Page 120 of Brutal Crown

And the worst part?

They want me to be grateful for it. They want me to believe this is salvation. That love justifies the pain. That by choosing Marco, I’m securing a future for myself and the child.

But this isn’t about love. It never was.

This is about surviving their world without being swallowed whole by it. The truth is simpler. The fire is a punishment. For daring, for trying to fit in where I don’t belong.

And I walk into this room knowing exactly that.

The doors groan shut behind me. Thick stone slams into place like a tomb sealing over its dead.

Maybe that’s what I am—a dead girl walking.

The room is darker than I expected. And hot. Very hot. My skin is already prickling from the heat, my white dress clinging to my back. Everything smells like incense, sweat, and blood.

But the ground feels cold beneath my bare feet, which tremble slightly as I walk. However, the closer I get to the coal path in the center of the room, the hotter the ground feels.

I keep my face expressionless and my body stiff as I am positioned at the beginning of the track. The hot embers illuminate my face, and the last thing I want is for them to see me broken.

Smoke coils in the air, carried on by the chant that starts the moment I stand at the start line of my journey.

I let my eyes linger on the trail that awaits me, at the coals burning in a clean, cruel line up the center of the temple floor. They glow in a deep, pulsing red, like open wounds.

At the end of that path stands Marco. His hands are hanging limp at his sides, and his eyes are red-rimmed and wide. He looks like he’s been crying, and I wonder why. You’d think he’s the person who has to prove to a room full of strangers that he deserves to marry me.

Maybe he knows the kind of pain I’m about to go through. Maybe he’s heartbroken on my behalf. Maybe his empathyshould make me feel some sort of support, but I’m too numb to feel anything.

Especially because I remember what he whispered to me moments before this.

I remember the way his voice trembled when he pulled me behind that pillar and how he begged me to choose him.

He told me I could fake it, that I could pretend what we had was real and true. Just walk the path, say the words, and we’d survive it together. He said he’d carry the burden for both of us. That he’d protect me, no matter what it cost him.

And for a second, I almost believed him. But then I saw it, that flicker of something in his eyes. Not strength. Not resolve but fear.

And not fear for me, but fear of losing control.

Fear that I might choose something else. Someone else.

Fear that I’d walk into the fire and come out changed, remade into something he couldn’t claim anymore.

That’s when I knew. He wasn’t asking me to survive. He was asking me to surrender. But I’d already made my choice.

The guards shove me gently into place before the first coal. I don’t flinch. My wrists sting where the ropes are tying my hands like I’m a prisoner, but I can’t dwell on that because the worst pain is still ahead.

I lift my chin, and for the first time, I look around me.

I see the Elders now, all six of them, seated like gods on their raised thrones. Their golden masks catch the firelight, making their faces shimmer like demons, which is exactly what they are.

Only demons would gather to watch someone suffer in the name of tradition.

Several other people surround the room. They are all dressed in black cloaks and have blank expressions on their faces.

I know Francesco is somewhere in the room. I feel it. I don’t know where he’s standing, but I feel him like a ghost somewhere behind me, just beyond the edge of my vision.

Something squeezes in my chest, but I ignore it.

If he’s here, then I want him to watch. I want him to see what they’ve made me become and what they won’t.