Chapter Nine
Shouts puncture the air, and the stink of dung fills the halls.
The High Fae jostle one another to get a better look at the Heir of Illusion covered in horse shit.
Pure terror grips me, and Jae cries out Benji’s name, but the mare rears, and he pulls the reins.
Dominik throws himself toward Benji in the hands of the executioner.
“You fucking disgusting faerie!” he screams. “I will kill—”
“Silence!” King Maxian thunders. The ground trembles. The chandeliers swing above, and glass explodes. The room halts, and a rockslide of power tumbles through my body, freezing my muscles.
I drop to my knees and curl forward. Groans escape those who fall around me.
Get up, I tell my legs. Get up!
But my muscles are held by the will of another.
Crashes echo through the coronation hall as the crowd drops to the marble tiles, necks craning to look up at the throne. My breath becomes stifled, as if my lungs are petrifying to stone.
Thousands of candles undulate, hot wax sprinkling onto the crowd, and King Maxian waves his fingers, pulling the lights up again. He draws to his full height, no strain in his calm face.
“Now,” he says. “I have allowed you all to drink and swear and even squabble at my coronation.”
My gaze stays glued to him, eyes burning. I itch to blink but cannot.
“I will not tolerate the mockery this night has turned into. I am your king, so let me make that clear. This is my testament tonight. Remember this feeling.”
My nose presses against the ground. A collective whine fills the space as others are pressed forward, I can only assume.
The crunch of boots over ice shards.
“Executioner, bring me the boy.”
My genius thrashes, reaching out for the plane of magic, searching for water or a plant or dirt I can call to, can ask aid from, but it slams into that rock wall of power.
It can only claw at the inside of my skull like a caged animal, spitting and scratching and raking nails against the hold of Reign.
My vision blurs and stings with tears, as I cannot blink.
“You have few tattoos,” the king observes. “Yet you are a stable boy?”
Silence.
“You may speak.”
“Y-yes, Your Magnificence,” Benji stammers. My heart splinters.
“Why do you have so little debt? Surely you inherited some. Go on, speak.”
“M-my brother.”
I cringe.
“Is he alive?”
“Yes, Your Magnificence.”
“Point to him. Yes—you must.”
More movement. Tears drip onto the marble.
“Blink,” the king commands.
I do. The exhale of breath around me, the tiniest relief. My vision clears, throat straining with a trapped scream at the horror before me. Jeremee was right.
The grout is pink.
“I want everyone’s attention!”
My head snaps up, as do the heads of everyone else in the room in unison.
The executioner stands before the king, a gloved hand on the nape of Jeremee’s and Benji’s necks. Two of the most powerful males of the realm holding on to my boys.
My family, my mind weeps. My family.
The king waves at the crowd. “Blink again. I want everyone to see.”
My cheeks dampen.
“You have so many debt rings, and yet your brother has so few?” the king says to Jeremee.
“I took on all of our parents’ save one, Your Magnificence.”
“Why?”
“I wanted to protect my brother.”
The royal’s face twitches. “You should’ve given him more. It would’ve taught him respect and courtesy for the fae.”
Jeremee and Benji don’t move. With my eyes still trained on the dais, I cannot find Kassandra or Briar or Glenn. No one is stepping in to help. No one can.
“Hector,” the king calls, and his advisor rises from his spot near the front. “What would my father have done?”
“Whipped them, and if they survived, sent them to the mines to work until death.”
“But I am not my father,” King Maxian says. “So I will be swift. The punishment will be dealt tonight, then no more.”
Something glints in the candlelight, movement like a snake uncoiling from the king’s side. Benji starts to sob.
“Please,” Jeremee chokes out. “He’s only a child, a baby, truly. Please.”
Realization hits me. My genius twists inside my mind, desperate to get out, to stop this. Planes, no. No, please.
The Golden Whip.
After a hot, dry summer full of dead crops, my grandmother took the punishment for her field, according to my mother. She died after three lashes. How many can a child endure?
A shriek swells in my chest.
Jeremee drops to his knees of his own volition. “Please, he’s just a boy. Our parents are dead. The responsibility rests on my shoulders—”
The king tilts his head, listening.
“I beg you, punish me instead. I will take what he owes. I will give anything.”
The royal holds up his hand. “I have heard your points and agree you will receive the punishment. Your brother will know he is the reason for your suffering, and that will be his burden.”
Relief and terror seize me at once, like the heat and cold of a fever.
No, I think. No, I will. I will because Jeremee has given so much already. Jeremee has nothing left to give. He cannot keep giving.
“However,” the king says, “I’m not the one who was humiliated. Dominik?”
The silver-haired lord staggers to his feet several bodies ahead of me, brushing dirt off his clothes.
The king gestures. “You shall have to settle for the older of the two. What shall be the appropriate punishment for your debasement tonight?”
I do not see Dominik’s face, but I wonder if he has the gall to smile.
“Death,” he says.
No. Spittle sprays from my gritted teeth, a guttural growl ripping out. Tears blur my vision.
The king watches his friend, expression darkening. Finally, he speaks. “I’m a male of my word. A quick death it shall be. We will not offer the drawn-out suffering of the whip or the mines or the Walk.”
No!
Jeremee hangs his head. The king’s executioner steps away from Benji. The boy wails but, through the king’s power or his own fear, remains frozen in place. The cloaked figure strides before Jeremee.
“Blink,” the king whispers, and the room does. Only this time the anger leaves his face, leaving behind a grim expression. The king’s executioner does not reach for his sword. He places a hand on Jeremee’s forehead.
Blood fills my mouth, my tongue cut, my forehead pulsing with strain. The protest does nothing. Jeremee twists his neck, scanning the crowd. Our eyes meet and it is agony.
I’m here, I try to scream. I’m here. I love you. I—
Jeremee parts his lips, but it is too late. In a blink I cannot take, my best friend is rendered red mist.
He becomes nothing.
Nothing.
Not even a singular shoe remains.
No body to bury. No cold hand to hold.
Just one touch to the forehead and his entire existence is…Just. Gone.
Benji drops to the ground, wailing. No one moves, not even the king, as the child writhes and screams, his pain echoing in the otherwise silent, cavernous hall.
Then the first of the black rings sear his thin arms. His screams pitch higher.
I cling to consciousness. I try. I try.
But tattoos strangle the sensitive skin, and Benji is shrieking like the day he suffered the mistake of being born. Only now the whole of his small body is marred with debt, and he is not the same child as the moment before.
Benji is an Unluckie.
I can fight it no longer. Darkness takes me under.