“You have been accused of infiltrating the Gyorian court as a spy.”
I could detail the reasons why such an accusation was leveled against him. But sensing it would not matter—the look in his eye telling me that the Aetherian would either not speak, or confess all—I instead said nothing more.
He met my gaze.
The air stilled as we both held our ground.
“The Gyorian court,” he said finally, “is no longer what it once was.”
My nostrils flared in defiance. Not because his words were untrue.
But because they were.
“What do you know about our court? Are you yet a century old?”
The warrior’s chin lifted.
“Fifty years. One hundred years. Three hundred. What does it matter when the facts stand as they do? Prince Kael sees what you do not. A king who would damn us all.”
It was the wrong thing to say.
“Do you”—my fingers twitched—“deny the accusations against you?”
Cheeks as slim as his shoulders, he was so unlike my brethren who were as brawny as this Aetherian was slight.
Justice.
My father demanded it.
My honor, after the Aetherians killed my mother, demanded it.
“Nay. I do not,” he said finally.
There was one penalty for traitors. All knew it. Including the young Aetherian spy.
“Release him.”
“Price Terran,” my right-hand man began.
“Release. Him.”
My voice boomed. The tone I used was my father’s.
Dren did as he was told.
The moment the spy’s hands, and then his feet, were unbound, he lifted his hand and attempted to use a gust of wind so powerful it would have swept most off their feet.
But not me.
With one last exchanged glance, his eyes wide with surprise that I still stood, I swept my fingers in a small arc. The vines leaped to his feet and hands once more, binding him for the last time. With a twist of those same fingers, the stone beneath his feet trembled just before it opened and sucked him down to its depths.
Closing my eyes at the site of the chasm, I said a silent prayer to Terranor for his safe passage and then twisted my fingers once more, closing the crack and damning him to a death so few immortals faced.
Keeping my eyes closed, I cursed my father. My brother. The Gods.
Myself.
And then opened my eyes.
