Matron at the Pyres

...the words of a Matron

(A witness. A judge. A woman who stands where mercy and penitence burn together.)

We lit her

because the law said fire is heavier than stone

in the ink of doctrine.

Because the Dominion is built on ash,

and ash is the single, bitter fruit of an unruly Daughter’s rebellion.

Lirha did not tremble.

Even as the kindling crackled like gnashing teeth around her,

she held her spine like a blade bedded in a righteous kill.

A shame, truly —

courage looks almost holy when it refuses to kneel.

Woven sturdy of its truth. Devout.

The others watched through veils of heat,

eyes wide as newborn moons.

They saw death.

I saw inheritance.

The flames took her slowly —

ceremony demands no haste.

Each inch of flesh surrendered like a confession,

each breath thinning into threads

too fragile to tie back to the soul.

I did not turn away.

A Matron does not avert her gaze

from the price of disobedience.

Still… the fire spoke like memory,

licking up at old doubts

long buried beneath my title.

I felt the heat coax secrets from my bones,

reminding me how it is to be young,

bright with questions, eager for the forbidden terrain of sky.

Lirha burned, and in her burning

I remembered myself.

When the blaze crowned her in gold,

she glowed like prophecy unbound —

ascending into myth no verdict could contain.

And when the last of her voice cracked into embers,

I knew:

We had ended her body,

not her story.

Her ash settled on my skin like a blessing I did not ask for,

soft as forgiveness,

dangerous as truth.

Tomorrow, the pyre will cool.

The hall will return to silence.

Our law will hold.

But I will carry the scent of cedar and defiance

in the hollow behind my breast

where no law can reach.

For, does not faith

smolder?

Does not devotion

burn?