Uberta drew back, horrified. “No! She’s hurt! Vizier, I really must object.”
“She’ll be given medical attention at the palace. She has crucial information we need.”
“N-no,” I panted. “There’s been some…some misunderstanding. I just?—”
“Set her down,” the vizier ordered Uberta. “We’ll tend to her medical needs.”
Uberta reluctantly set me down and I immediately collapsed, too lightheaded and weak to stand.
“Seize her,” he ordered the men at his sides.
They pounced, latching onto my arms and hauling me to my feet so I screamed out in pain.
“See now!” Uberta thundered. “I’ll call for?—”
“Who? Who will you call? I’m the authority here,” the man answered silkily, eyes narrowed.
“My son will hear about this! He’s a guard at the palace!”
“Then I shall thank him for his service. Off you go.” The man made a shooing motion with his hand. Uberta, still looking distressed, held her ground.
“I have your word you’ll see to her medical needs immediately?” she insisted.
“I give you my word as one of Parliament’s most esteemed viziers.” He raised one eyebrow, just as neatly trimmed as his goatee. “Her wound shall be tended to immediately, and every second you delay us in leaving is another second this woman must endure her pain before being tended to, so I suggest you leave now.”
Uberta set her jaw, then stepped back.
“Let’s go,” the vizier said to the guards.
Tears sprang to my eyes as I was shoved forward and my shoulder screamed in protest. “I don’t even know what I’m being arrested for,” I protested, but broke off with a gasp of pain.
With each footstep, my blood pumped harder and my arm, which had already been covered in rivulets of blood, became a solid stain of red. The world spun in slow, dizzying circles and the palace in the distance looked forever away. I staggered and collapsed again.
“Carry her,” the vizier snapped. “I need to get her into questioning immediately.”
One of the guards scooped me up. “She needs a blood-replenishing potion,” he said, a hint of concern in his voice. “You can’t question a dead person.”
The vizier sighed irritably, as if it were a major inconvenience to his plans for the day that I was bleeding out. “I’ll make her one in my study. Bring her along, quickly.”
“Do you think she’s a Termarthian spy?” the guard who was holding me asked. I could feel his voice rumbling in his chest cavity where my face was pressed against it.
“No, I don’t.” The vizier strode on without giving any additional information. As he walked through the streets, people averted their eyes and scurried away so the crowd parted before us. Chatter died and mothers hurried their children out of sight. Even street vendors stopped calling to the crowd and began rearranging their goods with their backs turned.
I rolled my head. The vizier was striding through the crowd, his black robes much too hot for the overly warm weather as he marched ahead. All the townsfolk shielded their faces or clutched at talismans around their necks and whispered some chant under their breath as he passed.
Who was this man?
I wavered in and out of consciousness, and it became impossible to tell what was a dream and what was reality. What appeared to be a phoenix flew overhead, and blue flames flickered in braziers along the street. Everything appeared hazy and warped. Was it hallucinations from the heat?
“Would the Eternal Flame help her?” the guard striding along on the man’s other side asked, gesturing at the blue flames.
“No,” the cobra-like man answered curtly. “She isn’t Pyrenese, so it would make it worse, not better. I need her alive and conscious.”
My head rolled again. I tried to hold it up, but it would inevitably flop back down again. Nausea coursed through me, but I was too drained to do anything other than exist, second by second, barely clinging to life with each breath.
I had to survive.
I had to protect Nadia.
