Then the three of them are dragged away. The unconscious man, the sobbing woman, the dead one whose blue eyes are shut and red blood still flows.
Where are they taking them?
I struggle, even with the pain, because maybe I can wake up.
Ineedto wake up.
But hands clamp over my ears, and sharp nails dig into my skin. Though there’s a deeper digging that goes past my skin, past myskull.
Holes.
So many holes left from the hostile burrowing, making the throbbing in my temples amplify even more.
What is happening to me?
I try to shake my head, try to clear it. I can’t latch on to anything but perforated haze. The digging writhes down my ears, making me shudder.
I need it tostop.
My body jerks so violently that I manage to dislodge the hands at my ears, manage to yank away from the one holding back my arms.
A snarl tears through the air, and I realize belatedly that it’s coming from me.
Then something wet slicks from my hands, and I look down to see liquid gold pouring onto the ground. Inside of it, the thinnest black roots writhe. My gaze gets stuck to it, attention transfixed.
Either he moves very fast or my mind is moving very slow, because suddenly the crowned man is before me, and he holds something sharp against my throat.
There’s a flash of a different crowned man…a different blade…a pain at my throat as I was held back.
My head swims.
Someone is behind me. Touches the back of my neck. I hear him make a noise—maybe in surprise? I start to turn my head, but his hand pulls away as quickly as it came, and I’m distracted again by the crowned man in front of me.
“I should kill you, Turley scum, and be done with it,” he seethes at me, his eyes glaring.
More holes burrow.
Should I feel fear, as the sharpness of his blade settles against my vulnerable flesh? Should alarm bells peal at the trickle of hot drips tickling out?
I don’t know what to think. I don’t know what to feel. There should be something solid in my head that I can grasp onto, but there’s just…a sieve, letting everything trundle out. Past and present trickling.
Is this here? Then? Now? Never?
Why can’t I wake up?
Another man steps up from behind me, coming around to my side. A patch covers his right eye. There’s red cloth tucked in front of his throat, but my neck is the one bleeding.
“Look at her, Your Majesty,” he says smoothly. “A gilded Turley. Everyone who sees her will realize what she is. She is the symbol that the rebels have been squawking about.”
“So I’ll slit her throat here and now!”
The one-eyed man shakes his head, even as the sharpness digs into my throat like the stinger of a wasp. More dribbling. Landing on my collar, freezing my swallows.
“King Carrick, look at the power you could wield through her. You could ruin the rebelsthroughher. Don’t give them a martyr. Give them amockery.”
The sharp threat against my neck stops digging in.
Holds still.
