Page 164

The entire town stands gathered. Humans crowd toward the center, their faces upturned and pale in the dim light, their nervous murmurs rising in a wave I feel vibrating in the air.

Vampires line the perimeter, standing at attention, some holding torches that violently bring a memory of the Arcanum to mind. I can hardly breathe.

A structure sits at the center of the platform below, illuminated by the torches around it.

A guillotine.

The wooden frame is stained dark with age and use, and when the blade catches the firelight, it throws it back in a flash that sears my vision. I grip the railing so hard my knuckles ache, because I know what that machine is for, and the knowledge of it fills my throat with bile.

Kylian stands at the far end of the balcony, his coat buttoned to his throat and his hands resting on the railing. His face is a cold mask of indifference that makes my heart sink. When I approach, he speaks without looking at me.

“Leave us,” he orders, and Eagan turns and disappears through the balcony door without a word.

Below, guards march two men forward. Their hands are bound behind their backs with cuffs the same as mine, and their faces are swollen with bruises that have distorted their features beyond recognition. But I don’t need to see their faces to recognize the etched collars around their necks.

A vampire in a general’s uniform steps to the front of the platform and begins reading from a document, his voice carrying across the square. “Espionage against the Crown of Sangremere. Operatives serving Dragon King Draven of Emberfall.” The words blur together in my ears because my eyes are locked on the guillotine and the men kneeling before it.

“What is going on?” I whisper.

“Watch,” Kylian replies, and his voice is so cold that my body breaks out in goose bumps. He is furious, and being shackled next to him while he is seething like this makes me shiver as I break out in a cold sweat.

The first man is brought to the platform. They place him beneath the blade and push his head forward into the curved wooden brace. There are no last words. The executioner’s hand finds the lever without hesitation, and the blade falls with a sound that I will hear in my nightmares for the rest of my life.

A heavy rushing whisper followed by a wet, solid thud that silences the entire square. The crowd gasps, a single collective intake of breath, and I turn my head away because my body cannot process what my eyes just witnessed.

Only a moment later, in the absolute silence of the square, the beheaded prisoner’s collar clatters to the concrete, a brutal reminder of the metal encircling my own throat.

Kylian’s hand clamps around my jaw. His fingers grip with a force that turns my head back toward the square and holds it there, forcing my eyes to the platform as he moves behind me and presses me against the railing.

My instincts are shouting at me to close them, turn away and shut it out, but I am just as frozen with panic as I was when I was ten years old. I hid my sister’s face while watching my mother being burned; I couldn’t close my eyes then either.

“You will watch,” he hisses into my ear.

The next man begs, but his pleas fall on deaf ears. I thrash in Kylian’s grip, not wanting to watch, but Kylian presses his hips closer, trapping me between him and the railing, his hands holding my head in place, forcing me to witness. When the blade falls for the second time, the crowd below stands frozen.

Blood collects at the base of the platform, spreading out in rivers over the cobblestones and reflecting the torchlight. Only then does Kylian release me, and I move without thinking.

The crack of my shackled hands against his cheek splits the night air with a sharpness that rings across the balcony and out over the silent square. The force of it turns his head to the side and stings the back of my hand, but I don’t care because the rage pouring through me is so immense, it has to go somewhere.

“How could you be so cruel?” The words tear from my throat, carrying every ounce of horror I feel. “Why would you make me watch that?”

Kylian crosses his arms over his chest and looks at me angrily. I shake my head in disgust and turn away from the balcony, heading toward the door, but the general’s monotone voice rises once more from the platform below, with no more feeling than if he were reading a to-do list.

“Arlo Basik.”

The name is like ice sliding down my spine, and my whole body locks in place.

My foot hovers mid-step, suspended, and the world contracts around those two words until there is nothing else, no square, no crowd, no torchlight, no dead men bleeding on cobblestones, nothing but the sound of his name spoken aloud in a place designed for death.

The general continues reading. “Assaulting a vampire warden. Inciting unrest among detained humans.”

My body rotates toward the railing mechanically, and when I look back up at Kylian, he is watching me. Not the square below. Not the crowd or his general. He is watching my face with the unblinking attention of a hunter waiting for his game to step right into his trap.

“Is everything okay?” he asks.

I cannot answer. My mouth opens, but the words I need have dissolved somewhere between my brain and my tongue. I look away from him because looking at his face right now is looking at the wreckage of every lie I told and the trust I broke. Now the cost of it is standing below us with his hands bound and his infected back visible through the torn fabric of his shirt that is barely clinging to him.

“Let him go.” My voice comes out fractured. “Whatever he did to a guard, he is human. There is no way he truly harmed a vampire. You know that, Kylian. The crime does not warrant death.”