He lengthened his stride and ran faster.
The heavy thumps of Jos’s and Garet’s boots accompanied him as they flew down alleys and along narrow streets, lines of washing flapping in tight spaces above them. Frightened faces looked out of grimy windows, and small children pulled back out of their way as they stormed past. He ignored them all.
They reached a cobbled avenue lined with merchants’ houses and slowed to a walk before turning the corner, and with another worried look up at the sun, stepped into the square to join the back of the heaving crowds.
Gods. The destruction. When they had left for Ravenstone, the square had still been standing in all its elegant gentility. Now it was in ruins. And worse than the rubble, the chaos and the waste, was the ugly scaffolding that dominated everything.
An angry rabble shuffled over the cobbles, complaining and heckling as pickpockets swarmed between them and vendors called their wares.
Guards shouted at the heaving mass of belligerent men and women as they pushed and bickered, but Val ignored them all as he frantically scanned the wooden platform and the guards around it.
Another roar went up as a procession of gleaming open-topped carriages bearing the king’s coat of arms rattled through the open palace gates.
Val started to push his way through the crowd, careful to keep his head down, always watching to avoid the bullying guards as they picked on random members of the outraged throng.
The crowd surged, a living beast in its own right, as the people screamed their hatred of the new queen and their despair over the broken treaty.
Their sons were being conscripted and their livelihoods taxed to pay for the resumption of the war. And they blamed Alanna for it all. And him. He heard his name spat out with revulsion more than once.
A portly woman stepped on his foot and he simply lifted her away and pushed on, head down. If anyone realized who he was, they would tear him apart.
The crowd screamed in cruel delight, and he lifted his head to see Alanna standing at the base of the platform, arms wrenched back and face as white as bone, while something putrid dripped down her cheek and dress.
A Blue guard said something inaudible and then began to push her up the stairs toward the gallows.
Val took a step toward her, then another, only to be met by Jos’s hand on his chest and hard green eyes. They stood like that for a long second, neither speaking, and then Jos hauled him back onto his original path.
Val kept his head down as Jos murmured requests for forgiveness to the men, deftly spun matrons, and winked at the young women, quickly clearing a path to the row of empty storefronts that was their target.
Val glanced back over the crowd, but every single person was riveted on Alanna’s stumbling climb. No one noticed as the three Hawks quietly let themselves into the destroyed showroom that had once held the best and most beautiful array of clocks in the kingdom.
A narrow set of stairs at the back of the room was half-blocked by broken furniture and Val hauled it aside to leap up the staircase, two steps at a time, pounding up flight after flight as his heart thumped heavily in his chest.
The crowd outside began to stamp their feet as he tore onto the final landing and across a small, bare room, out a narrow wooden doorway and onto a thin ledge beside the clock.
Everyone’s attention was riveted on Alanna as she stood, back straight, pale golden hair loose and floating around her like a halo, listening to the charges against her being read by the dark, scowling executioner beside her. Treason. Conspiracy to ambush King Geraint. The massacre of Ravenstone. Regicide. Adultery. Conspiracy to release convicted prisoners. Arson. Attempted murder. Attempted regicide.
Gods.
“Guilty. Guilty of all charges,” the executioner bellowed, and the crowd howled and booed in bloodthirsty response.
The king stood then, high in his opulent carriage, almost floating above the crowd, with a sea of blue tunics at his feet. He too was focused intently on the scaffold.
Every single pair of eyes was riveted to the drama unfolding on the platform. Except for Alanna. She was the only one looking the other way. Right at Val.
For a heart-stopping moment, he thought she might point toward him or scream for help. But her face was completely blank. She looked confused and disoriented, as if she didn’t fully understand where she was. Or was sinking into shock.
“…to be hanged by the neck until dead,” the executioner concluded loudly.
Alanna wrapped a slim hand around her throat and shook her head, just once, her eyes still riveted on his. Was she denying the crime? Or refusing him? Again.
He didn’t know. And it burned.
But he also didn’t care. He wasn’t leaving her to die.
He glanced over his shoulder to see Jos and Garet both standing ready, hoods thrown back, faces set.
He opened his mouth, but no words came out. He didn’t know what to say. They had both volunteered to risk their lives by joining in this insane plan. Were about to throw themselves in front of an entire company of Blues. For him.
