23. A Graceless Collapse of Tangled Limbs #3
A bitter, hollow laugh escaped him. “Yes. I do.” He threaded the rope through the chain between my manacles so my arms were bent and my hands were trapped against my sternum. He yanked the rope tight across my chest, the fibers biting into my skin. I hissed as he cinched the knot.
“Sorry,” he muttered, not meeting my eyes.
I didn’t answer. What was there to say? It’s alright? It wasn’t.
None of this was.
The kindling beneath my beaded slippers shifted, releasing the sharp scent of dried cedar and resin.
The soldier moved to my waist, then to my calves.
His movements grew more efficient with each knot.
By the time he stepped back, his hands were steady.
The boy who’d trembled was gone. In his place stood a man…
and just another soldier serving his king.
I tried to breathe. Tried to think.
This couldn't be how it ended. Not after everything. Not after deciphering the tapestry, not after believing we'd earned our freedom.
The people were growing restless. Tremors of panic clawed up my throat. My mind fractured into a thousand useless thoughts.
Unable to look at the people willing to watch me die, I turned my head toward the center of the platform and the stone flames of the altarpiece against the wall.
Such an appropriate correlation to my current predicament.
From this angle, I could see it in its entirety.
The carnelian glowed faintly, the fires around the room reflecting off the veining in the stone.
At its apex, a gold carved seal was set into the heart of the design, much like the one at the base of the phoenix.
Higher on the wall, where the ceiling arched, was a third seal.
In the winter months, when the sun was lower, the sunbeam probably wouldn’t reach any further into this space than that.
The weather colder, the days shorter, and the light barely made it into the room.
Must be a gloomy time. Not that I’d be here to see it.
Then it occurred to me that the third seal was probably exactly where the sun would shine when it was low in the sky at noon during the winter solstice.
My eyes flashed to the seal at the very base of the phoenix statue.
And the floor was exactly where the sunbeam would shine at noon on the summer solstice, when the sun was high in the sky. Huh.
But I digress.
A heavy soldier with jet-black hair and a limp approached the brazier that flanked the phoenix and tipped a torch into the flames.
The crowd’s murmurs swelled like a restless tide.
My eyes snagged on their faces again, illuminated by torchlight.
A woman near the front clutched a child tightly to her chest and stared at us with wide eyes.
Leaning against one of the brazier columns, with lips curled in disgust, an old man cursed and spat onto the stone floor.
And in white silk, Salma stood on the platform stairs near the throne, with horror in her eyes and hands covering her mouth.
Unable to bear it anymore, I shut my eyes.
Images of seemingly small things flashed behind my eyelids.
Sparrow’s lopsided smile when she pointed at the wish star she chose one night outside the dome’s glass.
The crinkles around Frater Andren’s eyes as he belly-laughed at the gambit he didn’t see coming.
The rainwater that ran from Griffon’s unguarded face as he pulled me onto the railing of that airship.
Even with my eyes closed, I knew he was watching me.
Griffon’s gaze felt like a brand on the side of my face.
I chanced a look at him. The wild greens of his eyes crackled with such a raw and desperate intensity it made my chest ache.
With the ropes biting into his skin, his body was taut. Rigid enough to crack down the center.
The rasp of metal against leather echoed through the temple. Soldiers sheathed their swords one by one and moved off the platform as the soldier with the newly lit torch drew closer. The flame danced with his lopsided gait, casting shadows that made the phoenix statue seem to writhe.
Griffon’s shoulders remained tense, but a strange calmness settled over his features. Resignation? I wish I could be so accepting of our fate.
Crunching over kindling, the soldier with the torch stepped up to the pyre. The beat of the drums suddenly resumed, vibrating the air around the room. The assembly fell silent as every eye fixed on the king.
King Faisal stood with Mali at his side, their hands clasped between them.
The king's expression was grave but resolute; hers was carefully blank, but unfocused.
No regret. No satisfaction. Just two people doing what they believed must be done for their kingdom.
They needed this. They needed us to burn so their secret stayed buried.
My panic breathing and the hammering in my chest drowned out the THUD THUD THUD of the drums. I found the star-shaped freckle between my thumb and forefinger and worried the skin.
I am the moon. I am the moon.
But the words were impossible to hold, slipping through my fingers like sand.
Griffon’s voice cut through my struggle. “Wren.”
The soldier with the torch glanced at the king and waited.
“Look at me,” he ordered.
I slowly turned my head.
His eyes burned into mine like a promise. “Look at me and breathe.”
My breath was trapped somewhere in my throat.
“Breathe, Wren!”
I suddenly sucked in a lungful of air like a drowning woman breaking the surface, and released it with a trembling sob.
“No matter what happens,” he said, “you keep breathing. You understand?”
Like saltwater to season the roast, tears spilled onto my cheeks.
“Stargazer.” The word came out softer than the others. “Promise me.”
I gave him a shaky nod.
King Faisal gave a sharp nod of his head.
The torch dipped toward the pyre.