“Remember that I tried to be merciful,” he calls out to the crowd. “Warriors,come.” The room is silent as they approach, and one holds out a sword. Its sharpness practically sings in the air.
Rholker takes the weapon and steps forward. He moves down the stairs slowly, one at a time, until he is in front of Nandi.
“Please, Second Prince, bury me next to my son,” she sobs, all layers of vicious brutality stripped away to tear-streaked desperation. Her hands tremble as she holds them out in front of her. Guards press down on her shoulders, keeping her kneeling.
I adjust my weight on my cushion, my mouth uncomfortably dry. I take a deep breath and hold it as my slightly jagged fingernails cut into my palms.
“What did you call me?” Rholker demands.
She lets out a sob, then the guard grabs the back of her head and pushes it down. I hurt for her, and I feel ashamed to watch this and do nothing. For a moment, it doesn’t matter that this woman’s husband whipped my back until it was torn to ribbons. She just wants her baby.
“King Rholker,” she says at the floor, her voice muffled by hair and grief.
While her family had tried to speak when she was first brought in, no one speaks for her when Rholker kicks her in the stomach. The wheezing cough she lets out makes me flinch.
Rholker raises the sword and turns aroundfor all to see.
“I am your High King,” he calls. Then, in an uncharacteristically theatrical movement, he points at the guards. “Move her hair so that my blade might slice clean through her neck.”
I utterly freeze as the moment draws close.
Weeks ago, I was in a similar place, watching Teo kill his own hunter. The young boy had volunteered, and it broke something in Teo to do it. Rholker just looks furious. More of Liana’s words return.True rulers fight for their people, not against.
As the sword slices through skin, sinew, and bone, I gasp. The woman on the other end of the throne shushes me, but I can’t stop the tears from gathering.
I look up at the severed head of the Enduar on the wall. His glassy eyes look savage and feral as they stare forward into some unseen abyss. He wasarrangedto look that way, but I know the truth.
He wasn’t hunted like a beast. Teo’s man offered himself for his people; Rholker kills this woman because she threatens his fragile kinghood.
Disgust coats my tongue as bile rises up my throat.
Nandi’s blood leaks out of her, and the smell of it makes my stomach churn.
Rholker doesn’t clean his blade when he lifts it again. Nandi’s blood drips down the steel, past the handle, and onto his hand. It stains the white cuff of his shirt.
“Anyone care to join her?” he calls to the room.
The father of the woman chained alongside me stands.
“This is cow shit. We did not come to watch an execution—you invited us here to announce your coronation.” He shakes his head hard enough that some of the strands in his well-bound hair come free. His face is red. “Did you bring us here to murder our daughters before our very eyes, you limp dick?”
There’s something about his passionate speech that almostsounds like fatherly care. That evaporates when I remember that hetradedRholker two of his daughters to marry.
Rholker’s chest heaves, and he slowly lowers the arm holding the sword.
“I would sit down if I were you, Lord Fektir,” he practically whispers, voice hoarse with adrenaline.
He turns to one of the warriors and hands off the sword. It is traded for a spear.
Another giant stands up in the pews.
“We will not sit, we will not be silent to your toying.” He thrusts a finger in my direction. “You brought that human bitch to court, you killed one of your own to sustain your throne before the royal court, and you?—“
Rholker cocks his arm back and hurls the spear straight into the lord’s chest.
The woman at his side screams as the man is impaled into the bench, like a needle through paper. His mouth hangs open, trying to speak his last words as Rholker’s guards flood in from the side doors.
Seconds later, every exit is closed off.
