That thought makes me smile a little.
The second he sees the corners of my mouth twitch, he takes me down to the ground. The stone bands pin my arms against the ashy dirt, the clamp around my spine crippling me into a bow.
Just like he made me bow on the stage in front of the entire city. Except this time, I’m wearing my own appearance and there are no Vulmin or Auren. I’m on my own.
I turn my head so I’m not face-first in the silt.
“She can be the first in the pyre. Take her back to Lydia tomorrow. Whipped and bared for all to see.”
Anger stretches through every inch of my insides. It only worsens the ache in my legs with how uncomfortably I’m folded over on top of them.
“It will be done, Sire,” I hear the Badge tell him.
It will definitelynotbe done, but I won’t argue with him about it. I just need to get away. Simple.
I shove past my knotting nerves.
“I’ll be going with the Lydia contingent to see the Turley female killed,” Carrick says. “We will postpone the charge of the second wave until Annwyn is brought to heel. In the meantime—”
The king’s words are cut off at a sudden disturbance ahead. There’s shouting and running, enough of a distraction that the king’s hold on my cuffs releases.
I sit up, watching as the king and the soldiers with him start striding over to see what’s happening. I’m hauled to my feet by another soldier, his hand locked on my forearm as he begins to pull me forward.
We cross the dusty yard of the camp, coming to a spot where rows of soldiers have stopped to circle around. The king goes right up to the front of the crowd, but I’m yanked to a stop at the back, which is disappointing, because my curiosity is piqued. I want to know what’s going on too.
My guard shoves me down to the ground, and it sends a spike of pain to my poor knees. I shoot the soldier a glare over my shoulder but swallow down my curse. When I turn back around, all I see are the legs of the soldiers in front of me, but actually…
I squat further down, lean a bit to the right, and—there. I’d like to give the guard a sneering look of victory since I can see better down here anyway, but I can’t. I’m too busy staring at the soldier on the ground.
He looks…awful. Something is terribly wrong with him. The veins on his face are black, and his mouth looks sunken in. I’m not sure he has all his teeth. The camp has gone deathly quiet as they watch him. He’s so covered in the silty dust of the ground it looks like he might’ve crawled his way here.
There are a couple of soldiers next to him propping him up, and his eyes, when they roll up to look at the king, look shrunken. Chills travel down my back, and I can’t help but wince at the sight of him.
“What happened?” the king demands.
I strain to listen, pushing my head nearly between the legs of the soldier in front of me, but I can’t hear the fae’s reply. I see his recessed mouth move, though, and the soldier holding him up tips his head to listen and then repeats his words. “He sayshe was on the other side, Sire. Says they were attacked. Everyone killed. He crawled back across the bridge to warn us.”
“Attacked?” the king says in disbelief. “An Orean army attacked us, and he’s the only one who survived?”
The soldier shakes his head, mouth moving again. The other male’s eyes widen at what he hears, and then he looks back up at the king to repeat it. “He says not an army. Just one male.”
“Onemale took out hundreds of troops?”
The veined fae nods. When he opens his mouth this time, something seems wrong. His eyes go wide, knobby fingers scrabbling for the soldier. Before he can say anything else, he lets out a terrible sound, like tearing paper, except, I think it might be coming from inside his chest.
Then he falls back, unmoving, unblinking, sunken face pointed up at the sky.
I shudder, cringing away.
“Burn him,” the king orders, not even three seconds after the poor male died. “He might have something catching.”
I’m not a Carrick expert or anything, but him demanding to burn so many people in such a short amount of time seems quite excessive.
Which is good. Not the burning people part, but the excessive part. Because it tells me one thing.
He’s scared.
You’d never be able to tell under his stony exterior—ha. But males like him don’t like weaknesses. Don’t like to feel like they’ve suffered a loss. And Auren showing up and destroying his public spectacle has gotten under his skin. The fact that he fled instead of staying to fight also tells me that he didn’t think he was going to win against her.
