Chapter 22
E ight guards escort me through a lofty hall, multicolored windows spilling a kaleidoscope of light that slathers the side of my face in too much warmth. I’m slow, every step a shuffled victory, my damp tunic clinging to the torn, tacky flesh on my back.
Each forward motion feels heavier than the last, as if gravity is crushing me beneath the press of its thumb, slowly applying more pressure.
More.
Black spots begin to blot my vision as my leash is tugged by the guard ahead, luring me to turn a corner. We come to the base of a shadowed staircase, and I swallow a bludgeoning groan.
If I’d known this walk would be so tiresome, I might’ve eaten my last serving of gruel rather than sliding it down the line like I’ve done with most of the others.
“Keep walking,” the guard behind me growls, shoving me between the shoulder blades.
A raze of crippling pain threatens to buckle my knees, and my body jolts, air sucking through my clamped teeth. A surge of warm wetness seeps down my spine.
Cracking my neck from side to side, I tackle the staircase one wobbly step at a time until we’re spat out onto a circular iron stage at the base of a domed amphitheater. I’m led forward a few jingling steps, the metal smooth and cold beneath my feet as my leash is connected to an iron loop poking up from the ground.
Above me is a low banister that bands the entire circumference, hosting a ring of males, each flaunting more than one elemental bead.
The Nobles, plus the beady-eyed Chancellor.
They’re garbed in vibrant robes that blend with the ceiling—a mural of Moltenmaws midflight, boasting multicolored plumage and long, feathered tails adorned with a fluffy tuft on the end that veils their poisonous spike.
I look down at myself smothered in blood and filth and who knows what else. Drawing a deep whiff of my shift, my face scrunches.
I cut a glance at the leering Nobles. “Apologies,” I say, my voice echoing through the vast space. “Forgot to bathe for our very important date.”
Silence.
“ Never mind, Prisoner Seventy-Three ,” I mutter in a forged baritone. “ We know you’ve had a lot on your plate .”
My guards thread back down the stairway, and my gaze rises to the second mezzanine that loops around the room. It’s much higher than the one the Nobles sit at, its banister waist high on most folk standing behind it, looking down from their purchased perch. The ones who get a kick out of watching the Nobles unravel lives. Can’t imagine why. But to be fair, I intend to put on a show this dae, so they’ll get their bloodstone’s worth.
I scan the faces, fearful I might find someone I know—someone who might do something stupid—winning myself a kick to the chest when I see the Incognito King staring down at me from his lofty place amongst the commoners.
Fuck.
Even though he’s hooded, his face half cast in shadow, I still feel his stare shred across me, leaving a prickly trail.
Not sure what I did to deserve his foul attention, but I wish I could take it back.
I rip my gaze away, looking to the empty stone throne set amongst the Nobles’ seats, wondering when King Fade is going to join the party.
Perhaps he’s making a late entrance?
The Chancellor slams his gavel three times, my heart thumping in unison. He sets down the tool and breaks the seal on a scroll, unraveling it—signifying the start of my trial.
My heart drops.
I come to the grim realization that our boastful king must still be in Drelgad, disappointment lumping upon me …
Damn. There goes all my fun.
I was so looking forward to telling him he’d be better off shoveling colk shit than governing The Fade.
Silence roars as the Chancellor leers down at me over his hooked nose, brown and clear beads hanging from his lobe, his ruddy beard whittled into twin braided tails. “Fade law states that those who hear the Creators’ songs are obliged to wear elemental beads,” he says, his voice a conjuring drawl that echoes through the space seemingly runed to amplify sound. “It is first noted that you wear none and that you are showcasing as a null.”
The scribe three paces away from me—sitting behind a desk beside a white-robed Runi—scratches at a scroll with a bloodred quill, the sound carrying so well it almost feels like the words are being etched into my flesh.
“I thought I was a null,” I announce, shrugging. Flesh-ripping pain flares across my back that makes my insides shudder, my next words spoken past gritted teeth. “Imagine my surprise when Clode whispered pretty words in my ear and helped me pulverize the lungs of all those soldiers.”
A sea of murmurs float down from above.
