King Vaeron squealed as the executioner heaved his dripping blade.
Slash.
The king’s head lolled at an unnatural angle, nearly severed, and he slumped against his queen. Their blood pooled together, spreading across the marble like a dark mirror.
Then the executioner’s gaze swept the fleeing nobles. His hand lifted.
A lord who’d laughed during my sentencing didn’t havetime to scream. Heexploded. A burst of red mist where a person had been. Chunks of him splattered the walls, the floor, the panicked people running past. Someone shrieked. Another noble burst apart.
“Stop!” I shouted. “You don’t have to kill them all!”
He moved through the room with terrible purpose, ignoring me. I watched it unfold, horrified. A female crumpled with her chest caved in. A cleric’s head separated from his shoulders mid-stride. The younger ones—barely more than children—he let scramble past him, their silk slippers sliding in blood.
In seconds, the entire royal family was gone. The power structure of Skalgard had crumbled, and I had caused it. Henrik, who’d violated my mind. Finished. The king and queen who’d ruled for centuries. Dead.
All of them.
I’d never seen anything so brutal in my life. Even during the Rite, when they lined up humans for harvesting. That seemed cleaner than this.
A deafening silence pressed against my skull.
I glanced at the doors. Nobody guarded them anymore.
Run.
I got up.
The executioner faced me, the crimson mist clinging to him like living shadows. Nightmare fuel for my dreams.
I bleated a thin sound, like an animal right before slaughter. I lunged for the exit, but an invisible rope yanked at my navel.
My feet slid backward across blood-slicked stone.
“No!” I clawed at a wall, but my body jerked like a fish on a line. I twisted, trying to grab something that would make me stop. “Let go!”
The executioner watched me as he wiped his blade.
The invisible hook wrenched my torso around. My legs marched like a puppet’s limbs. Walking when I wanted to run. I lurched past the carnage, lifeless eyes and gaping mouths, blood everywhere, and my stomach heaved but my throat locked shut and I couldn’tvomit?—
Three steps. Two.
I stopped in front of him, and the pulling ceased. I stood there, shaking, staring at his bloodstained boots. Was this the part where he finished me?
He sheathed his sword. “Come with me.”
His command thrummed through my veins.
11
THE ESCAPE
His magic forced me to run.
My legs jerked as it hooked into my muscles. I could scream, but I couldn’t stop walking. Every stride felt stolen, my body moving while my mind stayed in the throne room, with the bodies and blood.
The executioner encountered guards. He slashed throats with waves of his hand. More death. A spray of red hit the wall beside my head, and I flinched.
We stormed outside. Ice crusted the hedges in perfect spirals, a beauty only runes could maintain. Snow blanketed the roses but not the rune-marked paths, steam rising where snowflakes landed. Through the mist, statues loomed like frozen sentinels.
