The carriage lurched to a stop.
Outside, the Caer Amon burned. The city of executions—the place she’d walked to countless times, her narrow glimpse of the world beyond—now writhed in flame, consumed by its own undoing.
The carriage door swung open, and heat poured in. Smoke curled in the air, abundant and noxious, stinging Ilys’s eyes even beneath her veil. Lord Veylen wrapped his fingers around her arm, pulling her to the street.
“By all means, don’t hesitate now,” he condescended, his grip bruising.
The square ablaze with torchlight, cowed while flames licking hungrily at the edges of buildings. The air roared with voices, a frenzied mix of rage and fear, the sound crashing in waves against the stone walls.
At the center of it all were six men.
They knelt on the scaffold, wrists bound in heavy iron chains, their clothes torn, dirt and blood smeared across their faces. They had been dragged here, beaten before they ever reached this place of execution. Guards stood in a dense line around them, shields locked, spears braced, but even they looked uneasy.
The crowd pressed close, their eyes gleaming in the firelight, pressing forward toward the men and chanting.
“Tear the Veil, break it wide,
It steals our sons, it steals our lives!
Tear the Veil, break it wide,
It steals our sons, it steals our lives!”
Ilys stepped forward, her boots meeting the wood with a dull thud. She scanned the prisoners. Some trembled. Some spat at her feet. One, a man with a shattered nose and blood crusted at his temple, met her gaze through the veil. His lips curled back.
“You are no servant of Death," he sneered. “Only the King’s dog.”
Shouts, clashes of steel, the distant splintering of wood. The fire crept ever closer.
She exhaled laggardly and unsheathed her sword, the edge gleaming even in the smoke-drenched air. The prayers had to be spoken. The rites had to be done.
She stepped before the first man. He did not plead, did not flinch. His eyes met hers through the veil, unblinking, unafraid.
She lifted her blade. “Thy thread is cut.”
Steel met flesh. Blood surged over her hands like spilled wine from a broken altar. She drove the blade deep into his heart, twisting. His body convulsed, then stilled.
“Vasha.”
The second bowed his head, lips moving in silent prayer, his shoulders trembling.
“Thy name is lost.” The blade found its mark, piercing through ribs, tearing into his heart. A gasp breaking. “Vasha.”
The third snarled, rage burning bright in his eyes.
“The Veil shall hold.” She severed his fury with a single, brutal thrust. Blood gurgled in his throat as life drained from his body. “Vasha.”
The fourth sobbed, shuddering as he collapsed forward. She plunged the sword into his chest, swift and merciful, uttering the sacred words.
The fifth looked skyward, searching for a sight unseen.
“Thy name is lost.” This time, she drove between his ribs. He choked once, breath catching, then gone. “Vasha.”
His body still jerked as she stepped toward the next. The mob roared around her, a wall of sound and flame, smoke clawing at the sky.
She hesitated.
The final man’s chest rose and fell in ragged gasps, his eyes wide. She pressed the tip of the blade to his sternum.