The Chancellor’s eyes narrow. “From what I understand, you spoke Clode’s language fluently enough to suggest you’ve been hearing such words for a while.”
I offer a wide smile. “Beginner’s luck.”
“Lie.”
I flick a sideways glare at the broad, blond-haired Runi, my gaze dropping, scouring the two gold buttons adorning the central seam of his robe. An etching stick and a small musical note.
Truthtune.
He garnishes me with a stony stare, and I frown.
“Rude.”
“And Bulder?” the Chancellor asks. “What of him?”
I cock my head to the side. “Haven’t you ever wished the ground would split and chew on your enemies? Guess my dream came true. Lucky me.”
“Not a lie.”
“See?”
The Chancellor condemns me with a seething scowl, like he’s picturing me being chewed by a hole in the ground as we speak.
Clearing his throat, he begins reading from the scroll. “You, self-appointed as Prisoner Seventy-Three ”—he peers down at me, eyes narrowed, and my smile widens in unison with his deepening frown—“are hereby charged for the murder of twenty-three soldiers of The Crown—”
“Twenty-five,” I correct, and the room bursts with murmurs again as the Chancellor raises a brow.
“Excuse me?”
If he’s going to read out my charge, he might as well get it right.
“Personally, I lost count. But the guard who led me here said I killed twenty-five.” The Chancellor opens his mouth to speak again, but I cut him off with a swift, “Also, I’d like it added to the record that I bit off the tip of Rekk Zharos’s finger. I only recently managed to flick out what was left of it from between my tee—”
“ That’s enough .”
“Pity.”
He flays me with a stare, and even the scribe pauses his incessant scratching. “Do you find this … amusing ?”
“You misread me.” I let all the humor fall off my face, my response a bite of bloody flesh spat at him with a sawtooth snarl. “I find it fucking tragic .”
This time, there are no murmurs. Just a gluttonous silence that grates my bones.
“Truth.”
Yes, it is.
“Bring in the evidence,” the Chancellor bellows.
I marinate in the seething echo of his outburst while a male comes up the shaft of stairs at my back, toting two sacks he dumps on the ground before me, then loosens the drawstrings. He begins pulling out flaps of preserved flesh, flopping them on the ground in a semicircle around me, each bearing letters carved with my own hand.
Unmistakably.
I’m certain nobody else has handwriting like mine. Certainly nobody old enough to be out there slitting throats and dumping bodies off the wall. I hope.
“These were taken from confirmed victims of Fíur du Ath,” the Chancellor states. “Each of them important, upstanding members of our society, their loss crippling blows to The Crown.”
I practically preen, chest puffed, about to thank him for the compliment when he waves a familiar board at my face, adorned with three words etched in coal.
“And this was your … handwriting when you signed for your rations,” he says, a bemused look in his cruel eyes. “If you could even call it that. I’m certain my youngling could do a better job, and he’s barely out of the crib.”
Some of the Nobles spill a roll of laughter that deflates my chest and makes me feel entirely too small. Makes my cheeks burn.
I learned to write with a piece of coal on the ground of a cell, and no matter how hard I try, I can’t stop my words from looking like I’m still scratching them upon the stone. Every letter is a sooty ghost tilled from my past, but I refuse to let them beat me.
I click my tongue, glancing from skin slab to skin slab as the guard continues to slap them upon the floor. “Well done. You possess a brain cell.” I glance up again, holding the Chancellor’s beady glare. “I would cheer, but I’m certain you’ll do enough of that this slumber while you’re staring at your floor-length mirror, fisting your microcock.”
Gasps rain upon me as the Chancellor’s face reddens, the veins in his temples pushing to the surface. He opens his mouth, and I can see by his narrowed eyes that he’s thinking about using a phrase. One I’ve used more times than I can count, exhibited by the flaps of flesh decorating the floor at my feet.
His lips thin, and he clears his throat.
Lifts his chin.
“You do not deny that you took the lives of these individuals?”
I look up, straight into the shadowed eyes of the Incognito King who just won’t stop watching me, wishing he’d kindly fuck off.
