The small passageways were no wider than my shoulders as we all followed Vox’s lead. We emptied out beside the wide double front doors, hidden by one of the large tapestries that hung on the wall. A guard stood at the ready nearby, though his attention was through the doors and not inside the building. As we watched, Vox darted out, slitting the guard’s throat.
Pushing through the door, my heart constricted.
We were too late.
Eleven
Avalon
No. No!
I refused to believe my eyes. Zier’s legs dangled as he hung suspended above the courtyard steps, a noose of air around his throat. The executioner was huge, his hand raised in a fist, more for the spectacle than for the necessity of the movement to direct the magic.
“No!” I screamed out loud, dodging Hayle’s hands as I sprinted across the cobblestoned landing at the top of the stairs to the Hall of Ebrus.
Zier was still alive, his legs peddling lightly, his fingers around the air on his throat like he could grip it. He couldn’t. I couldn’t. But I had to try.
I could hear the pounding of the guys’ feet behind me, but I was running faster than I’d ever moved before. It was irrational, my movements led more by instinct than any higher reasoning.
Leaping up on the stool they must have made him stand on, I hacked at the air with my dagger. “Come on,come on!Don’t you dare die.”
“Leave…” he gasped.
There was no resistance to my knife; it was air, for fuck’s sake. “No! You’re important too,” I grunted. Clawing at his throat, I screamed in frustration.
Suddenly, there was an audible pop around us. Zier fell to the ground, and I went down with him. He desperately sucked in oxygen, but we didn’t have time to let him recover. I looked up to see Hayle beating the executioner—maybe that was why the magic had released—but we weren’t out of the woods yet. Vox was surrounded by six guards who’d poured from their positions, and he was fending them off, but they were taking all his attention.
There were hundreds of people gathered here to witness Zier’s execution, all staring up at us, dumbfounded. What did we do now? How did we get out of this mess? There were six of us and hundreds of them. Already, there were members of Baron Vylan’s personal guard pushing toward us through the crowd.
I pulled at Zier’s arm, and he climbed to his feet, the sound of his breathing a hard crackle that was worrying. But his death would be a lot more permanent if we didn’t hurry.
“Go, go, go,” I breathed, shoving at him. I could see the soldiers lining up their weapons, and so did Zier. Grabbing me, he pushed me in front of himself, exposing his back to potential gunfire.
Lierick met us halfway across cobblestones. He shook his head at me, like he thought I was insane, which was probably the truth. Then he stood at the top of the stairs, and his voice was in my head.
My name is Lierick Hanovan. I am the Heir to the Second Line. As we speak, my people are marching to reclaim North’s Edge, our ancestral home. We will once more be part of Ebrus society. We will stand as part of the checks and balances to the First Line.
We do not want to fight, but we will have our place back on the Conclave. We will ensure that one Line no longer rules Ebrus with an iron fist. This will be a country for us all, not just for those Feodore Vylan deems worthy.
To the Dawn Army, I implore you to protect the interests of Ebrus, not of just those of the Baron of the First Line. Think of your family, your friends, your Line. Remember your oaths to the Goddess. Do not fight your brothers and sisters for a man who does not care if they starve to death in the West of Ebrus, for a man who would sacrifice your sons and daughters to his sociopathic son.
He purposefully left Vox out, which I appreciated. But Lierick wasn’t done. He projected what could only be a memory plucked from Yaron Vylan’s mind.
It showed Yaron sitting in the Baron’s office, both of them holding expensive liquor in shining crystal glasses.You want to sink the boats? That’ll piss off fucking Taeme.Yaron cackled, and even in this memory, it sounded unhinged.
Feodore Vylan pinched his nose.Pissing off Taeme isn’t the point, son. The point is that the Goddess will do the job of purifying the Lines for us. If the drought goes on, and I can keep Rovan pushing back anything that looks like drought-breaking weather, they will just be bones in the dirt come next year, and the Eleventh and Twelfth Lines will be functionally extinct.He took a sip of his drink.I’ll use it as a reason to subsume control of the rest of the lower Lines. Obviously, they’re all being poorly run. By the time I have to pass this mantle to you, there will be no Lines. There’ll be the Vylan monarchy and our kneeling subjects.
Yaron laughed, the sound making my skin crawl.Long live the king.
I shook myself from the memory, gripping Zier’s hand and moving toward the rest of our group. Iker hustled me towardVox and Hayle, and we raced toward the crowd. We needed to get lost in the masses while everyone stood too stunned to move. At least, I assumed they were stunned and not being held by Iker and Lierick. All of them except some of the Baron’s guards, who were probably wearingtalsto protect against the Second Line, and would have missed that entire speech.
A girl appeared from a side alley, waving us over. She had a plain brown skirt, with her hair in two braids down the side of her head. “Heir Hanovan, this way,” she hissed.
Lierick looked relieved. Whoever this girl was, she was obviously known to the Second Line. She led us between the buildings, until we were past the fine townhouses and business, to where the homes became more average. We were dodging clotheslines and children playing in the street. I couldn’t see the guards anymore, but I wouldn’t assume we were safe until we were out of Fortaare completely.
The girl led us all the way to where the houses turned from homes to hovels. Here, logs bound together and covered in canvas sheets constituted shelter. The people down here looked ragged and dirty, or impoverished and ill, a broad spectrum of the desperate combined with the downtrodden. This was the part of Fortaare I doubted any of the other Lines saw.
The dirty secret of Fortaare.
