura Mountain?"

A full game of tsunami emerged within the girl.

The post traumatic stress came in hard, leaving Parch's words swim all over the hall.

And so they stayed like that, until eventually at the very end, they would drown. Javor's questions only triggered Parch's memory inducing shock and fear, alongside the masked innocence and the null of knowledge.

She would restlessly claim how she had no idea about what happened, and the only thing she could recall was an enormous white flash, followed by stale unconsciousness.

Before that, she would claim that she was speaking to the Vulture, and before that, keeping guard with Ester Álfný, both a business partner and a future husband.

She decided to deny the knowledge of knowing the real names of the seven, thus Ester's name being the only name that she had said, sometimes even screamed for. At one moment, she begged for the commander to return to the mountain and find him.

She kept going on like this, rushing with speaking about the same thing over and over again — trying to prove that she was completely innocent regarding the disappearance of the four magic users and one insider. However, after a solid twenty five minutes of her testimony, her mouth appeared shut by the judge, previously signaled by the commander's index finger.

"Parch Rosendale…"

"Eh? I-I'm not finish" —

"Once a fellow citizen of Stoth district. Immigrated to Einstudht district whilst twelve years old, after the tragic death of your parents. Enrolled in the underground — gone missing. With incredible intellect and shrewdness, the seven found you and hired you to work with them and accelerate their pursuit of exploiting and killing our Lord. Now nowhere near a fellow citizen, but a deceiver.

Time later, we unveil the present. The seven suddenly vanish and you were coincidentally found as the only survivor. After interrogation with the high ranks, no closure was achieved. You also restlessly seem to deny knowledge of the seven's identities and wouldn't say a single name. Therefore, we shall acknowledge your testimony as useless."

[W-What… Use… Useless… B-But…]

"You can't be serious! I'm telling you, I've done nothing!"

"The case of the vanishing of the four magic users shall stay active. Until the case is fully resolved, we shall consider them missing in action. We also must not forget that there are still two out of seven on the loose, the first and the seventh. Taking that into consideration, closure can still be achieved."

"I've already told you! The Shrike betrayed them and left long before I started working for them! As for the last one, no one knows who it is! I know nothing!"

"We agree with your statement, Parch Rosendale… But we can still call this a winning game for us. We have successfully captured an official insider of the seven, therefore…"

[No…]

"Parch Rosendale…"

[No!]

"From the final decision of the jury, you are sentenced to death! You shall be decapitated in front of the Marshal Capital tomorrow at noon, for all the public to see. According to the Lord's laws, you will be blessed with one last breakfast of your choice in the morning and the decapitation must be done without any garment on you.

With this, we conclude the testimony."

2

It was somewhere around midnight for Parch.

She was deep inside of her head. Alongside the darkness and stink of her cellar, there was no way for her to tell what time it was. She repeatedly kept guessing and thinking about the time, as time was not something she had much of now. To her, this was her last day on Earth, as she was given a death sentence scheduled right after morning.

As she was tied even in her lousy cellar, she kept thinking about what she had done in her life and was mentally preparing for the end. She intensely kept searching for regrets and started counting them on her shaking fingers.

The biggest regret of them all was that she never raised a family. She never managed to have a child of her own. She never married the man she loved, Ester Álfný.

She didn't even know if he was alive.

Her thoughts were interrupted by a figure that had approached the metal bars of her cellar. At first she thought it was a guard coming to check up on her.

However, it was a person draped in strangely befitting cloth, desperately trying to stay hidden and as quiet as possible.

The person was none other than Rö, the deadly Wolf.