Ciondian soldiers lined the government offices, standing alert between the people and anyone inside. As if cut off by an invisible perimeter, the crowd stopped in a perfect circle around a stage that had been erected where the flowers would sprout in spring. Boots had trampled snow and grass into ruddy mud. Mud that reddened the closer it drew to the stage.
No one moved.
No one spoke.
Miya saw him then.
The whites of Governor Krowe's eyes stared at the people of Archai, crusted and clouded. Face bloated, swells of black and purple painted his ivory skin. Red holes dotted his chest around his heart, painting a target on him. His mouth hung open, stretched in an eternal scream. Others lined the stage alongside him, posted as human signs, faceless blurs Miya’s mind refused to see. A message written in carnage.
The captain vowed to string up Krowe's entire family in the town square. Miya recognized his wife's heels but couldn't bear to look at the woman who stood up for her when so few ever did.
Blood dripped from the stage.
Miya bowed as if a fist had socked her in the gut.
They'd executed the governor and his family the way they did convicts in Ciondo.
Miya turned against the crowd, the only person with her back to the murdered family.
All around, the people froze with the stillness of a person in hiding. On the run from a killer who dared them to breathe too loudly, move too quickly, give their position away.
They gathered helplessly, their somber company the sole comfort left to a city in a kingdom that cared nothing for them and an empire that only wanted to use them. The Phaedra could slaughter them any time. Who would hear their cries? Who would even care? What good could their screams or wailing or speeches of indignation and fury do?
The only consequence would be no invitation to a summit he wasn't likely to be invited to anyway, unless the oceanic colonies were as corrupt as this empire.
These people didn't even have the hope of rebellion. They saw what happened to their neighboring kingdom, Antor, for joining hands with the United.
Miya always figured war was the worst thing in the world, but it was this.
The silence.
When a people could no longer fight.
When they could only stand by each other’s side and wait to see who would be lucky enough to survive.
This was all they had. Resigned grief in the streets of Archai, muted by the threat of death. Forced into silence. Hiding in their own bodies. Hiding in plain sight.
Try as she might, Miya would never be one of them. She’d spent a decade pretending she was. Unlike the innocent people who faced the wrath of the Phaedra alone, Miya bore the power of a throne. She bore the responsibility. The culpability.
And Lance held onto her as if she had nothing, just like him. This was all he could cling to, and she’d tried to make him let go.
Five minutes crawled by. Ten. No one moved. Where could they go when the governor, who the emperor had installed, had been slaughtered in the middle of his own city? Miya kept trying her phone, but it never rang, and she didn't know where to go or how to travel through this crowd fast enough.
The United and Royal Guard would search for her. But the captain would too.
With no warning, gunfire erupted and glass shattered. Bullets peeled from the line of soldiers into the government offices.
Shrieks ripped apart the silence of the crowd, jolting through her like lightning.
People slammed into her. Dozens rushed for the ladders, shoving one another, trampling those who had fallen. Lance grabbed Miya close, and she latched onto him.
How could this be happening? The point of the captain's operation was to take control of Caspador without getting his hands dirty. What had changed?
Miya and Lance held their ground as the last of those fleeing shoved past them, and then they both dropped to their knees.
Pain-filled cries never stopped. The stampede had pushed people from the roof. She could hear them falling.
“You hurt?” Lance’s hands covered her head.
