Chapter 9
9
N o chance to defend myself, although telling my side of the story would never result in mercy. Cosmo was right: I’d already done too much, skirted a line more often than not, for them to even consider listening to me.
There was nothing left to say. I was beyond redemption and better off dead.
Barbara and I never stood a chance of getting out of this and we’d both known it. She’d made her move. And the second she did, I was doomed to go down with her.
One day after our meeting with Cosmo Foxfall, the guards returned to draw us from the cells. They marched us up out of the dungeon and through the main courtyard outside the castle. The cuffs on my wrist had been amended with a pair of matching chains on my ankles. They dragged against the cobblestone with every shortened step forward.
My stomach dipped, swirling as queasy heat spiraled in my gut. My mouth went dry and stayed that way.
We were long past feeling sick over the situation, though. Long past trying to figure a way out. The only chance I had was from the outside and I clung to my flawed sense of hope.
Maybe, just maybe, someone would step in and help free me. Something had to happen, right? Something had to give.
Surely Mike would never let them kill me.
We loved each other.
I thought we loved each other .
My palms were clammy, my teeth chattering.
I might have lied to him about the Imperium but he had to know I never lied about my feelings for him. But if he truly believed I was a part of some plot against his family?—
No contest, then. Lover versus kingdom. He’d choose his family and his loyalty to his people over me.
It wasn’t like we were mates. That bond, for wolves, trumped anything else. Everything else.
They marched us into the center courtyard toward a small wooden platform the premier had ordered to be built.
Voices grew louder, and once we stepped into the blinding sunlight, I saw a massive crowd gathered. The gates were closed but innumerable fae pressed against the bars, jeering and craning their necks for a look at the execution.
I swallowed hard, my throat closing, my stomach twisting in agony.
Someone already stood on the platform.
Onyx Grimaldi turned his head to watch my approach, his eyes neutral and unfathomable. Those eyes had lost the jaded bitterness they’d sported when I first met him. His aquiline nose now boasted an unhealed hump at its center from being broken, and his platinum-white hair had grown out on the sides though it was still longer at the top. His goatee and mustache were white, his eyebrows dark, and his lips thinned.
He’d hurt people, he’d killed, and the last time I saw him he’d been strapped to a hospital bed trying to heal from injuries I’d inflicted. Dark circles drew attention to his turquoise-blue eyes which met mine without blinking. The closer we got, the easier it was to recognize his scent. Pack .
I wanted to reach for him and envelop myself in his familiar smell. To squeeze my own eyes shut and pretend this was a dream. Hyperventilating, I held his gaze with a plea in mine.
Save me . Help me save us.
Clearly he’d been sentenced as well, and today was chosen for all of us to meet our end. I missed my next step and stumbled, the chains clinking together.
His resolve, the bravery written across every line of his face…it impressed me. On multiple levels. He chose to meet his end without breaking a sweat or begging for mercy.
Fuck. I wanted half of his courage despite my hope of a last-minute save.
The guards holding me kept back while the others ushered Barbara up the steps and situated her beside Onyx. The old witch’s eyes were clear and her jaw set. Her teeth were no doubt clenched together beneath the magical gag.
She cast an acidic glare around to the rest of the crowd that at once belittled and shamed anyone who met her eyes.
Premier Foxfall stood nearby with the others on his Council, watching the proceedings closely. I saw no hint of Mike or Queen Laina anywhere. Had they decided not to attend?
Several loud whoops and hollers came from the crowd outside the gates. They wanted this to hurry up, wanted to see the show, or whatever constituted an execution in Faerie.
It seemed archaic to me. Something private would have been much better than this terrifying yet humiliating spectacle.
The guards began to push me up the steps of the platform when Captain Hezarwick jogged over and held up a hand, his white gloves spotless.
“Prince Michael has asked for one last word with Tavi Alderidge.” He spoke directly to the other men, not to me, his voice hard.
My stomach took a rapid series of flips one right after the other. Mike actually wanted to talk to me. This was it. This was the saving grace I’d been hoping for...he wasn’t going to let me die. Not today .
It was too soon to tell as the guards reversed my direction.
I felt Barbara and Onyx staring at me, their gazes like daggers through my back, as the others led me away toward a small alcove dug into the outside of the castle. It hadn’t been set up as a viewing station, at least.
