CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
“Time to face the judges, Sayel,” a guard rasped.
The clatter of his keys filled the silence as he fumbled with the lock, the iron groaning as the door swung wide.
His gloved hand clamped around my bound wrists, wrenching me from the floor with a force that sent a jolt of protest through my tired limbs.
I shuffled out of the gloom, my steps slowing as we passed the neighboring cell.
I caught a glimpse of Meliory through the gap in the wall, his thin body curled on the floor in a restless sleep. The ragged cotton shirt clinging to his chest was more holes than cloth, dark with old stains I did not want to think about.
My gaze dropped to his feet.
One wore a frayed sock barely hanging together. The other was bare, the skin scraped raw where it dragged against the stone.
I bit down on my lip.
If I survived this… I would come back for him.
I would not leave him here to rot.
Step by step, the guard pulled me toward the heart of the High Court. The transition from the damp, airless dark to the brilliance of the manor was almost blinding.
When we emerged into the Great Hall, I wrenched my arms from the guard’s tough grip, stoking the small ember of pride left in my soul. I walked the final few feet to the witness stand, the same marble pulpit where I had stood only a lifetime ago.
At the far end of the room, upon the raised dais, sat Lord Evander and Dame Seraphina. Their faces were twisted in condemnation, their eyes devoid of the mercy they preached from their high seats.
A familiar cry had my body tensing as I whipped around to face the gallery.
My mother was leaning over a stone pew, tears racing down her cheeks. Beside her, my father’s hand moved in a slow pat against her back, but his gaze remained pinned on me.
My stomach bottomed out as my eyes moved to Lyra and Theron, who both looked away from me.
I opened my mouth to call to them, to plead for them to understand, but the crack of a gavel cut through the air.
I turned toward the dais, blinking away the rapidly forming tears.
“Kaelia Vaser.” Lord Evander’s voice boomed, the sound rebounding off the high arches of the hall. “You have been apprehended for the crime of treason against the High Court of Haelen.”
Dame Seraphina laid down a stack of parchment, knitting her fingers together and leaning forward. “By consorting with the enemy and carving a home within their shadow, you have bled our secrets into their hands. You have jeopardized the safety of every soul within our city.”
My fingers curled against the marble ledge, my nails scraping the stone. “You imply such crimes as if your own hands are not stained crimson.”
A wave of shocked gasps rippled through the gallery.
“Watch your tongue, child,” Evander warned, his gray brows twitching. “Do you seek to add the defamation of this court to your list of crimes?”
“No.”
He squinted, fumbling with a crumpled piece of parchment. “Very well, then we will begin the questioning.”
I refrained from rolling my eyes and gestured for him to begin with a wave of my bound hands.
“Do you believe binding your soul to a creature of darkness sets a positive example for our people?”
I feigned pondering for a moment, my index finger tapping at the polished stand. “If you mean forming a bond with the one fate has chosen, then yes.”
Dame Seraphina blanched. “It is abnormal.”
“And alters the essence to that of a monster,” Evander added.
I scoffed.
“Why is it that you only tolerate ‘the monster’ when it serves your agenda?” I demanded. “You allow Talon entrance to your city when you need his power, yet you fear that one mortal living amongst them could dismantle your kingdom.”
Evander’s hand slammed onto the dais, the crack of it like a lightning strike as he surged to his feet. “That is by our decree! We trust the wisdom of this council to navigate the dark, but we cannot—will not—trust a girl who has lost her soul to it.”
I ignored him and answered my own question. “It is because the truth threatens you.”
“Kaelia,” Dame Seraphina hissed.
“And you worry,” I continued, “that now that the veil has been lifted, we will tear down the very laws you would kill to uphold.”
The scrape of Evander’s chair against the stone was a jarring sound. He stood at his full, towering height, and jutted a finger in my direction. “Silence!”
I stepped around the stand, moving into the open space of the hall, my head held high despite the sodden weight of the chains I could still feel in my mind. “I will give you anything but my silence. Haelen deserves the truth, even if I must pay for it with my last breath.”
Evander’s face burned a scorched red, his lips thinning into a line of resolve. “Then it is settled.”
My brow furrowed, a sudden falter in my pulse.
“Kaelia Vaser,” he began, his voice devoid of a single stir of mercy. “I hereby sentence you to death for crimes committed against Haelen.”
A screech split through the room and I knew the sound had come from my mother.
My eyes widened, not expecting him to place truth to my words. “I do not believe my crimes deserve such a heinous punishment, sir.”
“Well, we do not require your beliefs to make such decisions,” he snubbed, straightening the scattered parchments.
The noise of my mother’s sobbing rose in a frantic tide, but I could barely hear her over the deafening ringing in my ears.
Death.
They were going to kill me.
My father had always told me my defiance would land me in a grave, but I had never imagined the soil would be so cold, or the end so swift.
Dame Seraphina rose, her palms resting flat against the table. “This is a matter of the city. We deem this a public execution.”
“You cannot!” my mother shrieked. She threw herself over the bench, batting away my father’s reaching hand as she lunged for the center of the hall.
A guard intercepted her, his massive frame forming a wall of armor that blocked her from my sight.