A one-shoulder shrug as I meet the Chancellor’s stare again, threads of pain lancing across my flesh like fiery veins. “Seems a bit pointless given the evidence, wouldn’t you say?”
“I do not appreciate your attitude,” he scolds, the other Nobles murmuring between each other while they leer down on me, passing me looks of disgust.
Disbelief.
Rage.
“Well, apologies for hurting your feelings.”
He opens his mouth, but I cut in.
Again.
“I, however, do not appreciate being forced to take out the population’s filth because this kingdom is run by an imbecile who believes that having a cock, three beads dangling from his ear, a cruel dragon, and a powerful army means he doesn’t have to iron out the kinks in his rumpling society.”
The upper mezzanine erupts in a riot of sound, the Nobles looking between each other, some of them throwing their hands in the air as they heave words toward the Chancellor. Like it’s somehow his fault I possess a brain that thinks, a mouth that speaks, but lack the self-preservation to avoid using both while standing in their presence.
Good. Hope I’m making enough of a spectacle that the Nobles will be satisfied with my capture. That Rekk will be given something else to chase, and the Ath will flip from the fire—even if it’s only for a little bit.
If I’m going out, it might as well be in style. It’s not like I’ve got anything to lose.
Not anymore.
The Chancellor hammers his gavel against the table three times over, silencing the racket. “You would disrespect our king so publicly?” he bellows, cheeks red like his ruddy cloak.
I cock a brow. “Is that a rhetorical question, or did you want me to answer?”
The Nobles murmur between each other while I rock back and forth on the balls of my feet, desperate to be done with this. I have a bowl of slop calling my name.
Again, I peek up at the mezzanine.
He’s still watching, arms crossed over his broad chest.
I sigh, pick at some of the filth beneath my nails, flick it away. “I’m incredibly bored with this conversation. Can we get to the point where you condemn me to execution for taking out the trash? That’s the part I’m most excited about.”
“You want to die?” the Chancellor asks, not bothering to mask his shock.
“No,” I murmur, picking another curl of filth free. “I’m just so sick of looking at your ugly face that death is starting to sound rather cushy.”
His upper lip peels back from his canines, and I’m certain the vein in his temple is going to burst. I throw him a wink, though considering my other eye is still half congealed, it probably looks more like a blink.
I tried.
“What’s your plea?” he grinds out.
“Guilty. Of all charges.”
“She does not lie,” the Truthtune states.
“Wouldn’t dare.” I glance over my shoulder at the scribe, meeting his wide-eyed stare. “You can probably tack on a few more charges, too. I’m sure I’ll fill the quota if you look hard enough. I’m practically a one-folk show.”
Another swell of murmurs.
I’m surprised they still have things to talk about.
“All those in favor of Prisoner Seventy-Three being drawn and quartered next aurora rise?”
I ignore the frantic thump of my heart as over half the Nobles raise their hands, including half the crowd packed into the mezzanine.
I lift my hand, too.
Most would probably prefer the coliseum, but I’d much rather be sliced open while my heart’s still beating than be served to a thunder of fire-breathing dragons, thank you very much.
“All in favor of feeding her to the Moltenmaws?”
Another flock of hands rise, and the scribe counts them quietly. “It’s a draw,” he calls out, gaze cast on the mezzanine, appearing to recount.
I frown.
Surely not.
I count too—looking up in time to watch a familiar hooded “Runi” raise his hand, like he’s lifting a gavel of his own.
Casting a vote.
“Oh, no matter,” the scribe bellows. “ Dragons it is— by one vote!”
My blood chills, my rapidly beating heart making my head spin, certain I’m going to pass out. Not that it stops me from slaying the Incognito King with a glare I hope he feels all the way to his bones.
I should be able to die how I want to die, dammit!
The King dips his head, and I picture myself lobbing it off his shoulders and watching it thump upon the floor, but then the Chancellor slams his gavel against the table again.
I flinch, gaze plummeting in unison with my guts.
“It’s settled. Prisoner Seventy-Three, you will be led to the coliseum come next aurora rise, and the bell will toll in your name. May the Creators have mercy on your tarnished soul.”