I swallowed and scanned the faces again.
“Oh, and one of them murdered your parents. See if you can tell who. Don’t get it wrong or they may walk free instead. Perhaps then you won't miss a detail so important again, will you?”
I’d replayed the night my parents were murdered over and over in my mind. I had missed things, all the signs of their panic, their preparation at hiding from the oncoming foe. The door had not just been latched but bolted. Knives were removed from the kitchen and placed under pillows. The shutters crashed against the windowpanes in the storm because they’d been pulled closed, instead of their usual position lying flat against the walls.
At any time, I could’ve realized and stayed awake to help keep guard. It didn’t matter that I was a child, just one more person defending our home could have made all the difference. And so, I absorbed every droplet of information Siobhan fed to me like a leech, willing it never to happen again.
I focused back on the five people. Three men and two women. The first had his face upturned, pleading to the Goddess. Not him. The next two had their eyes closed, swaying in the gusting wind, their bodies relaxed. They’d made peace with the decision—not them. The next woman trembled, chest heaving, eyes fixed on a small knot of silently weeping people in the crowd, but there was a rigidity in her spine and in the way she planted her boots. She wasn’t sorry.
I stared at her, unable to tear my eyes away. It must have been her.
Eventually, I choked down my sob and focused. The last man had tears streaming down his face, carving white lines in the dirt. He kept his chin high, stubbornly refusing to meet the pleas of the woman in the crowd directly in front of him. He didn’t want her there, didn’t want her to suffer, didn’t want her to think he was guilty.
“You’ve chosen?” Her words brushed against my cheek.
The gallows creaked as the large wheel turned, and the floor began to open.
I nodded toward the man at the end. Siobhan pulled back, lips skimming my hair, her hand remaining on my arm.
The last man’s face morphed into chestnut coiffed hair and a flash of dimples before my eyes. I’d nodded toward the prince, decided to save him. Decided he was innocent.
The floor collapsed and all five people plunged into the opening.
A ripple passed over the crowd. The woman at the front dove under the stage, golden hair flashing in the sickly sunlight. She flung herself around the prince who had smacked into the dirt floor, the rope uncoiling from the beam. The other four swung in the breeze above.
Siobhan turned me around, and we walked from the market. “They’ll say the Goddess saved him. He’ll be forgiven of his accused crimes.”
Relief weakened my legs, and Siobhan’s arm tightened around my waist. “So, I chose correctly? It was the woman who was the murderer, right?”
She giggled. “We’ll never know, my dear. But that’s half the fun, is it not?”
I dragged myself back to the present. The marble floor was cool beneath me, the flames burning high in the hearth. Maybe my magic had faltered because it was protecting me. It knew I wasn’t fully committed. The clear night, the effigy, the hunting of magic, not to mention Siobhan’s presence.
Yes, Siobhan. It was her fault.
She was testing me to make sure I wanted it enough. She had dragged me back here to my hometown when I’d spent so many years avoiding any association with the North and now, she was making me confront my memories, forcing my hand.
But did I want to destroy the prince? Shouldn’t I find out if he was guilty before I added another tally to my list? The Sheriff was certainly guilty, he’d left a pile of bodies and heartache in his wake. He was the easier option, the one with less collateral damage.
I tugged the thin quilt up to my chin and kept focused on the hearth lost in thought until I finally fell asleep.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
THE GUISE OF A GIFT
Lilyanna and I were late for breakfast once again. I thought I’d had the route memorized, then somehow, we ended up taking the long way, passing through corridors we both swore we’d never seen before. But in a castle packed with identical slate gray walls and blurry high windows, everything seemed the same anyway. Goddess above, did I hate this place.
I sidled up to Clement who didn’t even bother greeting me before his scolding. “You left your post again last night.”
“Is that why you look so pleased to see me today? I bet you’ve been planning your verbal chastisement for the past few hours. Did you even get any sleep, or were you thinking of me all night?”
His hand moved to his saber. The obnoxiously boring rhythm of his fingers drummed into the silence.
I sighed. “Lilyanna made me, alright. I’m sure you obey orders you don’t approve of all the time.” He still didn’t respond, just kept up that infuriating tapping on the diamond hilt. “Anyway, you took my weapon away. How am I supposed to guard her when I’m unarmed?” I wasn’t about to mention the knives in my boots because he would whip those away in a heartbeat if he knew.
“Knives won’t do you any good here.” He finally glanced down at me, the smallest trickle of softening cutting through his dark stare. “The only thing that will is listening to my advice. Or leaving. Preferably both.”
I grunted and focused back on the breakfast table. They couldn’t even eat that much food between them. Lilyanna pecked at some things, but it was such a waste. If I were unleashed, I’d demolish everything from the smoked fish to the tomato tartlets.
