Chapter Sixteen
“The traitors are dead.”
One of my raven guards gasped, clapping her hand over her mouth. “Oh, no. My lady, we were too late. I’m so sorry.”
“No.” Expression hard, I advanced on the captured soldier. His companions raised, lowered, raised, then lowered their swords as I stalked past—not knowing what to do against the woman that was once their sovereign. “They’re not dead. Stop wasting time and take me to them now.”
Bradach tightened on his throat. “Are you certain?” he asked me.
“Yes. Salman holds his executions after daybreak so that the temple priestesses can attend. It delights him to lord over his victims that their slaughter is divined and sanctioned by Meya. We still have time, but not much, so take me to them now!”
Emiana living in my head for months was worth something in the end. Faced with her knowledge and her face, the soldier gave in—ordering for the doors to be opened and the queen invited inside.
I chased him through the halls, and then he chased after me. Emiana’s memories were fading from my mind like water through my fingertips, but the place where Salman forced a small child to watch men and women be beheaded... that memory would stay long after she was gone.
Something caught my eye.
Emiana’s hair draped over my shoulders, the gorgeous flaming crown known by all in the kingdom. So striking and uniform, except for the ebony tips dipped in ink.
“Oh, no,” I breathed. “Bradach!”
He raced to my side, and quickly noticed what I did.
“I was afraid of this.” He craned his head around farther than an unchanged faeman’s could go.
Our followers were too far behind us to hear.
“The body-switching curse works in reverse when it’s broken.
First, you lose your body, then your mind.
Now, you’ve regained your mind and next will come your body.
“You have to do this quickly,” he forced through clenched teeth. “You said it yourself. The only voice they’ll hear in that room is that of a queen.”
I urged my feet on without a huff or puff. I wasn’t winded in the slightest, even though I was running faster than Emiana’s limit. My true body was returning, and it wouldn’t wait.
“If I fail, get my mother and sister out of here.” I whipped around a corner, blowing past a servant who screamed and dropped her bucket. “I don’t care if you have to leave me behind. Get them to safety.”
A thousand emotions warred on his chiseled face. “If I do so, it’s an act of war. I’d be proving they’re spies of Lumenfell who violated Lyrica’s sovereignty, and then we violated it again by preventing them from executing two traitors to the kingdom.”
“So be it. If it’s a war Salman wants, it’s one he’ll get soon enough. But promise me you’ll save them, Bradach. They will not die today!”
I burst through the doors.
“—the reading of the charges. Olene Waterrose, you are hereby sentenced to death and—”
“Stop!”
The same officiant who married me and Alisdair dropped his book, whirling around.
My stomach heaved at the sight before me.
The room chosen to be the final stop of Salman’s enemies was a bright, plain, circular space.
A ceiling-high window faced the west, soaking in the final rays of the setting sun.
Standing beneath the window were the officiant and two temple priestesses.
Across the room, Salman, his advisors, and Kirwan Dawnbreaker observed my mother and his daughter chained to the middle of the floor—hatred rimming his red eyes.
Meliora didn’t cry. Head held high, she was resplendent in her new, expensive gown as she held on to my mother’s hand—her lips moving in silent prayer as red, bubbling blisters traveled up her wrist.
Rage welled in my chest, choking me. They bound an innocent girl of only sixteen years of age with iron chains.
My mother knelt beside her, her wrists burning horribly, but I doubted she noticed. Mama doubled over, clutching her stomach and dry-heaving. Even now, the wasting sickness wouldn’t give her peace.
Two soldiers stood above them both, holding the swords that would separate their heads from their shoulders.
Salman shot forward. “What is the meaning of—? Emiana?” He looked at me dumbfounded like he didn’t recognize his child. “What on earth are you doing here!”
I lifted my chin. “I was about to ask the same question. This farce is over. You!” I snapped my fingers at the officiant. “Release them. Now.”
“Do not move,” Kirwan barked at him. “You have no authority here, former princess. You renounced all ties to Lyrica when you married, so it is you who will cease this farce, walk out of this room, and return to where you came from. This execution is lawful and will proceed.”
I didn’t so much as glance in his direction. “You will shut your fucking mouth in my presence.”
Kirwan choked. “Excuse—! How dare—!”
