Valenden laughed and clapped her on the shoulder. “Now, princess, we’ve been making our preparations for the hanging. Everything is as ready as it can be. Two of the rebels are working with the undertaker. You’ll be ready to revive Rangar?”
“Yes. Mars and Illiana will be waiting to get him from the castle surgeon’s chamber and smuggle him into the passages.”
Valenden held up a finger. “One final thing. Has anyone actually informed Rangar that we don’t intend for his hanging to succeed?”
Bryn hesitated. “There’s no way for me to get a message to him in the dungeon, but I slipped him a note hidden in a ring box assuring him that we'd devise a plan to keep him alive.”
Valenden scoffed. “If I were Rangar, a vague note wouldn’t be much reassurance as the noose tightened around my neck.”
“It’s the best we can do,” Bryn said. “He’ll just have to trust us. To trustme.”
Valenden drew in a breath like the world tried his patience. “Well, let’s hope my brother doesn’t stand on the gallows tomorrow with his Saved at his side, thinking she’s happily sending him back to the gods.”
Chapter
Thirty-Six
A PUBLIC EXECUTION . . . bloodlust . . . ashes and gloves . . . a forbidden touch . . . eternal trust
On the day Rangar Barendur was scheduled to hang, heavy clouds rolled in to blanket Mir Town. The promise of a storm crackled in the air, matching the dark excitement that coursed throughout the population.
Everyone is hungry for violence, Bryn thought.
Tensions had been high in the Mirien ever since the uprising that had killed her parents and left a question mark on the throne. Rebels anxious to see Captain Carr’s head on a spike had sewn discontent among the servants and commoners who had come to suspect the captain’s political aims were just as bad as his predecessors.
But if the populace couldn’t get Captain Carr’s head on a spike to quench their rage, it seems they would settle for anyone’s.
Include a rival prince’s.
Bryn dismissed her maid, Lisbeth, for the day and dressed herself in a somber green dress, not wanting to risk the chance that her maid might see her fresh hexmark. Her hands shook as she tried to braid her own hair. She was confident in her ability to perform the death slumber spell—poor Mars had certain undergone enough practice as a cadaver—but she didn’t yet know how she would get close enough to Rangar to convey the plan to him. She couldn’t let him see her standing between the hangman and Captain Carr and thinkshewanted him dead, too.
Besides, the death slumber spell required that the subject be marked with ash, which would require touching him.
She knelt next to her cold hearth, carefully dragging her index finger through the ashes. Then, she pulled on gloves.
When it was time to climb in the carriage to ride to Mir Town square, her nerves were on fire. Settling on the bench seat next to her, Captain Carr rested a hand on her knee.
“You look beautiful, my lady. I daresay everyone will be looking at you instead of the criminal.”
She gave a quick, distracted smile.
His hand tightened on her knee in a threatening way. “You seem anxious.”
She stilled her gloved hands in her lap. “Oh—I suppose the idea of the gallows makes me jumpy. It reminds me of what happened to my mother. To my sister . . . ”
“It’s fortunate that Lady Elysander escaped the noose. As for your mother, though it is a sad fate, she had to pay for her crimes.”
Crimes you’re equally guilty of, Bryn thought with simmering anger.
“Well,” she said in a clipped tone, “At least we know that the common folk will never wantournecks in the hangman’s noose once we’re married. I’m sure you’ll be a magnanimous king.”
He didn’t seem to pick up on her sarcasm as he squeezed her leg again, this time higher up her thigh.
As much as she wanted to shove his hand off her, she called on her patience and gave him a practiced smile. “I’d hoped to exchange a few words to the prisoner before the executioner does his job.”
“What could you possibly have to say to Rangar Barendur?”
She leaned in conspiratorially toward Captain Carr, making sure he got a good view down her neckline to distract him. She purred, “I want Rangar to know that we won’t stop at his death. That your guards will soon hunt down his traitor brother, Valenden, and make sure he joins Rangar and Trei in death, so all the Baer princes’ lines will end.”
