Chapter 4 #2
To the left of the gallows, there’s a raised platform draped in the king’s colors, with chairs arranged in a row.
They’re already filled, with my father sitting in the center.
His face is emotionless, waiting to witness the dispensation of justice.
On his right is Merina, her hands folded in her lap.
She’s sitting with her spine straight, and her expression blank.
When I look at her, she turns her face away before our eyes meet.
On my father’s left is Brennan. His eye has been freshly bandaged, and the remaining one is fixed on me, burning with fury.
Movement behind Merina draws my attention back. Nella is standing at her shoulder, wearing a deep blue dress.
Nella, who held me through nightmares, and scolded me for not eating enough. Nella, who came with me on a hunt when she cries every time she steps on a bug. My best friend from childhood. Her face is white. I stare hard at her, and maybe she feels me looking, because her gaze drops to the ground.
She was so sure she was saving me from monsters, only to hand me to the one hiding behind a human mask. And now she can’t even look at what she helped cause.
A court official steps forward, lifting a scroll. When he unrolls it, silence fills the square.
“By the order of His Majesty, King Torvald Caldris, Sovereign of Shentari, Protector of the Realm.” His voice carries across the square effortlessly. “The prisoner, Alleria Caldris, stands accused of the following crimes against the crown.”
The prisoner. No mention of me being the king’s daughter or a princess. Just the prisoner.
“Treason against the crown and people of Shentari. Conspiracy with enemies of the realm. Assault upon a commanding officer of the king’s guard, resulting in permanent disfigurement.”
Treason. Conspiracy. Assault.
And why?
Because I said fae weren’t animals and did not deserve the treatment they were subjected to.
Because I refused to tell my father their names, how many there were, and what their plans were. Because I admitted that I stayed with fae of my own free will.
And because Brennan tried to rape me and instead of allowing it to happen, I drove a knife into his eye.
Every charge they’re reading against me is the truth. And I would make the same choices again.
“For these crimes, the prisoner has been sentenced to death by hanging. Carried out immediately, by order of the king.” He rolls the scroll back up and steps back.
The guards holding my arms move me toward the scaffold steps.
There are seven of them. A splinter stabs into the sole of my foot on the third step, leaving a smear of blood behind.
The platform at the top is small, with the trapdoor taking up most of the room.
The rope hangs from a beam overhead, ending in a noose that sways in the breeze.
A big man with broad shoulders stands to one side, his face hidden by a black hood. He must be the hangman. He doesn’t look at me as the guards position me on the center of the trapdoor. The wood creaks under my weight.
My heart pounds faster. My mouth dries up. In a few minutes, there will be nothing under my feet at all, and I’ll be swinging from a rope. Bile rises up my throat, and a violent tremor goes through me.
I will not break. I will not give them that.
“Alleria.”
My head snaps around to where my father is standing at the front of the platform.
“I will ask you one final time.” His voice carries to everyone. “Give me the information I have asked for, and I will grant you mercy.”
I stare at him, and the only thing I can think about is how he sold me to Brennan when I was seven years old.
“No.” My reply is quiet but firm, and it draws a gasp from those closest to me.
My father’s eyes close for a fraction of a second. When they open, his gaze has turned to steel. He nods.
“So be it.” He retakes his seat. “Continue.”
The hangman steps forward. His hands are almost gentle as he loops the noose over my head, adjusting the knot until it’s tight against my throat.
Oh gods. This is real. This is happening.
Terror courses through me. The rope is around my neck, the trapdoor is beneath my feet, and in a few moments he’s going to release the mechanism, and I’m going to fall. The rope will tighten. And I will die.
Here. Today.
In front of the entire city. Just weeks after turning twenty-one.
My heart is beating too fast. It hammers in my wrists, my throat, my temples. My body knows what’s coming, and panic is finally cutting through the detachment I’ve been holding onto.
A shadow falls over me. I meet Brennan’s eye. He stares at me, then reaches out to run one finger down my cheek and along my jaw.
“I knew you were tainted, but I wanted you anyway.” His voice is low and thick. “I just never realized how deep it went.”
I spit in his face. His lips curl, but he doesn’t wipe it away.
“You did this to yourself.” He nods to the hangman, and walks back to stand beside my father.
He’s right. I did do this to myself. I chose the fae. I chose Cairn. And I’d do it again.
The hangman moves behind me. Somewhere in the crowd, someone is sobbing. I ignore it all, and reach for the bond that lives inside my head.
I’ll never get to understand how it works now, or what it could have become, but there’s something I need to do.
I’m sorry. I send the thought toward the barrier Cairn built around me, and hope it gets through. I’m sorry if you feel this.
The hangman moves to the lever.
My breathing is coming in short, sharp gasps now. The crowd has turned into a blur of noise and color, their jeers and shouts merging into a single, deafening roar.
I cling to the thought of Cairn. The warmth of his hands on my face, the strange scent I can’t place that clings to his skin, and the way he kissed me. I think about Therin and his laughter when I told him I wanted to stay.
And I think about Vel. She hated me from the first moment she saw me, viewed me as nothing more than a human who deserved no pity, yet still took an arrow trying to reach me.
Please make my death quick.
The hangman pulls the lever.
The wood groans, the trapdoor opens … and I drop.
The rope snaps taut. My stomach flies upward.
My body jerks, legs thrashing against empty air as gravity turns into my enemy.
But the fall doesn’t break my neck. The rope squeezes my throat, trapping air in my lungs.
I swing there, helpless and choking, unable to lift my hands to grasp at anything to stop the pressure crushing the fragile bones in my neck.
The world starts to go dark at the edges, my vision narrowing to a tunnel.
My pulse thudding frantically in my ears, the crowd, the dais where my father and the others are sitting, the voices …
everything shrinks to a single point of gray light that gets smaller and smaller with each passing second.
The darkness has almost swallowed me when heat erupts from beneath me, and fire licks across my skin. Something drives itself between my legs, taking the weight of my body.
The world lurches as the crushing tension around my windpipe eases.
Then I’m moving, launching upward with terrifying speed.
The wind tears at my hair, whipping it around my face.
Whatever is beneath me surges higher, muscle and power flexing against my thighs, and I’m thrown forward against a thick, powerful neck.
My hands find something coarse and warm, and my fingers curl into it, holding on tight.
I pry my eye open, just as the ground falls away beneath me. The square shrinks with dizzying speed. The scaffold is wreathed in smoke and roaring flames. At the edge of my vision I see … wings?
I suck in a breath that tastes of rain and smoke, choking as it hits my lungs. My throat burns with each breath. And the wind is so loud in my ears it drowns out every other sound.
The city is far below me now. The palace. The square. People look like panicked ants, scattering wildly away from the fire turning the scaffold and gallows to ash.
How is it burning?
The thing beneath me soars higher, climbing into the clouds until the air turns thinner, freezing against my sweat-drenched skin. My fingers loosen their grip, one by one, and I don’t have the strength to curl them back in.
Then the dark takes everything.