Collaterals

Only Victims

She couldn't look away.

A child, a child, a child, a child, maybe 12, a child. 

Leila's mind raced as her eyes darted from the pyre to the angry crowd. Appearances. She must maintain appearances, and it cannot be made to appear that she— that the Empire— didn't plan for something like this. How could she have been such a fool? How could she have not met with the prisoners? How could she have not bothered to know their names? Their ages? How— Leila grit her teeth. Now. There was only now, the child trembling atop the stage, and the angry crowd. And oh, how angry they were.

Leila gulped as the chants rang through her ear, the wood below her shaking. She searched the crowd for...she didn't know. a face, a single face that bore no sneer, that did not have spit flying out its mouth as it shouted at her. She couldn't make out what, exactly, they were shouting, and the constriction now tightening in her throat made it hard to focus on anything but her breaths. What was she meant to do?

Haitham. Haitham...Leila turned, wide eyed, looking to her brother as though he bore the answers, as he had last night, as he had in the dungeons. But he was stone faced, sitting tall in his chair, chin angled. His hair was combed today, put together. It was an odd thing to realize. Did he know? Did he—?

I reckon Ameen will need less.

Leila turned. Her eyes locked with the child. He still hadn't screamed, hadn't shouted or sobbed. No, his jaw remained locked in place. But his eyes, they yelled a thousand grievances, a thousand fears. And so, with her eyes still set on the child, Leila raised her hand in the air. The child cringed, looking away from her in fear. He thought she was calling to fire, Leila realized with a start. The child thought he was going to burn. Leila gulped, prying her eyes off his small figure and looking to the crowd once more.

The guards had ushered them to quiet, to listen, but she knew their attention was fickle. And so Leila ensured her gaze did not waver when she took a step forward. Calm. She would calm them. Leila brought her chin to the side, as one did when they listened intently, "Look here, People of Aradia. Look here, and look well, and know that the Independence Movement would sacrifice your children. It would knowingly send them to the pyre and call them a martyr. But children are cannot be martyrs, only victims!"

Leila turned, looking to the boy shaking on the pyre. "Release the boy. Let him come here."

Gasps sounded through the crowd. Impossibly, the boy's eyes grew wider. His head whipped from one side to the other, as two guards moved to him, untying his hands from behind the pyre. In a moment, the boy's legs gave out from underneath him, the guards hauling him up by his shoulders before he could finally stand, finally move. He walked across the dais, a guard on either side of him, placing a stabilizing hand on him whenever he stumbled or tripped. It was only when he was a few steps away from Leila that she noticed the stain between his legs. She frowned, nodding at the guards to step away. 

Leila put a hand on either one of his trembling shoulders, ensuring she was heard when she looked down at him, "Calm, boy. You are safe now."

The poor thing was hyperventilating, eyes searching her own like one searched a treacherous storm for a lighthouse. She hoped, in her eyes, he saw calm. She hoped, in her eyes, he saw safety. And for now, all she could do was hope. Leila moved him to her side, the pair of them stood by a heap of straw. Her fingers were straight, brought together into an open palm as her hand moved above her head, crossed diagonally to the other side.

"In the name of the Tainish Empire, by order of the Aradian Crown, I here so sentence you to death on grounds of treason."

And then she called to her flame and threw her hand out to the side, the flame lighting up the hay. She stepped back, watching as the hay caught fire, the flame rushing across the dais and to the pyre. 

Sadiq did not look to the flame. He looked to Leila, and for a moment she felt something pass between them. Leila did not understand what it was he looked to her with, but something within him had changed. His eyes left hers, Sadiq now looking to the boy by her side. All the sudden, he began to tug at his restraints, "Ameen! Ameen!"

Leila looked to her side. 

The boy was doubled over, hands over his stomach. His face was scrunched up in pain, but still his jaw was locked. 

He looked up at her, searching her eyes as though they could burn his pain away.

And then his eyes skittered to the side. For a moment the reflection of fire danced in his irises. The blood drained from his face, and then he collapsed onto the ground.

"No! No!" Sadiq's voice called, but Leila had already turned away, falling to her knees as she gathered the boy's limp body onto her.

Perhaps, if she'd turned, she'd have seen the way Sadiq began to pull from the pyre, the way veins popped from the sides of his neck and an overwhelming beet red colored his face. Perhaps she'd have seen how he struggled against his rope. Perhaps she'd have seen how his anger, his fight, froze then melted as the flames finally circled him. But alas, she had not turned. Alas, she'd spared herself the sight.  But not the sound. Not the smell. 

And certainly not the feel of the boy's body, unmoving in her arms.