“What just happened?” I asked Everett.
“King Julian just gave the boy veritas elixir. Fae, like humans, are quite adept at lying, so we use it to force honesty out of someone. The boy will not be able to lie when answering King Julian’s next questions.”
I nodded. “What happens if both boys are telling the truth?”
Everett looked at me like I had a second head on my shoulders. “Someone is dying today, Aurelia. It all depends on who King Julian thinks is the guiltiest.”
A large lump formed in my throat as the enormity of the situation finally settled on me. A child was going to die today, regardless. None of this was correct. I shook my head in disgust. “I wish to leave. I do not want to be part of this disgusting display.”
A pained look came over Everett’s face. “We must stay. Or we will both be up there next.”
I crossed my arms and looked away from the guardian. Sensing a set of eyes on me, I looked around to see Sterling staring daggersacross the platform at me. I quickly dropped my gaze to the ground, unable to maintain eye contact.
“Now that the veritas elixir has had time to work, I am going to ask you only one question, Zane. Please answer it truthfully.” The king chuckled heartily at his own joke, while members of the court laughed along.
Both Zane’s parents and Jonah’s mother stood silent. Their anger and grief were clearly etched across their faces. Zane whimpered, the pain from the cold iron chains preventing the boy from formulating a response.
“Who visited the human quarter to seek out a dark arcana mage to provide them with a curse to use on one of your classmates?”
The court collectively held its breath as Zane struggled to respond. It appeared as though the boy was fighting his own body. His mouth was trying to move, but he was wriggling around to prevent the truth from leaving his lips. Looking like a bubble that was about to pop, the boy’s mouth exploded open as he loudly exclaimed, “It was me!”
Just as quickly as the words left the boy’s mouth, the scene around us turned into chaos. Zane’s mother began shrieking, while his father was cursing at the king. The crowd erupted into cheers. A guardian let Jonah free from his restraints, while Jonah’s mother rushed onto the platform and hurriedly escorted her son away.
Everett brought out a handkerchief from somewhere in his armour and began wiping my face.
“What?” I started and looked down to see red droplets all over my clothes.
I wiped a hand on my face to find blood smears on it. I looked up immediately in front of me and saw Zane crumpled on the platform in an unmoving heap, while Thalos was standing proudly over him with a raised bloody fist that held the boy’s once beating heart. I felt the stinging sensation of bile at the back of my throat shortly beforeI emptied the contents of my stomach onto the courtyard. A large hand rubbed my back in circular motions, while another handed me a handkerchief. Wiping my mouth with the cloth, I looked up and nodded in thanks to the guardian.
“We should go,” Everett stated tersely.
I stared at the ground, unable to form thoughts. “Yeah. Sure,” I muttered, my feet shuffling along the vomit-covered courtyard.
As Everett and I were leaving the courtyard, I weakly managed a look back to see the guardians rounding up Zane’s family, presumably to suffer a similar fate to their son’s.
Chapter 23
Bang, bang, bang!
“Aurelia, get up. You have to go meet the arcana master!” Everett yelled through the door.
I sat up slowly, the sheets twisted and bunched up around my legs. The morning sunlight was peeking through a small slit between the drawn curtains, casting a long golden streak across the room. Even though I felt physically rested, a heaviness had settled over my chest. The past few days had been stressful and traumatizing. First, there had been the disagreement between Everett and me regarding Sterling and his supposed treatment of the human women of this realm. That evening, things had felt tense between us. He had kept his distance from me, and the words we had shared were nothing more than cordial pleasantries. I had thought about apologizing to Everett and trying to sort things out with him. I had ultimately decided against it, because deep down I didn’t feel I had done anything that warranted an apology. I had spoken from my experiences and knowledge, and if Everett didn’t like facing those facts, then that was his problem to deal with.
Then there was the horrific scene we had witnessed in the palace courtyard the morning after. Every time I closed my eyes, all I could see was Thalos’s bloody hand raised in victory, holding a heart he had just ripped out of a child’s chest. The look of righteousness and surety on King Julian’s face was only slightly more disgusting than Thalos’s proud smile. Worst of all was the cold indifference onSterling’s face. The man I had lived with and shared myself with would have been horrified at that merciless display of brutality. I did not recognize the man who had stood beside that platform, slowly clapping as ‘justice’ was delivered. I had wanted nothing more than to walk over to him and slap him as hard as I possibly could across the face. More violence wasn’t going to solve the problem, but it would have made me feel slightly better.
Everett banged on the door again.
“I’m up! Give me a minute!” I shouted at the impatient guardian.
Rubbing my eyes, I wondered how long Everett had been out there, trying to wake me up. Guilt and embarrassment twinged within me as I thought about the last time he had tried to wake me up. Letting go of a loud sigh, I threw the sheets off and tossed my legs over the side of the bed. Little red hairs danced in the air, caught by the glistening sun. I frowned at them as thoughts of Sterling entered my mind. How badly I wished that he were still the small fox I had saved, instead of the ass he had become.
Planting my feet on the soft, plush rug beside the bed, I took a deep breath and forced myself up to get ready. Today was the first day I would meet with the arcana master—the very being who would decide my fate in this realm.
No pressure.
*
The arcana chamber sat at the edge of the palace grounds, on the other side of the royal garden. The pathway leading up to the outbuilding had been inscribed with various strange shapes and runes that glowed as I walked over them. The air around the chamber was silent and still, as if it existed in a separate space from everything else.