Salman’s expression hardened. “You’ve gotten big for your crown, girl. Why doesn’t it surprise me an ignorant beast has no control over his women? We are not so lax in my palace, as you well know. You will leave my castle now, or—”
“I have every right to be here,” I pushed on, ignoring both fools.
“The charge is that they are spies for Wind and Wild. I am the queen of Wind and Wild and know every spy under employ of my kingdom. These two are not among them,” I said, tone even.
“So I repeat, release them, and after you’ve done so, thank me for saving you from carrying out an unlawful execution against your own citizens. ”
Meli flicked from me to Salman, wide-eyed. Her lips still moved in prayer, but this time I knew what she was saying. Please, let them believe her.
Another of Salman’s advisors stepped forward.
I couldn’t access Emiana’s memory of his name.
“Forgive me, my lady, but your word is not evidence, while the payment confiscated from their home is. We have proof they were paid for services to the faeriken. While you have no reason to be honest about who does or doesn’t spy for your kingdom.
” His brow arched. “If anything, your rushing to their rescue proves they’re valuable to you, and a traitor to us. ”
My eyes narrowed on him, then flicked down. Before my gaze, my nails shrunk—returning to the short, blunt, gardener’s length they were before. Hurry!
“That’s a lot of words to call me a liar,” I replied, folding my hands behind my back.
“Here I was believing I’d be entering a civil conversation with my allies, not the insult-slinging match of enemies.
And this is after my husband was kind enough not to declare the treaty broken after the events of our wedding day. ”
“Events caused by you!” Salman bellowed.
“Regardless, he remains committed to keeping the treaty, while you all appear committed to falsely accusing us of espionage and violating your sovereignty. Both acts that declare the treaty null and void.
“If it is your assertion that you have irrefutable proof that these women are my spies, then you have proven your case against Wind and Wild too,” I stated.
“We have violated the treaty, the ceasefire is at an end, and the war continues.” I turned my back on them, marching for the door.
“I will send word to prepare our forces to march on Lyrica. Good day.”
“What!”
“Hold on a moment!”
“Stop,” said one clear voice, halting my hand on the knob. “The voice of Meya will speak in this place and be heard.”
I spun and dropped to my knees, thudding to the floor as quickly as Bradach, Salman, Kirwan, the advisors, the officiant, and the executioners.
Everyone bowed before the voice of Meya, and the representatives chosen to deliver it. Everyone—even a king.
Through my lashes, I watched as the temple priestesses stepped forward. They weren’t chosen for their beauty, but they were all the same. A fact that couldn’t be concealed by their heavy, white face paint, voluminous white robes, or their shaved heads—as bald as the moon.
“Meya weeps for the ravages of war, and the death and destruction it has caused to her creations.” She swept over our bowed heads. “If there must be war, the passion and ferocity for which it is waged will be equal to the passion and ferocity in preventing it.”
Stepping back, her sister and fellow priestess continued without pause. “Queen Emiana of Wind and Wild, and Lord Kirwan Dawnbreaker will present their evidence against these women, and then it will be Meya who decides their sentence. Her word is law. Her judgement is absolute. So mote it be.”
“So mote it be,” we echoed. “In Meya’s name.”
Bradach nodded to me out of the corner of my eye. This was my one and only chance, and—
My toes jammed against the front of my slippers, outgrowing a princess’s dainty feet.
—I was running out of time.
Kirwan rose up. “I will happily repeat my evidence at the behest of Meya.
The facts are these—only months ago, Aya Olene and her children lived in poverty in the Galley.
Her eldest daughter, Callidora, owed a significant debt to House Dawnbreaker that she agreed to repay by signing up for the noble service of becoming a war wife.
“I myself escorted her to Crystal Palace so that she may begin her duties by servicing the faeriken in attendance of the royal wedding,” he said. “The coward immediately fled and abandoned her responsibilities and her family.
“Or did she?” Kirwan brushed his thumb over the crystal on his lapel. A familiar silver chalice appeared in his right hand. “This is one of the items confiscated from Aya Olene’s home. As you can see, the crest of Wind and Wild and its beast king is on the bottom.”
I hadn’t noticed that when I shoved all those treasures in a sack for my family. Alisdair was right. I was a terrible thief.