“It’s the statue,” Glenda said helpfully. “That’s how we knew the location. You’ll die in its shadow.”
The corroded form of the statue hunched over the swaying meadow, its features honeycombed by time. A light wind teased the grass this way and that, caressing its stone legs. I kicked savagely at the unicorn, hoping to startle it into motion, but it just shivered once, like a dog shaking off a flea.
Glenda slipped lithely off its back and, before I could seize the reins in my teeth and steer the beast to freedom, she yanked me down, hard. I landed on my stomach, the wind knocked out of me, and wheezed uselessly on the ground. It hurt, sucking for air while my lungs resisted expansion.
Then it came: the opportunity. My breath returned to me, while Glenda stood idly, waiting. Of course, in her elven superiority, she’d misjudged the recovery speed of a healthy human man!
I lunged to my feet and dodged past Glenda, through the soft cool grass, all my strength channeled into my pumpinglegs—then the world tilted, the ground rushing up to meet me. My chin slammed hard into the earth. One of my ankles felt wet, and curiously weak.
Glenda stood over me, holding Gareth’s sword. Its blade dripped a revolting crimson. “This is going to happen, Cameron. Face it with some dignity.”
I hopped at her as best I could with bound hands, but she easily side-stepped my attack. Falling to my knees, my gaze swept wildly around the men as I tried desperately to meet someone’s eye. “I was a loyal Knight of Order. If they do this to me, it could be you next. Please!”
Unlikely to be true, unless the Church started doling out prophecies like weekly bulletins, but I had to trysomething.
Pain bloomed in my skull. A force pulled me backward, and I rolled my eyes back to see Glenda’s hand clenched in my hair, pulling me through the grass to the statue. Ignoring the keening of my scalp, which felt ready to tear free in a sheet, I writhed, hooking my feet into uneven patches of ground.
“Please don’t do this, please! Glenda, please!” I cried. “Let me speak to an Elder. What Merulo’s planning, it’s not all bad, if you couldpleasehear me out—”
Glenda stepped over my body so that she crouched above me. A shadow fell over us, and I mewled, small and strangled. It was the shadow of the statue.
“What you said . . .” Glenda pointed the sword toward me. It dripped, my own blood falling to stain my cheaply woven shirt. That’s right, I’d never gotten a proper one for my man’s body. That meant another shopping trip was in order. I could take Merulo’s arm, and pester him, maybe even kiss him if he got too angry with me. Let me fall into that fantasy, anythingto avoid Glenda’s unblinking stare. “You know what the mad sorcerer is planning?”
I realized my misstep as she leaned closer, hushed and conspiratorial. “You know the layout of his castle? The number of constructs at his disposal? His favoured spells? Which heretical texts he’s been bargaining for—oh, you didn’t think we’d catch Chancellor Noor for his dealings?” She smiled, all teeth. “It doesn’t have to happen today, Cameron. There’s so much we can learn, and I’m sure the Elders would keep you in comfort for the duration.”
This was it. The reprieve I’d been grasping for.
“I . . . I can’t do that, Glenda.” It was the stupidest thing I’d ever said. “He’s my . . . friend.” Tears boiled, blurring my vision, and I cursed them. My last moments, and I couldn’t even see. “I wish I could, I so wish I could, but I can’t. I just can’t.”
Glenda popped something into her mouth and chewed, like a cow at cud. The casual, almost vulgar gesture brought fire to my cheeks. I locked eyes with her in sudden clarity. “I hope he kills your God. I hope he succeeds in everything.” As fast as it arrived, my resolve crumbled. “And, Glenda, please, if you ever see him, tell him that I lo—”
She plunged the sword into my neck.
It took two minutes. The sting of the blade, the bubbling of oxygen leaving me.
Glenda’s overflowing eyes. Rotten hatred toward her, wishing she’d move so she wouldn’t be my last sight. Batting a red hand at her, seeing her catch and hold it. Not feeling the touch.
Head tilted back, uncomfortably so. Wishing she’d holdmy head, to relieve the stretching. A horrible hunger, gasping through my coppery mouth. Something I wasn’t getting. Something important. What was it?
White clouds in a clear sky. Soon there would be nothing, forever and always, nothing, nothing. Black swallowing the sky, how could there be nothing, how could I be nothing, please Merulo, help me—
My eyes were open, but I could see nothing. Feel nothing.
Soon there would be
Nothing.
CHAPTER 24
In Which There Is Nothing.
CHAPTER 25
In Which I Am Nothing.
CHAPTER 26
In Which Glenda Is Beautiful and Splendid. In Which She Has Served the Order and Brought Honour to Her Family. In Which She Has Secured Peace for Her Land and Glory for Her God. In Which Her Lips Are Twitching at the Memory of How His Eyes Dulled and Fell Blank and In Which She Is Grateful to Have Been a Servant of the Law and a Deliverer of Justice.
