“Call it back,” the king snaps.
“I didn’t do this.”
Reign magic tumbles through my mind, encasing my owngenius, trapping it. I shout in protest, and thorns protrude from the roots that surround me. I suck in a breath, but they do not come close to my skin. They point toward the king.
“I don’t think they like the whip,” I say.
“I don’t care what it thinks,” Maxian snaps, but his eyes fall on the thorns once more, the Reign magic tumbling away from my mind and body. Even if he forces me to remove myself, the throne will not allow it, not without damage.
The king takes another step forward.
“If you lace me away, I’ll just lace back.”
“You can’t.”
“I already did. And besides, if you harm the Tree, won’t it stop producing sap?” I ask.
He meets my eyes. “It depends.”
“On?”
“How much it can take.”
Maxian advances. I press my back into the wood, the plant pulsing beneath me. It seems to cushion me, envelop me a little more. The roots tighten around my limbs, and although my heart pounds, although fear curls in my stomach, I keep breathing.
He discards the whip, kneels before me.
My breath catches.He can’t be conceding already, can he?
The king’s arm draws back, something silver flashing in the light. I realize it too late: the diamond dagger. I squirm.
The executioner steps forward. “Wait—”
Maxian plunges the dagger into the roots around my thigh.
A scream erupts, a thousand wailing voices, the howls filling the throne room. The Tree shrieks, and the executioner drops to his knees, covering his ears. My magic shudders, my throat raw, as the screeches rip from my tongue.
Maxian begins to saw.
The room wavers, the squealing and squawking higher and deeper than any sound I have ever heard. Blood drips from the king’s ears.
Still, he hacks at the roots. Pain splinters through my entire legand it is as if he is slicing me open and yanking out my entrails. He may as well be.
The roots around my thigh retreat.
He starts on the ones around my ankle. I reach for my genius, but it spasms in circles in my mind, the shrieking tearing holes in its wings.
The diamond dagger clatters to the ground, splattered in red and green liquid. He severed the roots from my leg. Now he reaches for my calf. I kick at him, but he grabs hold and yanks.
“Stop!” I say. “Stop that—”
Maxian jerks on my leg again. “Let go!”
“I can’t, it’s the Tree—”
Maxian wrenches with all his might.
Something pops in my hip. White-hot pain erupts in my socket, shooting down my leg. The world fades, darkness pulling me under. It would be a mercy, it truly would, I think, as the leg goes limp.