“Please,” she gasped. “She is a child. My child!”
Tears filled my eyes as I watched the guard’s gloved hand nudge her shoulder back, pushing her back into her seat.
She darted around his reaching grasp, rushing toward me with her arms outstretched. The guard’s hand flashed out, catching a thick handful of her hair, and he wrenched her back. Her head snapped at the force of it, and a cry of pain splintered the silence of the hall.
Without thought, I charged forward and drove my shoulder into the small of his back, the impact of iron against bone vibrating up my arm.
He grunted, his boots skidding on the polished marble as his grip on my mother loosened.
She scrambled away from him, her small hands patting down her disheveled hair.
The guard whipped around, his teeth bared and his hand moving to the mace at his belt. I did not allow him the time to draw the weapon, I kicked my leg out, relishing in the pain shooting through my ankle when it collided with his hip.
The guard flailed and the moment his body struck the marble, the silence of the hall shattered.
A flurry of silver-clad figures swarmed me, a sea of polished metal and crimson leather.
My wrists were pushed into my hips, pinned by a pair of leather gloves that squeezed my forearms until the bone felt ready to snap. An armored arm banded across my chest, crushing the air from my lungs and pinning me against a wall of cold plate until I could not move.
When a guard knelt to slap a heavy shackle around my ankles, I lashed out. My bare heel connected with the underside of his chin, the jar of the impact vibrating up my leg.
I tried to fight, but there were too many of them.
Another set of hands clamped onto my knees, forcing my legs together until the iron bit deep into my skin, locking with a click.
“Stay down,” a voice spat near my ear.
I threw my head back with every ounce of strength I had left. My skull collided with the bridge of a guard’s nose and the hard edge of his helm.
Pain burst behind my eyes and the world tipped sideways.
The guards hauled me upright, my toes dragging across the cold marble as they began the long march back to the dark.
My mother’s voice rose in a spiraling wail that seemed to peel the very skin from my bones. I heard Lyra scream my name. My father was shouting too, but I could not make out any words.
I tried to turn, to catch one last glimpse of them, but my vision was a smear of salt and heat. Tears tracked hot paths through the grime on my face, blurring the world into a kaleidoscope of white marble and silver armor.
“See you at sunset, Kaelia.”
Evander’s voice followed me like a ghost, drifting over the screams of my mother and the splintering remains of my life.
I did not answer. I could not.
My tongue felt numb in my mouth, and the world had narrowed to the scrape of my shackles against the marble.
The trudge back to the cells was a hollow blur of grey stone and flickering torchlight. I walked because my legs moved, though my spirit felt as if it had been left behind on that courtroom floor.
My mind spiraled toward Talon. Was he feeling the echo of my terror through the bond? Was he already flying toward Haelen, or was I truly as alone as these stone walls suggested?
I did not expect him to endanger his life as well as his kin’s, but I did not want to be alone. I did not want to be here.
A sob caught in my throat, thick and tasting of the copper from my bitten tongue.
I did not want to die. I wanted to scream until the foundations of Haelen crumbled, but I was exhausted, drained of everything.
When we reached the dungeon, the air turned damp and dark once more.
We passed the neighboring cell, and the sound of fabric rustling against stone reached me. Meliory scampered to the bars, his face a pale moon in the darkness.
“How went the trial?”
I stopped, my gaze blankly fixed on a crack in the floor, watching a bead of moisture crawl toward the abyss.
“I will be dead come sunset,” I whispered hoarsely.
The words were so quiet, so final, that they seemed to drain the remaining warmth from the corridor. I heard his sharp intake of breath.
“No conversing!” the guard snarled, his hand slamming into my shoulder with a force that rattled my teeth.
He shoved me toward my cell, but as he moved, I saw the ring of keys swaying at his hip.
It was a fool’s gamble, a move born of a girl who had nothing left to lose.
As he reached to manhandle me into the cell, I leaned into him, letting my bound hands catch the cold metal of the ring. I felt the bite of the iron against my skin as I pinched the keys between my fingers, sliding them from his belt loop as silently as I could.
I let out a harsh, racking cough to mask the tiny jingle of the metal. He did not notice. He was too busy enjoying the power of his position.
He lunged forward and threw me into the cell, the iron on my ankles catching on the threshold.
I hit the floor hard. My knees cracked against the unforgiving stone, sending a jolt of white-hot pain through my hips, but I barely registered the agony. As I scrambled to my knees, I moved toward the shadows near the shared wall.
Without a word, I reached for the narrow gap in the masonry and slid the keys through the crack. I hoped he saw them. I hoped he understood that even if I was headed for the block, I would not leave him to the same fate.
The heavy iron door slammed shut, the lock clicking with a sound that felt like the final nail in my coffin. I stayed there on the floor, my forehead pressed against the freezing concrete.
The shadows in the corners of my eyes seemed to mock me, flickering with a life I would soon lose.
I had hours.
Only a few turns of the glass until the light left the sky and the axe took the rest.
I curled into a ball, my blunt nails digging into my palms until I drew blood from my dried-up gash, waiting in the silence for a miracle that felt miles away.