Chapter 33 #2
The cart’s wheels clattered as they rolled from the dirt road onto the cobblestone where the town square began.
Mevia was a thriving town with rows upon rows of shops and bakeries and butcheries—all currently closed.
The contrast of the town’s civility and the screaming horde calling for my death was a sickening sight.
As we approached the platform where a pyre was ready and waiting for me, I felt a wave of calm come over me.
It was as if this wasn’t happening to me, but someone else.
My body was relaxed, my mind tranquil, as I was taken down gently from the cart by Selwyn and guided up the stairs in a dreamlike state.
I didn’t struggle or fight. I walked to my fate with my chin up, my head held high.
Rather than be forced up the final step to the pyre, I pulled away from Selwyn and went of my own accord, turning to face the screaming mob.
I gripped the pole at my back before Selwyn bound my already tied hands to it and stepped back, pausing to frown at me.
“I forgive you, Selwyn,” I told him. “I know you’re only following orders.”
He flinched, his frown softening into something like guilt or remorse.
Then he turned his face away and stalked to the foot of the platform where the crowd had gathered, still shouting obscenities.
Gael dismounted and walked up to the platform, the crowd parting to let him through.
He held up a hand, his good one, and the crowd hushed.
But it wasn’t he who spoke, it was the auburn-haired guard.
“Good fae folk of Mevia! We have finally captured the princess of Morodon and we brought her here to face justice.” The crowd roared, then they died down when he continued.
“She promised her hand in marriage to our honorable Lord of Mevia. And after the dowry was paid to her, she fled to the wilds of Northgall, absconding with the coin she’d earned through her betrayal. ”
More obscenities were shouted at me. He was lying, of course. My father was paid the dowry, and I received none of it. I ran for my life when I realized the kind of male I was supposed to marry, when my own mother refused to hear my pleas.
“Then she committed a worse betrayal!” He paused for dramatic effect. “She lay with one of the demon fae.”
Cries of disgust and words like “harlot” and “whore” were shouted at me. I kept my gaze above the crowd, looking down the road, past the snaking Bluevale River glistening in the sunlight and to the hills beyond—the hills of the Borderlands.
“Not only did she lay with one of our enemy, but it was the lowest of their kind. A beast fae lord!”
More appalling and vicious curses were slung at me.
I bit my trembling lip, the tears I’d held back falling now.
Not because of what they said, but because I’d never see my Redvyr again.
I’d die before I was ever able to tell him that I loved him, that I wanted to be his wife and partner till the end of our days.
“See how she cries now, regretting her crimes against our good lord.”
Lord Gael then stepped forward, facing the crowd but looking back over his shoulder at me.
“Even now, after all you have done,” he said, his voice ringing falsely with the so-called pain I’ve caused him, “even after your thievery of my coin, your betrayal with a wicked enemy, I will forgive you…if you kneel before me and the people of Mevia and swear your fealty to me, to use your magick to protect us. To rid us of the oppression we suffer under King Gollaya and Queen Una.”
What he was really demanding was that I murder for him, that I become his puppet and use my magick to kill for him.
But he couched it in terms so that my refusal looked as if I was refusing to protect the people of this town.
They were truly fooled by their lord. There was no telling how many lies he’d told to sway them against King Gollaya and his queen.
I held Gael’s gaze. “No. I will not become a murderer for you.”
It was useless to try and defend myself at this point. He had them in his thrall of deception.
“Then so be it.” He nodded to Selwyn.
My executioner marched to the edge of the stone platform where a torch burned, before lifting it from its holder, and then returning to stand in front of me.
His gaze flicked to mine, hesitating only for a moment before he lit the kindling at the base of the pyre.
Then he stepped back, the crowd erupting with more shouts for my death.
“Burn!”
The gusting wind fanned the flames, my bare feet beginning to sting with the rising heat. I had to force myself not to think of the coming pain.
Blocking out the hatred being spewed at me as the smoke rose in the billowing breeze, I looked out toward the hills again. Movement on this side of the river caught my eye. A line of fae was storming toward the town. Beast fae. And wolves.
And at the head of the line, charging faster and faster, was the beast lord.
My heart leaped at the sight of him. He was wearing a leather skirt, his chest bare, his runes a stark black against his bronzed skin.
With his long legs pumping fast, a black-steel blade in both hands, and his golden eyes burning so bright, he was the incarnation of vengeance—and fierce love.
I smiled as more tears slipped from my eyes, the black smoke clouding my vision, but I kept my gaze fixed on the one who held my heart and soul.
“Redvyr.”