She would never see her again. She had made too many mistakes. She had failed.
And now it was time to face the consequences.
Chapter 15
The king sat upon his throne in the center of the room, flanked on either side by five servants.
He looked terrible, Sephia thought—as if they had dragged him from his death bed and propped him up with sticks on that throne. His skin was pallid, his eyes glazed over. She could feel the shadowy energy snaking through him. But she didn’t have an opportunity to focus more fully on it before suddenly there were hands upon her arms, yanking her forward, distracting her.
To the right of the throne was a row of elder fae, standing side-by-side, all of them dressed in grey robes with drawn hoods. The silver-haired one in the center—Councilman Osric, she believed his name was— held what looked like a gold-plated lamp with a Sun etched into its side.
She was forced to kneel before them.
Tarron walked over and stood by his brother.
The servants then left the king’s side and went to the tall windows spaced evenly along the sides of the room. They drew the dark curtains over those windows aside, flooding the room with sunlight. Councilman Osric said something in the language of the Sun; he spoke slowly and clearly enough that she thought she understood the basic meaning of it—
Now we shine a light on the truth.
A tingling sensation of magic followed the words, and Sephia shuddered as it settled over her skin.
Her hands stayed bound behind her. Two guards approached with a black strip of cloth, and they tied it around her head, blinding her. She sensed several more guards circling around her. Heard swords scraping free of sheaths, and—she assumed—being pointed in her direction. She could almost feel the sharpness that hovered just beyond her reach, daring her to make even the slightest move.
There was perfect stillness for a moment, and then the Sun King cleared the frailness from his throat and forced out a single, booming word: “Proceed.”
And so her trial began as she knelt there, suffocating under the warmth of sunlight and magic, blinded, knees digging into the cold marble floor, heart heavy with regret.
But Sephia only partially paid attention to the crimes being read, just as she had only partially paid attention to the details being recited on the day of her Taking.
Because just as she had that day at the bridge, she was busy going over plans in her head.
She might have been out of time and terribly low on options, but she had already decided that she would not go out quietly. She was reaching out with her senses, focusing in the direction of the king, trying again to feel that shadowy magic he’d been poisoned with.
Like calls to like.
If she could feel it, if she could call it, take hold of it….
There.
Her body was suddenly cold, not warm, as a violent wave of Shadow magic shot through her. Her body trembled with the effort of trying to absorb it, nearly toppled over, and she was once again snatched by the arm and jerked back into place.
Frigid steel was at her neck a moment later.
She held in a gasp.
The steel dug in, and she felt blood bubbling up and sliding down her throat, shockingly warm against her magic-chilled skin. She swallowed hard and closed her eyes—a reflexive response, in spite of the covering over them—and she sank back into herself and tried to return her focus to the king.
She had almost recovered when a harsh voice broke through her concentration: “And so we have the guilty verdict,” declared Councilman Osric.
Guilty.
“Now for the sentencing.”
Her attention snapped back to the reality of the moment, and the hold she had on the king’s buried shadows slipped once more.
They reached that verdict entirely too quickly.
“You have a plan for this punishment, I assume, Your Highness?”
