Chapter 10 Effigies #2
“Sometimes I like to shake them, experience a little freedom.” His voice was low, strained through the wool scarf.
“They’ll be here any second, though.” He lowered the fabric and inhaled deeply.
My skin chilled. “What shall we do to pass the time, Tam? It’s not often we’re both allowed this close to one another unprotected. ”
He pressed forward, his chest now inches from mine. The brick wall snagged on my cloak and the distant smoke melted into the air, leaving only his form towering above me.
Movement from the far side of the alleyway caught my attention. A flash of light upon silver spurs. He had to see this, it was the temptation I needed. One of the two of them had to die.
I steeled myself, leaning closer to the prince. His lips parted, his breath warming the space between us. I reached again for the magic, but it stayed hidden, coiling deep inside me.
My breath hitched as he closed the gap. I should pull away, this was too close, too real, but my body was trapped, anesthetized, as he hovered so close I could almost taste him.
Panicked footsteps echoed down the alleyway, the distant clink of spurs fading as they grew louder. Two guards rounded the far corner and even from this distance I recognized Clement’s lithe form. The hold snapped, and I slipped away from the prince, tugging my hood back up.
I darted around the corner, hurrying back in the direction I’d come, wiping my mouth as I went.
We’d come so close to kissing, I could still feel his breath condensed on my lips.
Why had my magic failed me? I flung out a hand to steady myself on the wall as my head spun.
I’d gone too far. I wasn’t in control, my head wasn’t in the game.
That must be it because it had never happened before.
Mt stomach twisted as I remembered it was Clement who had almost caught us.
Of all people, I did not want him to have seen.
I forced my feet to move again. The alley spit back onto the main street, and I ran toward the castle, my cloak flapping around my legs.
And oh, if Siobhan had seen me? I stumbled, slapping my thighs angrily to force the weakness out.
Goddess above, she’d have flayed me alive and thrown me onto the bonfire.
The castle gates sprang into view, the sentinel gargoyle watching my every move as I darted underneath and toward the servant's entrance. I had to find the Sherriff. My magic would work on him. It had too. But the prince? I grasped at it again, trying to draw it back from the depths. It didn’t feel like it withdrew because my heart wasn’t in it or because I wasn’t concentrating.
There was an uneasiness to it that curled ribbons of nausea through my stomach. It was like it was hiding.
Scared.
I walked through the castle unseeing, mildly surprised when I arrived at Lilyanna’s door without any detours.
Matron whisked past me without so much as a goodnight.
She'd kept the fire stoked, even more thoroughly than I usually did.
The flames roared, consuming the entire hearth, and blackening the marble ledge above.
I settled down outside Lilyanna’s door and tugged my duvet down from the chaise.
I stared into the fire until my eyes unfocused, the dancing figures blurring into a whirlwind.
A shadow passed over the room, licking at my skin like silk, and I blinked when the familiar market scene from my childhood appeared.
Bales were piled around the edges, wisps of loose straw chased by the wind tumbled across the packed dirt floor.
The stalls were bare, crushed against the edges of the square.
The same people who attended week after week gathered around a central stage.
The plinth was newly erected. The wood slats creaked in the breeze, the coils of rope hanging from the beam were pristine, the waxed edges shiny against the matt of the gray sky.
I froze at the back, my feet unwilling to get any closer. Despite the distance between me and the stage, I had a direct view like the crowd parted just for me.
Five people were herded toward the gallows bound by rope like a line of waddling ducklings.
Each hesitant footfall was magnified by the silence, the crack of the stairs snapping through the thin air.
Ropes came down and were tied securely at the nape of their necks. They all looked the same. Terrified.
“One of them is innocent,” Siobhan breathed.
Bile shot into my throat. “Then why aren’t you helping them?”
She patted my arm, sliding into position behind me. Her face lowered, and she pressed her warm cheek against my clammy one. “They haven’t asked my dear. Choose wisely, for if you get it right, you’ll be rewarded, and I’ll let the innocent one go.”
I swallowed and scanned the faces again.
“Oh, and one of them murdered your parents. See if you can tell who. Don’t get it wrong or they may walk free instead. Perhaps then you won't miss a detail so important again, will you?”
I’d replayed the night my parents were murdered over and over in my mind.
I had missed things, all the signs of their panic, their preparation at hiding from the oncoming foe.
The door had not just been latched but bolted.
Knives were removed from the kitchen and placed under pillows.
The shutters crashed against the windowpanes in the storm because they’d been pulled closed, instead of their usual position lying flat against the walls.
At any time, I could’ve realized and stayed awake to help keep guard. It didn’t matter that I was a child, just one more person defending our home could have made all the difference. And so, I absorbed every droplet of information Siobhan fed to me like a leech, willing it never to happen again.
I focused back on the five people. Three men and two women.
The first had his face upturned, pleading to the Goddess.
Not him. The next two had their eyes closed, swaying in the gusting wind, their bodies relaxed.
They’d made peace with the decision—not them.
The next woman trembled, chest heaving, eyes fixed on a small knot of silently weeping people in the crowd, but there was a rigidity in her spine and in the way she planted her boots. She wasn’t sorry.
I stared at her, unable to tear my eyes away. It must have been her.
Eventually, I choked down my sob and focused.
The last man had tears streaming down his face, carving white lines in the dirt.
He kept his chin high, stubbornly refusing to meet the pleas of the woman in the crowd directly in front of him.
He didn’t want her there, didn’t want her to suffer, didn’t want her to think he was guilty.
“You’ve chosen?” Her words brushed against my cheek.
The gallows creaked as the large wheel turned, and the floor began to open.
I nodded toward the man at the end. Siobhan pulled back, lips skimming my hair, her hand remaining on my arm.
The last man’s face morphed into chestnut coiffed hair and a flash of dimples before my eyes. I’d nodded toward the prince, decided to save him. Decided he was innocent.
The floor collapsed and all five people plunged into the opening.
A ripple passed over the crowd. The woman at the front dove under the stage, golden hair flashing in the sickly sunlight. She flung herself around the prince who had smacked into the dirt floor, the rope uncoiling from the beam. The other four swung in the breeze above.
Siobhan turned me around, and we walked from the market. “They’ll say the Goddess saved him. He’ll be forgiven of his accused crimes.”
Relief weakened my legs, and Siobhan’s arm tightened around my waist. “So, I chose correctly? It was the woman who was the murderer, right?”
She giggled. “We’ll never know, my dear. But that’s half the fun, is it not?”
I dragged myself back to the present. The marble floor was cool beneath me, the flames burning high in the hearth. Maybe my magic had faltered because it was protecting me. It knew I wasn’t fully committed. The clear night, the effigy, the hunting of magic, not to mention Siobhan’s presence.
Yes, Siobhan. It was her fault.
She was testing me to make sure I wanted it enough. She had dragged me back here to my hometown when I’d spent so many years avoiding any association with the North and now, she was making me confront my memories, forcing my hand.
But did I want to destroy the prince? Shouldn’t I find out if he was guilty before I added another tally to my list? The Sheriff was certainly guilty, he’d left a pile of bodies and heartache in his wake. He was the easier option, the one with less collateral damage.
I tugged the thin quilt up to my chin and kept focused on the hearth lost in thought until I finally fell asleep.