The prince’s face isn’t so handsome anymore. He’s frowning, his fists clenched at his sides like mine were when I had to listen to all the filth he spewed at the crowd.
“I was wrong about you, Odessa,” he says at last, the words devoid of any emotion. “You aren’t my Serpent after all. And although you haven’t said so, I assume Vane is dead if you’re wearing his mask.” He looks me straight in the face and smiles. “Perhaps we’re even, as my men are putting your friends Jax and Simeon to death as we speak.”
He turns, gesturing to a guard. The older man drops a familiar sword in the grass at our feet, followed by several small daggers perfect for tucking up a sleeve or in a boot. Jax’s blades. Jax, whose lips are dry and rough like his hands. Jax, who held me through the worst days of my new life without Evander.
Hadrien might as well have thrust the daggers into me, because the sight of them alone sends a wave of pain through my chest. Breathing hurts. Everything hurts.
The guard tosses something else. It’s tiny, difficult to see in the blurry world of light and shadow dancing before my eyes. “I might actually keep that. It looks expensive. Kingly, even,” Hadrien murmurs as the small shiny object lands near the daggers.
I don’t need to blink away my tears to know he’s got Simeon’s ring. The one he still wears on a frayed cord around his neck, justlike he did on the day the nuns found him, a frightened child wandering the Ashes. Simeon, the only person who can make me laugh on my worst days. Simeon, who’s been my brother since the moment we met.
The noise of the crowd dies away. My knees buckle. If not for the guards, I’d fall to the ground. I want to sink through layers of earth to someplace where this pain can’t find me. Where I can pretend everyone I love is waiting for me in the next room.
“Where’s Valoria?” I demand. Surely he wouldn’t kill his own sister?
“She’s keeping the men of the dungeon company,” Hadrien drawls unconcernedly. “And she’ll stay there until she decides to support me, or she’ll swing from the noose. But sinceyou’rehere, you might as well witness the beginning of my reign.”
He grabs my chin, forcing me to look toward the cage.
I don’t fight him.
Three of the six Dead in the cage are now Shades, thrusting their rotting arms through the iron bars in an attempt to grasp at the distant crowd. The rest must have been eaten by the monsters. Six black shrouds and two gleaming crowns lie on the cage floor, forgotten.
Jax and Simeon are dead or dying.
Valoria’s in a dungeon with thieves and murderers, if she’s even still alive.
There’s no one left for me to save.
Except—Meredy. If she can stay out of harm’s way long enough, maybe I can escape and find her. The thought is all that keeps me standing.
“Now, let’s see what a fine group of Karthians like yourselves can do to the monsters that are threatening to overrun your homes!” Hadrien roars at the crowd. “Burn them. Burn all the Dead, and purge our beloved Karthia of the necromancers’ corruption!” He turns back to the cage. “I hope you’re watching, Sparrow,” he says softly, shifting his gaze from me to the nearby guards. “Release the Shades!”
The cage springs open.
I can’t tell the Shades’ shrill cries apart from the crowd’s shrieks.
“Run!” I scream before a guard silences me again.
People scatter in all directions. The few foolish enough to hold their ground are slain where they stand. Some throw torches at the three Shades, while others drop theirs, setting the palace hill ablaze.
“Don’t worry,” Hadrien whispers in my ear, breath hot. “I have a weather mage ready to douse the fire. And I have archers standing by with flaming arrows, if the monsters prove to be too much for my people. But they’re stronger than they think.” He half smiles, a gesture that would be handsome if I didn’t know how black his spirit was. “I had to have a backup plan, you see, in case Vane didn’t come through.” Winking, he adds, “I didn’tcompletelyunderestimate you.”
I have so much more I want to shout at him, but the hand over my mouth is pressed uncomfortably tight. Hoping to startle the guard into letting go, I push my tongue against the salty skin of his palm, but he doesn’t even flinch.
As the people’s screams get louder and tiny fires erupt all over the sloping hills leading up to the palace, Lyda and a few otherliving nobles join Hadrien beside the empty cage. They coolly survey the panicked fighting and the trail of carnage left by the three gray shadows as they dart among the people.
Lyda puts a hand on Hadrien’s arm, not quite looking at me as she asks, “What are you going to do with her, Majesty?”
Her. She doesn’t even have the courage to use my name.
“I’m glad you asked,” Hadrien says, holding my gaze but talking to Lyda. “I want you to kill her, Baroness Crowther. She may have the strength of Vaia, but with her hands and feet bound, she’s no more threat to anyone than a rabbit in a hunter’s snare. Evenyoucan’t fail.” Frowning slightly, he adds, “Given your history with her, I trust you’ll see that it’s done swiftly. She deserves a warrior’s death, after all.”
Lyda blanches, her blue eyes glistening, but she nods to one of the guards.
The clamor of terrified people fades as I’m struck in the back of the head.
XXIX
