27. Raithe
Raithe
Word had spread quickly throughout the palace of my punishment, thanks to Barto and Chessah. Historically, Maryn preferred to keep news of my disobedience quiet with few present, including Felaf to inflict the punishment.
Today was different.
Lividity simmered beneath Maryn’s relatively composed exchange with Rahzlyn in the council room. I’d left for weeks without her permission. Such a thing couldn’t go unpunished. Neither could my behavior.
She wanted a spectacle.
The training courtyard was burrowed behind the palace and the armory, serving also as a sparring ring. I stood in the center of the square pit, my head tilted up at the queen regent who sat elegantly on the balcony of the second level.
Nearly every staff member of the palace congregated to witness Felaf whip me until it pleased the queen regent.
She could have forced me to remove my talisman, but only a guardian was truly capable of delivering physical punishment to another guardian. Maryn wanted me to suffer. I would feel the pain from Felaf’s might with every excruciating blow.
“On your knees, Guardian,” Maryn called down to me.
I obeyed, sinking into the sand beside my leather uniform.
I was bare from the waist up, having stripped down to only my fitted black trousers.
I paid no mind to all the eyes that watched with grisly curiosity.
They never got to see a guardian be so thoroughly humbled, let alone witness the strength of one.
Gregorios sat beside Maryn, his lips pressed into a solemn line. Alekko and Vesperah stood below the observation balcony, tucked behind a potted plant. Their arms were tightly crossed over their chests. Neither appeared particularly happy, but no one dared cross the queen regent.
I’d disobeyed a common rule ingrained on the Martial Isles: do not act without direct approval from the reigning sovereign, queen, or queen regent. Deep down, I knew I deserved this punishment—and more—for mistakes made in my youth. Mistakes I could never atone for, even as a Chosen.
Besides, if Gregorios and I told the queen regent the truth about his message from Gemini and how we’d found Rahzlyn, Gregorios would be right. Maryn couldn’t be trusted to not accuse Gregorios of being an apostate. I was surprised she hadn’t done so with me yet.
I couldn’t give her a reason to want to actually kill me before breaking the curse and seeing the end of the apostai.
Rahzlyn was the key to their undoing. Maybe I could prove Gregorios’s prophesied words true from all those years ago: that I would be a hero to this queendom, not a wretch who never should have been born.
I squeezed my eyes shut for a moment, shoving away the ghosts of my parents’ memory.
“Give credence to Scorpio,” announced Maryn. “And watch what happens to those who act against the interest of our queendom by disobeying me. Begin.”
Felaf shuffled closer behind me. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I’m so sorry for this. You know this is my punishment too, don’t you?”
I scanned the audience. Following the meeting’s adjournment, Letti had ushered Rahzlyn away to rest. She’d been moments away from passing out due to the strain on her body by standing upright.
Her spiraling mind hadn’t helped. Anxiety was a common ailment suffered by many, manifesting worse in those who did not recognize the root of its cause nor the coping skills to ground themselves.
I saw it in her eyes—the out-of-control dread.
Having experienced it myself years ago, I knew what it meant to have someone step in and claim attention when such panic took over.
Alekko had been such a person.
The first crack thundered around the courtyard. I jerked forward. Shocked murmurs trickled around me. I blocked them out and focused on the pain ricocheting up my back. It took several more lashes before the air I’d been holding whooshed from my lungs.
I balled my fists at my sides. As Felaf whipped at my back, I found myself transported back to my eight-year-old self. In my mind, no longer was it a whip that slashed open my skin, but a belt. A belt that was a distinctly faded, worn shade of brown.
“Stop this at once!” a voice demanded.
The roaring in my ears quieted as Felaf broke the rhythm of her steady cracks. It had been so long since I’d felt such true, raw pain. Previous lashings hadn’t lasted this long.
I deserve this, I reminded myself through the dizzying haze. The interfering voice had only been a figment of my childhood’s imagination, from a time when I wished anyone would have intervened—
“I said, stop!”
My eyes shot open and bored into the bloody sand, uncertain I’d heard right. The courtyard had grown quiet enough for me to hear the pounding heartbeats of each spectator. To hear one in particular, beating so ferociously it drowned out everything else.
I glanced up, and there was Rahzlyn. Her dark, wild curls glowed as she stepped into the sunlight. She’d broken through a throng of guards with Alekko and Vesperah hot on her heels. Not to stop her, but to protect her.
“What the fuck are you doing?” I panted.
Her frantic gaze fixed on me as she walked closer. Her movements were labored and stiff. My own forearms trembled to keep hold of my upper body.
“I will not condone interference,” Maryn announced from her seat above. “Guards, seize—”
“This is cruel and barbaric,” Rahzlyn shot back, turning to address the queen regent. She pointed behind herself, down at me. “His actions resulted in saving my life, and your response is to beat him to death?”
I couldn’t understand why she dared to intervene. Nor could I make sense of the distress coating her voice.
“Not death, but close enough. Do you wish to join him or take his place instead?”
“Queen Regent,” Gregorios implored at her side. “That is hardly appropriate—”
“I will decide what’s appropriate,” Maryn hissed back at Gregorios. “Until she has any actual power, I am the reigning sovereign, Chosen or not.”
“Keep going, Felaf,” I ground out.
I deserve this for being born, for that fateful day when I—
“I don’t care what rule he broke. This isn’t right.” Rahzlyn faced us. “Please, end this, Felaf.”
I stared up at her in bewilderment.
“My word is what governs this place!” Maryn bellowed. “As future queen, you would do well to watch and learn. Disobedience will not be tolerated. In a time with such uncertainty, order is paramount. Lessons must be learned. Continue!”
Without a law that would find Maryn facing retribution for inflicting punishment on a Chosen, she would put Rahzlyn under the whip beside me. And Felaf would obey.
An unexpected wave of protectiveness took hold of me.
I’d promised Rahzlyn harm would come to her if she deceived us, but that had been an empty threat meant to scare her.
There were few people in this world I truly wanted dead.
The apostai needed to be brought to justice, not executed or tortured on a whim.
As much as I didn’t want to trust Rahzlyn, that included her.
“Keep. Going,” I growled at Felaf. Anger boiled in my blood. Maryn would stay true to her threat if Rahzlyn didn’t back down and stay out of this.
The warmth of Rahzlyn’s body neared as she positioned herself between Felaf and me. “I will not stand by and allow this kind of savagery to continue. If that means you wish to put me under this whip instead, then so be it.”
The courtyard erupted in gasps.
What the fuck did she think she was doing?
“Felaf!” Alekko bellowed in alarm. As though he, too, would not stand for any more of this. I was grateful when Vesperah clutched his arm.
Because only I deserved this.
“I… I…” Felaf stammered at my back.
Shocked outbursts continued from the observing crowd.
“She is still a Chosen,” an advisor timidly beseeched Maryn. “Your future queen! This is not the precedent you want to set.”
The whip thudded into the sand. “I cannot,” Felaf lamented. She fell to her knees beside me, head bowed.
Maryn remained speechless. Crimson drenched her stony face. She stood, casting a threatening glare down at us. At Rahzlyn.
Then she turned and exited. The courtyard exhaled a collective breath. Her reprieve was sure to be short-lived, for in her parting stare, her eyes promised retribution.