I’d die staring the void into submission and know I’d fought for this. Done more good than wrong. Except…
Trembling, I tilted my chin toward the Head Priestess and found her gaze lowered.
The soldiers surrounding her stared forward without blinking. Pupils blown wide, eyes glassy and set, they formed an eerie wall of ominous, unnatural power that didn’t so much as flinch when I caught their ward’s eye.
I shivered at the sight of vacant dark eyes and identical postures.
“I’m… sorry,” I whispered when the shock of that icy blue gaze snapped up and settled upon me. Swallowing a hard lump, I cleared my throat and tried again. “I’m sorry for my behavior. That I couldn’t be taught. That there wasn’t e-enough time to—”
“Eyes forward,” Reese snapped, jostling me with the butt of his weapon. Careful not to touch my skin.
Behind me, the Head Priestess sighed. “There’s so much you don’t know, Mila. So much I could have taught you about control. Compromise…defense.But you’re not a priestess,” she murmured. “Never will be.”
I couldn’t help it—I flinched, wounded by the rebuke that came on the heels of my pathetic apology. And with heart in throat, I tried to swing around and face her before Reese snarled another warning.
But I knew now. That she was here to bear witness to my end and see her prophecies about the empath made real.
Because I was nothing.
Not a weapon or a plaything.
Just a broken, empty shell.
It was then, as I strained to maintain the illusion of a well-trained slave, to be poised, that General Tilcot emerged from the throngs of Caledonian citizens. Flanked by his own elite guard, cheeks hollow. Skin waxy and gaunt—his eyes gleamed with a mania I’d never quite seen before. One that barbed me with a shock of sick trepidation when his murky brown gaze fell upon me.
And with the gait of a much healthier man, he bounded up a set of stairs on the opposite side of the stage. Followed by soldiers hauling a heavy wooden box, and a man weighed down by shackles.
An Eloran rebel.
Filthy.
Battered and broken, he shuffled along as best he could. Gaze empty of all hope, his shoulders were slumped, face void of any hint of color.
A man who knew his last minutes were upon him.
A man who would die by my hand.
“Put it there, where his royal highness will have the best view,” the general ordered, and left his men to arrange the crate to his liking. And then, strides confident, he took up a position beside the captain. Hands clasped behind his back, booming voice low enough not to be heard over the din of a ravenous crowd—but loud enough for everyone standing close to hear, “And how’s my wildcat today?” Turning, he pinned me with that muddy glare laced with a poisonous smile. “Still carrying herself like a queen, I see.”
“She’s exactly how I wish her to be, Harper,” the captain returned without so much as a hint of respect or hesitation.
“But for how much longer, I wonder?”
To this, the captain said nothing. Didn’t bother himself to look at the general, and worse, didn’t make a move to take from him what might keep us alive.
“His Royal Majesty is extremely interested in her potential as a breeding sow,” the general went on, oozing forged charm. “But when he finds out her power is considerably more…offensivethan we’d thought possible? Well”—he chuckled—“there’s no telling what he’ll do to her in the capitol. The experiments that might be run… presuming she survives, that is.”
Three blasts of the horn sent a heavy shroud of anticipation over the crowd. Bringing silence thick with a thing I couldn’t sense but knew was there.
Bloodlust.
I could almost taste it.
Knew exactly what it smelled like, how it sang on the wind and hit the earjust right…
… and Asher wouldn’t take it.
He left the empath in chains and didn’t blink.
