At this, five carts on the end of the row of prisoners were emptied. Members of the caravan were tossed out, into soft ash at the side of the pit. Luca was relieved to see that no children were included. Only adults. It was difficult to gain purchase, and most slid or rolled or were simply pushed down the side to the bottom. They emerged blanketed in ash and pieces of bone.
Ash swirled within the air, wafting up to the crowd before settling back down on the victims. A brave few tried to climb the sides, but most sat in the middle, resigned or too proud to make a show of it.
“Now, I am a woman who does not wish to lose well-meaning people. And so, because I am benevolent, and we have guests to entertain—yes, Prince Taillefer of Pyrenee, I have not forgotten you! Yes, that boy believed to be the princess’s guard was actually the young prince in disguise! Curious, no, as last I heard, the princessmurderedhis brother, the Crown Prince Renard!” The crowd roared—clearly they’d not been privy to that piece of gossip. “Perhaps these two know a good show when they see one, no? And people say politics is boring!”
The Warlord clapped her hands. “Tributes!” She waved to the people below, who peered up at her, weary. “I will spare one of you! To keep your life, all you have to do is survive. Fight to the death—disfigurement, loss of consciousness, and general injury do not count. You have to be the last living, breathing person standing. Go!”
Ula’s breath caught. “Caravans are families. These people are related or know each other well enough that they might as well be. She’s asking them to eat their own.”
Luca swallowed. “And they are.”
Right before their eyes, neighbors turned upon each other. Stealing breath with faces smothered into ash, punches to the gut, kicks to the head, eyes and ears torn at behind furious cries.
Luca’s heart told him he could not look. His head told him he had to. This was what he was trying to stop. This was why he was fighting. So that no ruler could do this nightly, a game, for guests.
Amarande had pulled away from the bars, but her hands still gripped them. Facing forward. Forcing herself to watch, too. To feel the anger well within her, fueling every ounce of desire she had to end it. Or at least that was what he felt. And he knew her well enough to know she felt it, too. Yes, he had to watch.
Five minutes into the horror, the Warlord clapped her hands again. “You’re too slow yet again, Serene Caravan. I rescind my offer.”
Stars, no.
Panic began to rise in Luca as the crowd began to laugh. The Warlord nodded to a soldier to the left of her dais, one of a dozen placed at the intervals of a sundial.
Each man held a jug four hands high. As one, they poured the contents into the pit. Though the liquid appeared as clear as water, the air filled with the sharp scent of something not unlike the sagardon Osana and Urtzi had smartly sprayed at the torch-wielding bandits. This was where Osana had gotten the idea—she’d seen it performed nightly.
Ula smashed her face into his side, as if snuggling up, but the extra fabric of his tunic obscured her view. He put a hand on her shoulder, hoping it would appear loving. Hoping that no one who cared was watching close enough to know their internal terror rather than enjoyment.
The jugs were tossed aside, torches raised in their places.
There was no count. There was no bell or whistle or sign. These men did this every night, a service to their leader.
As one, they thrust the torches into the ashen maw.
The victims who were still able to move ran for it.
But it was no use.
In the space of so many dying screams, the entire pit was engulfed in flame.
CHAPTER47
ITwas worse than the princess could have ever imagined.
Human kindling. Hopes and dreams consumed nightly, reduced to flesh, fat, skin, and sinew, until there was nothing left to burn.
The flames flew through the base of the pit, one hot spot human after another until they were one long, writhing asp, twisted in on itself. The screams left with each new curl and dip in the blaze. They seemed to last longer than the bodies themselves. The shrieking still coming long after each victim was unable to rise from the smoldering ash.
The stench was as unbearable as the heat. The stars and their infernal gases seemingly swooping close enough to skim the contents, water off the top of the stream, solar flare billowing back into the cooling desert night.
Tears flushed Amarande’s eyes as she watched the horror below, the ashen lip of the pit so close she could reach out and touch its crumbling banks. The whoops and cheers of the crowd flooded in as the wailing finally began to cease, the humans below either dead or so close they could not go on. The stars receiving new souls.
Her eyes flashed to the crowd. Their faces backlit by the nearly lost sun. This squirming, serpentine mass, of cheers and sound. So fed by fear and the relief that tonight it wasn’t them that they cheered these deaths as if watching a jousting match or other sport.
Bile clawed at her throat, as she allowed the anger within her to spread.
Her mother had sanctioned this exact horrific display every night for ten years. Presiding over the festivities. Living off the fear. No—thriving on it.
And yet her father did nothing.
