“Not easy,” she said a moment later. “But it feels right. What we do feels right.”
I fell silent. I thought of the headlines in the pamphlets. Bombings. Poisonings. I didn’t know what to believe.
Murderers. Traitors.
I hadn’t thought I was like them. I’d helped them only for information about my friend. But now? I’d seen the Hundred’s actions firsthand. Was I still only aiding the Cage for Zennia?
My thoughts were in a jumble. Pushing them away, I focused on placing my feet among the hollows.
We were near the castle now, near enough to see Crake’s soldiers; there were two pairs of them patrolling the curtain wall.
“Come on,” I said. “We have to get inside.”
We waited for a brief gap in the patrols and sneaked forward. The castle passageways were burned into my brain, and I intended to lead Zennia past the rarely used storerooms. But as we skirted around the barbican, I saw the inner ward lit up with torches. A bonfire crackled. Men shouted within. We couldn’t cross the archway without being seen.
“Look,” Zennia hissed, nudging my elbow. “Listen.”
Soldiers were marching from the keep into the ward. I heard boots hitting stone, a harsh laugh I recognized. Uirbrig Crake. He was back outside.
37
Zenniagripped my arm. Two figures were approaching: guards emerging from the shadows under the gate. We flattened ourselves against the barbican wall, where the thin mist laced the towers like cobwebs. If we ran, they’d surely spot us.
“Up there,” I whispered, sliding along the wall, jerking my chin toward an upper window. The barbican’s towers were squat and thick walled, but the stone was rough with jutting reinforcements, arrow slits where we could place our feet.
Zennia boosted me, clasped hands under my heel, and I hauled myself up, remembering the cove. If I could climb out ofthere, I could scale this wall. The thought lent a warm, fierce strength to my limbs.
“Hurry,” Zennia murmured from below. I knew she wouldn’t have spoken unless it was urgent. I squeezed through the narrow window, its sides scraping me, and a moment later, Zennia tumbled in behind me. We kneeled on the floorboards, breaths coming harshly.
A mutter; another man’s short, grating laugh. They hadn’t seen us. They were moving away.
Heart thudding, I unbuckled the rapier from my belt and movedto the opposite side of the tower. Peering through an arrow slit into the ward, I hissed through my teeth. “What is that down there?” But there was no real need to whisper up here—the space below us was teeming with activity.
Zennia came up behind me, grim faced. “It almost looks like…” She cut off, squinting downward.
A platform had been hastily erected in the inner ward: a wooden deck held up with piled timber. Placed upon it, right in the center, was a block of stone.
Just then, a small party emerged from the keep. I angled myself so I could see them more clearly. Iovawn Crake, following his father, and behind him, surrounded by soldiers—the Shearwaters.
My hands gripped the ledge, and my chest constricted. Rexim, out front, was grave faced, stoic, no longer in his useless laconite doublet but in shirtsleeves only, his collar flecked with blood. Behind him came Emment, nervous and jittery, with a cut lip and a rapidly forming black eye.
The sisters came next, Catua’s cheeks wet, Vercha’s face bleached of all color. Vercha’s eyes were on Iovawn’s back, and she was holding herself stiffly, her gaze remote.
Last came Llir, limping slightly. His face was wan, his green eyes darting. When his gaze fell on the platform, with its ominous stone block, his Adam’s apple bobbed a few times, slowly.
My own throat and tongue had turned horribly dry.
“Looks like they’re going to finish them off,” Zennia whispered.
All I could do was shake my head. This couldn’t be happening. Not now. Not yet.
Below, Uirbrig Crake stalked toward Rexim. “Wonderful of you to join us at last,” he said. “You realized, eventually, it would be folly to resist. Good man. Although it seems your sons did not.”
Emment, with his battered face and bruised eye, leaned forwardand spat as far as he could. A burly woman next to him, decked out in steel plate, reached for her weapon, but Crake stilled her with a gesture.
Crake’s eyes narrowed as they roved over Emment, taking him in critically. He shook his head.
“Get the Brigant up there,” he snapped at last, and Rexim was hauled toward the platform.
