Page 124

By the time I reach the road, I am no longer walking.

The crowd does not see me at first; they’re too busy staring at her, too busy shoving forward to get to my bond.

“Enough!”

The word cuts through the street, and every person there freezes.

Eagan stops at once, his grip tightening around Alessia as his gaze finds mine. I see the apology on his face before he can offer it, the worry beneath it, the anger he is barely holding back from the civilians who have cornered him with my unconscious bond in his arms.

I hold out my hands.

“Give her to me.”

Eagan hesitates briefly, reluctantly placing her into my arms. As her weight settles against my chest, the bond drags hard enough that I nearly lose the last of my restraint.

Blood slicks her mouth, trails from one nostril, stains her chin, and when I brush my thumb beneath her eye, red smears across my skin from bloody tears.

Magic exhaustion.

My gaze lifts slowly to the crowd.

No one moves.

“You wanted the Crown’s attention,” I say, my voice quiet, and the first row of civilians shifts backward as one. “Now you have it.”

The man who threw the stone has the sense to hide his hand behind his back, though not enough sense to know I have already seen him.

“If anything else is thrown at her,” I say, “An apology won’t save you.”

A woman clutching a basket to her chest lifts her chin, though her hands tremble around the handle. “My king, she is a mage.”

“I know what she is.”

The woman lowers her basket and swallows. “Then you know what she could bring down on us.”

“I know what fear has already brought down on you,” I answer. “I see it in our fields, in your homes, in your hunger, and in the way it turns you all into savages.”

No one speaks.

My arms tighten around Alessia carefully, because even my anger knows better than to forget how fragile she is right now.

Eagan’s gaze flicks to me.

“Mages did not starve your children,” I say. “Mages did not raise your taxes. Mages did not sell your debts, whip your backs, or lock you in cages.”

The woman with the basket lowers her eyes.

Another man mutters, “But the flood . . .”

“The flood came after kings burned the Arcanum for not joining wars that were already killing you,” I cut in. “If you want to pass blame, blame the hands that lit twelve pyres, not the girl in my arms.”

One of the older men, a dockworker by the look of his hands, steps forward despite the guard trying to stop him.

“My king, if the others find out, they’ll come here,” he says, his voice rough. “They’ll come for her.”

“And if they do, they will find me standing between them and this island.”

The dockworker stares at me.