"What are we going to do? We can't carry the carcass." Asked Nero after they recited their funeral prayer together.
"Yes, that could actually be a problem..."
Eliza thought for a moment and looked around until her gaze fell on the ropes they had used for the trap. "Oh, I have an idea. Go and get the ropes!" she ordered Nero. He wiped the last tears from his face and went to fetch the ropes. He used the rusty knife to free the wolf's corpse, while Eliza gathered old wood from the ground.
Almost an hour later, the two children had managed to build a sled from three ropes and some loose branches, on which they lifted the carcass of the wolf. They covered it with leaves and branches, just in case someone spotted them.
In the meantime, it had already become dark, and it started to snow again,
"With today's harvest, we can definitely go weeks without having to go hungry!"
"Yes, and luckily we went out before it started snowing, otherwise we would never have found the tracks. Let's go home. Mom will surely be incredibly proud of us. Oh yes, I almost forgot again. We also have to go to Mr. Herald first and give him the letter."
As always, they also went the usual way home. First, they followed the arrows out of the forest.
Eliza sighed with relief when they finally reached the road, and the pulling of the sledding eased several times. They were just walking down the long main street when Nero suddenly stopped.
Suddenly Nero stopped.
"What's wrong?" asked Eliza, who was gradually getting really cold.
"Do you hear that?"
Eliza was silent for a few seconds and then said, "No, I don't know what..." but then she heard it too. Screams. Lots of screams and yells.
"Let's hurry home!" said Eliza, grabbing Nero's hand. They ran as fast as they could into the alley, past Herald's house.
They had long forgotten about the letter their mother gave them to give him.
The two were good hunters, talented in many ways, but they were still only children and knew many evil stories of monsters and demons. Of course, their imaginations gave rise to many gruesome reasons in their minds why the people there screamed in place.
She ran down the street until they finally turned the corner to her house. There, the two children stood stock still. Winter was forgotten, the cold was forgotten, even the sleigh with the wolf was forgotten. In front of them stood their house, burning. The flames had already engulfed everything there was to engulf; they even seemed to have taken over the walls as the flames reached up into the sky. It gave off a heat that, if it came from a normal flame, would have been pleasant in these times, but in this sight, Nero himself seemed to be burning.
"Wha...what?" asked Eliza, distraught.
Nero was completely frozen and could no longer move. He understood nothing at all.
His childlike mind could not immediately absorb the events.
Eliza ran and screamed for her mother, leaving the sled with the wolf behind.
But before she had even reached halfway to the house, men appeared from a side street.
When they saw the two children, they shouted, "Those are the witch's children! Go get them before they can escape!"
One of the men grabbed Eliza, who fought back, screaming and crying. She hit and bit the man who had grabbed her, who growled angrily,
"You stupid fucking kid!"
He grabbed her fist and twisted it until there was a disgusting crack as her wrist broke.
Eliza immediately froze, only to start screaming even louder.
Nero backed away and felt tears gathering in his eyes as he saw his sister getting caught.
Panicked, he tried to run away, but he was already caught by other men.
He was still young and slow, so the men quickly caught up with him. They grabbed him from behind, pulling him along with them.
He screamed and kicked wildly. He couldn't understand what was happening.
He felt panic go through his limbs and screamed desperately for his mother. Just as they passed Herald's house, Herald opened the door to see what the noise was about.
His eyes widened as he saw the two children in the arms of the men and being brutally dragged behind them.
He immediately rushed out of the house in front of the men, "What in God's name is going on here?"
The leader of the men stepped forward, "Don't you recognize our uniform? We are members of the Holy Order and work on behalf of the Church. These children are the spawn of a witch and must face the judgment of the priest."
Herald did not step aside, "They are only children! Let them go, I will take them into my care; you don't have to take them with you."
"We are doing as we were commanded, and now I advise you to get out of the way!" the man threatened Herald. But Herald still did not move. "Let them go, they are only children. I beg you..."
The leader of the men stepped forward and rammed his sword into Herald's chest, who immediately froze. When the man pulled the sword out again, he fell to the ground, but no one paid any attention to the old man; they simply dragged the children along behind them.
The men simply stepped over his body and continued dragging the children. Nero's throat was already burning from all the screaming, and slowly the men began to get angry,
"Kid, if you don't stop screaming right now, I'm going to rip your throat out!" one of the men threatened, but Nero didn't even think to stop.
His sister hung limply in the arms of one of the other men, which sent Nero into a furious rage, but now the guard had had enough and gave Nero a firm slap on the back of the head.
It briefly went black before his eyes. After a short while, his vision finally cleared again, and he became aware of something new.
