Chapter Thirteen #2
All around the courtyard, the rising gale whipped at the festive blue bunting.
A sob that was not Avette’s wracked the balcony; it was quiet, ripped from the chest of its owner, and the only clue that she’d heard it was the slight tic of her shoulders, the way they tensed and rose, the winds rising with them.
Please, Mareda, Gerard thought wildly, please do not make this the one time in your perfect fucking life that you lose your composure.
“It is, therefore, with great sorrow that I perform my first act as the leader of our great nation. In the memory of my cousin—and in the name of justice for you all.”
The gale tugged urgently at Avette’s skirts like a frightened child desperate for comfort, then more violently still, whipping the heavy folds around her feet until it was a wonder she remained upright.
But she did. She was immovable, her pendant brilliant beneath her hand, black eyes cast in its cold blue light.
Mareda was crying openly now, though she made no move toward her father. Or any move at all. She was frozen, rigid but for the heave of her chest as she watched, blindly, through a haze of tears.
“No,” she was sobbing, barely audible beneath the howl of the winds. “No, please, please—”
Please, came his mother’s voice again, her sobs a horrible echo to Mareda’s.
“Please, don’t hurt him, no, no—”
Please, not Gerry, he’s just a boy—
“Edward Brogan,” Avette intoned. “I hereby relieve you of your role, Commander of the Palace Wielders. I hereby strip you of your title, Lord Brogan of the Queen’s Village.
I charge you with my own abduction, and over twenty years kept from the pious people of Eisalaan.
And, with a heavy heart, I hereby convict you of the murder of Her Late Majesty Queen Selma Ashalynn Beira. You have been found guilty of treason.”
“Please,” gasped Mareda.
“Please—” breathed Edward.
Please, cried his mother’s voice.
The pendant winked out.
“May the Mother have mercy on your soul.”
A bright blast of blue swallowed them whole, and the wind howled, Aera herself screaming in their ears.
Aera—or perhaps Mareda. Because when the light and the wind had settled, and Ger blinked numbly around the balcony, she was on the floor.
Imogen tried, leaning down over the stiff balloon of her own skirt, to gently guide her to her feet.
But the princess would not be moved, a raw and endless cry spilling from her open mouth.
The sight of a single ice flake caught against her pale hair made Ger’s stomach lurch so violently he nearly doubled over.
Above their heads, the last of Edward’s remains spun away in a swirl of glittering snowdust.
The next moments moved like treacle, at least in his own mind.
The thundering force of the blood in his veins shook his whole body, his heart stuttering and inconstant.
His hand had made it to his hilt, but his brain was so sluggish with panic that he couldn’t really recall why he’d been struggling to get it there in the first place.
He looked around, a little frantic, Mareda’s keening cry grating at his taut nerves, sawing them open.
He needed to anchor himself, needed to focus on something real, something grounding.
Protect. I’m a protector. I’m—
The main courtyard was unmoving, its occupants caught in a mass trance of sheer shock, or perhaps confusion.
To them, from so far below, it would have seemed that Edward simply disappeared in a blast of blue and a pretty shimmer of ice.
To most of them, at least. But Ger’s eye drew to the inner gate, where chaos had burst like a festering wound.
People were pushing, quietly scrabbling for escape.
A woman with a child on her hip was straining against the armoured grip of a Queen’s Gard, trying to wrench herself free as her little one wailed, and Gerard stared and stared and stared.
Only when movement at his side caught his eye did his attention flinch back to the balcony, Avette turning slowly from the empty space that had been Edward. Her eyes ticked over each of their faces, one by one …
… And landed on Mareda, still screaming on the floor.
Her hand rose to her pendant, resolve flashing like a knife’s edge beneath her long lashes.
Ger’s hand tightened around his hilt until his knuckles creaked.
And as the blue glow began to grow between the young queen’s fingers, he drew his sword just a fraction, even when the action made his mind bleat with panic, black licking at the corners of his vision.
Protector.
He would cut her down.
He would not stand by as Adeline lost another loved one.
He would draw his sword and—
“No.”
The glow guttered like a burnt-out candle, and Ger froze, blade half-drawn.
Imogen had swept into the whistling space between the queen and Mareda, one arm outstretched toward each of them.
“Avette,” she said sharply. It was the tone you might take with a misbehaving pup. “No.”