I peeled my eyes from the crowd as General Hyton led me up the steps of a tall scaffold. Duke and Duchess Hyton sat on thrones in the center of the scaffold and faced the crowd with beaming smiles. Duchess Hyton’s spine was straight as a board. Duke Hyton looked to his wife with soft, affectionate eyes before turning his attention back to thecity square.
Damn.I was a good liar, but the Hytons had me outclassed. They had put on the mask of a happily married couple within seconds of being at each other’s throats—almost as if they had transformed intodifferent people.
My heart leapt into my throat as soon as I spotted dark curls and sad eyes. Derrick sat at his father’s right-hand side, wearing the golden coronet of the heir and a brocade of rearing bulls on his blue doublet. Brietta sat beside him, her eyes wide and her hands wringing in her lap. Annalisa sat straight-backed beside her mother with an empty chair nextto her.
Instead of sitting with his new wife, Grigory held his bow in front of him with an arrow notched. His dark eyes proudly examined the adoring crowd before him. I could not ignore the weight of a moment—the last time a Thornebow was on the Hyton scaffold, he kneeled before thechopping block.
Grigory smirked and held his bow with tight arms. The last thing he was about to dowas kneel.
General Hyton led me to a seat separate from the royal family. I forced myself to not look at Derrick as I walked past him. I already had his teeth marks on my neck and his secret message over my heart—I could not risk even a single glance at him with the entire House of Hytonsurrounding me.
The Hytons could see their sole heir’s devotion to a woman he did not marry as a threat to their stability at best and a threat to the crown at worst. With my father already charged with high treason, the Hytons were already poised to see me as a troublemakerby association.
I needed to stay quiet to avoid suspicion—whether it was justifiedor not.
General Hyton helped me into my chair and then stood next to me like a guard. I was an island on the scaffold, distinctly separated from the House of Hyton. The raucous crowd somehow got even louder and I wanted to shrink into my chair. Too many pairs of eyes on me. Iwasseen.
Then I spotted a green banner bearing a raven in the crowd—the House of Ravenwood emblem. I examined the group of people under the Ravenwood banner and saw old men, lots of women with small children, and only a few young men amongst them. Many of the young men under the Ravenwood banner were missing arms, legs, and even eyes—boys from the first battle withthe giants.
Each peasant under the banner had sulked through the Ravenwood hamlets for seven years and continuously turned up to the lakeside markets with empty stalls waiting for them. As they stood in front of me, though, their weather-beaten faces lit up with joy, their hungry mouths screamed in triumph, and their withered frames leaped amongst the crowd to see not the Duke, nor the beautiful Duchess, but to seeme,a daughter of the House of Ravenwood, in a place of honor. I stood with the royal family unbound by the poverty of my homeland, untainted by the prejudice against the Northern provinces, and tasting the sweet elixir of victory with the rest ofthe crowd.
My heart swelled with pride. I had never been important before, nor powerful or adored. Instead of cowering under the watchful eye of thousands, the fear in my veins turned to exhilaration at the praise. The crowd’s exaltation was more intoxicating than wine and more fillingthan bread.
Before I could drink in any more cheering, Duke Hyton moved to the front of the scaffold and addressedthe crowd.
“People of Lycaster!” he roared with triumph. “The giants of Nordingaardare defeated!”
The crowd exploded into thunderous applause and spectacular clamor. Duke Hyton gestured to the crowd and boomed: “I give you Sir Bloodstone, the magnificent giant-slayer, the Heroof Lycaster!”
A small crowd beneath a crimson banner with a white bear—the emblem of the House of Bloodstone—jumped and yelled in celebration as their mysterious province was honored for the first timein generations.
War drums pounded over the roars of the people. The far end of the crowd parted like water and the half-giant appeared. Riyan marched through the adoring crowd with a face of stone and his eyes fixed forward tothe scaffold.
My heart pounded like another war drum as my half-giant husband approached. He wore a humongous sword slung across his back and the right sleeve of his blue uniform was still stained with red from the night before. Just looking at him made my blood run cold, but the peasants ate up the drama. Behind him, two Lycaster soldiers escorted a horse-drawn cart with a canvas coveringits contents.
Riyan stood in front of the scaffold and faced the crowd. He stood ten paces from me and his head was still even higher than mine as I sat on thetall platform.
Duke Hyton gestured to Grigory, who held his bow with a flaming arrow ready to fire. “Under the lead of Sir Thornebow, my archers blinded the monsters withtheir arrows!”
Grigory drew back his bow. His arrowhead smoldered with a small red flame like a beating heart. Like a flash of lightning, Grigory shot the flaming arrow high above thegaping crowd.
The heads of the crowd whipped around as the arrow hit its seemingly impossible target, a small ball of cloth hanging above the square that erupted into a magnificent blue flame. The peasants gasped. The tongues of mystical blue fire spread to a previously invisible cable that lit up more balls of cloth hanging all around the square until the firesurrounded us.
I let out a breath as the Hyton Blue flames danced above me. Fraleigh’s sorcery had to have created the spectacle, but she must have kept herself hidden from the crowd. The beautiful flames were a statement of not only the House of Hyton’s dominion over Lycaster, but as the master of allits magic.
“Then,” Duke Hyton bellowed, “Bloodstone took his great sword, smithed here in Hyton to do whatnonehave done before—killa giant!”
Riyan unsheathed his sword and held the gleaming blade up to the cheering throng of people. The sword was longer than even Derrick was tall. He plunged the blade into the ground like he was trying to kill thevery earth.
The two soldiers removed the canvas on the cart and the triumphant cheers soured into horrified gasps. I leaned forward to see, but Riyan’s massive shoulders blockedmy view.
The drums pounded faster and the blue inferno raged around the captivated crowd as Duke Hyton built up to the climax of the ceremony. “Bloodstone sliced off the heads of not one, not two, but TEN giantsof Nordingaard!”
Riyan reached into the cart and held up what looked like a large, grey boulder. He gripped the stringy black moss on top of the boulder and dangled it in front of thescreaming peasants.
Only when I spotted the arrow lodged deep within the grey mass did I realize it was not a boulder at all—but a giant’srotten head.
My stomach churned and my chest seized. The crowd roared louder than ever before, but the powerful exhilaration in my blood disappeared. Was that the giant that killed Endre? Or Erik? Or both? Did its crooked teeth crunch through their bones? Was the last thing they smelled its foul breath? Did those lumpy ears heartheir screams?