The first thing he noticed was screaming and yelling around him. Nero looked around as he realized that they were in the center of the village. An unpleasant premonition spread through the boy.
He had witnessed this once before. A few years ago, in an almost equally gloomy winter, the village had brought a woman here. He hadn't been there himself, but he had heard stories from the other children in the village. He immediately connected this with the words of the guards from earlier, 'The children of a witch.'
He looked around for Eliza, and his eyes met hers. It almost tore him apart to see his sister's reddened eyes. His sister, who was always strong and brave, who served as a role model for him and never lost her optimism. And now her face was full of fear, panic, and pain as tears were running from her eyes.
They turned the next corner and screams immiadiatly insulted his ears,
"Brood of witches!"
"Burn the witch!"
"She's to blame for this winter!"
"She's killing our livestock!"
"I've seen her mix strange herbs into a potion."
"She put a spell on my husband!"
All kinds of accusations and insults were shouted by the people, but Nero did not really understand them. He was forcibly dragged on, but he had already given up resisting anyway.
He was dragged through the crowd, which split under the mighty advance of the soldiers. Nero's gaze automatically went to the large tribune in the middle. To the pyre that stood in front of it. And to the person hanging from it. Nero froze on the spot. He had had a premonition, but actually seeing it was too much for the young child.
"MOM!" he heard Eliza yell. The woman at the post, Nero's mother, raised her head in fright.
Her mother, who was hanging from the stake, jerked her head up. She was wrapped in a strange white robe, her long black hair blowing wildly in the wind. Her gaze swept over the crowd and finally fell on her two children.
"No...no...no..." she murmured softly at first, shaking her head in disbelief.
"MOMMY!"
"MOM, THEY'RE HURTING ME!" screamed Nero.
Now her mother started screaming, "LEAVE MY CHILDREN ALONE! THEY HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH IT. IT'S NOT THEIR FAULT."
The people around them also became louder as they even started throwing stones and rotten fruit.
"Silence!" a voice now sounded through the courtyard.
It was not loud, but everyone heard it. It had a natural authority in its undertone and made people obey it. Even Nero could not help but sit up and pause for a moment. He looked to the source of the voice and recognized the person. It was the local priest, standing on a wooden stand in front of the church,
"Bring the children to me!" he ordered the guards, who obeyed without hesitation.
The two children were placed in front of the priest, and he looked at them briefly, then turned to the guard, "Gag them, I don't want to be disturbed, but do not blindfold them. I want them to witness what happens to witches, so they will never follow their mother in her footsteps!"
The guards stuffed cloth into the children's mouths and then bandaged them. Their mother screamed and yelled at the priest, but he paid no attention to her.
"Why isn't the witch gagged yet? I don't want to have to talk over her stupid screaming."
Immediately, the guards went to Nero's mother and gagged her tightly.
Nero heard Eliza yelling next to him under the gag, but he didn't look at her; he only looked into his mother's eyes.
The next part was very hazy in Nero's memories. Neither did he remember the priest's words nor what his sister was doing. He only looked into his mother's black eyes. Even now, in this terrible situation, he could see his mother's love and affection for him. They seemed to want to tell Nero something, but he did not understand. A single tear flowed from her eye and rolled down her cheek.
It seemed as if they were talking to him, as if they were asking, no pleading to him to look away. As if his mother was trying to comfort him even now.
Nero didn't move as he simply looked into those eyes. He didn't even notice when the pyre was lit or when his mother caught fire. He only realized it when his mother squinted her eyes in pain and broke their connection. Nero was frozen as he watched the flames, like a monster, grab his mother's pale skin, slowly and surely turning it black. How they devoured her beautiful, long hair, how his mother's eyes, the eyes that always shone with love for him, burst.
At that moment, something changed in his mind. It was like a seed, a tiny seed, but if this seed grew, it would become something incredibly dangerous. Something that would devour his entire soul. That would make him something new. Nero didn't know it at that moment, he couldn't have guessed it, but he felt it. He felt it like a presence spreading inside him. Instinctively, he looked away.
Tears welled up in his eyes, and he felt himself having a panic attack. He looked at his sister. She had also turned away and was looking at him. Her eyes were full of tears, but she looked at him firmly, eyes shining. She was desperately trying not to let the pain show. She suppressed her fear, sadness, and pain, looked lovingly at Nero, and shook her head. 'Don't look,' she seemed to say. Later, when Nero thought back to that moment, he couldn't help but admire his sister's strength of will. It seemed to run in the blood of his family, but even back in that moment, he could see through her facade and could see his own feelings mirrored. Something had died in both of them.