Mike stood in the shadows with his arms limp at his sides. He stared over my head at my approach and fixed Captain Hezarwick with a dour, disapproving scowl. “We’re not to be disturbed. Do you understand?”
“She might be dangerous, Sir,” one of the guards commented. “You need someone to?—”
“She’s weighed down with magic-damping chains. How much danger can she present?” His tone held a warning. “Give us some privacy.”
He wasn’t asking. This was a side of Mike that I rarely saw, where he made demands and the others jumped to do his bidding.
The guards hesitated only a moment longer before they trailed the captain a few feet away, turning their backs to us. Mike lifted a hand and a silencing bubble fell around us to shut away the noise from the outside world. It was thicker than anything I’d seen him work before.
“Tavi.” Immediately, his tone and demeanor changed. His eyes went round, glassy. “Mom and I have been fighting Cosmo all night to get the execution order rescinded. So far nothing we’ve said has made any kind of difference.”
He was frantic, and listening to him, my resolve gave way to every last raw nerve I’d been trying to ignore. I reached for him and stopped at the last moment as my chains clicked together.
“Mike, you have to do something. He refuses to rescind, right? He wants me dead.”
“The premier is power hungry,” Mike admitted. He bit down on his lower lip. “He’s taken over the castle with Dad still in a coma. There’s nothing Mom or I can do, especially when he has the might of the Elder Council at his back. They won’t stand up to him. This is the opportunity they’ve been waiting for, to gain more ground, and he’s using you and the others to make a statement.”
“It’s not what you think, Mike, I swear?—”
“We don’t have time for you to explain,” he cut in. “Here. Take this.” He reached behind him and drew out a small globe-shaped hunk of metal which he then placed between my palms. “You need it.”
Recognition raged through me. “What did you do?” I lost my breath.
“It’s the Augundae Totalis . It amplifies the magic of the one who uses it. I smuggled it out of Faerie and used it to do better in classes. You’re going to need it to get out.”
“But the chains. I can’t use my magic at all.”
“The Totalis nullifies magic-blocking attempts. Trust me, Tavi. If you use it with your cognitive manipulation then you should be able to amplify your powers and enchant the entire crowd. You’ve got to save yourself.”
Those green eyes met mine and I found myself wanting to cry.
“Mike, you don’t know what this means to me,” I managed to get out.
“Look, I admit I don’t know what to believe. But I know I can’t lose you, Tavi. Okay? Do whatever it takes to get out of this because my hands are tied. This is the only way I can help.”
He looked ready to kiss me and despite the sickening dip in my abdomen, I lifted my face to his.
“Sir? We’re out of time. We have to take her up now.” Captain Hezarwick returned and I hurried to hide the Totalis beneath my shirt where no one would see it.
Thank god for stretchy pants.
“I’m sorry.”
Mike’s last words for me were a death knell and horror filled me. My cheeks paled.
Not that I doubted the Totalis would work. I’d seen the way it helped Mike, amplifying his powers to help get him through the last year we spent at the Halfling Academy in the human world. But I was fighting against the cuffs, the chains on my ankles, Cosmo Foxfall, and the rest of his posse.
Was I strong enough to do this?
I kept my hands clasped in front of me and my head down on my way back to the platform. When I finally lifted my face, Barbara was gone already.
They killed her that fast.
My jaw dropped and a pang of regret clanged through me. I hadn’t been fast enough to do anything for her. Barbara was just a mother who wanted to get her daughter back. She hadn’t been an evil witch trying to take down an empire. Not the way they’d made her out to be.
“Keep moving.”
The guards were not unkind but they also weren’t about to let me stand and feel my feelings. They hustled me onto the platform in the empty space next to Onyx, where Barbara had stood before I’d been pulled aside.
Onyx gave me the side-eye, and I thought I caught the flash of an encouraging smile. The best I could do was not cry.
If I couldn’t work the Totalis , I was as good as gone, and Onyx with me.
My gaze scoured the crowd and I found Mike’s face among the courtiers. Once again, he pointedly avoided looking at me, his expression carefully pinned in place and giving nothing away.
Cosmo’s voice was magically amplified, the way I’d seen during the Faerie Trials. It reached across the courtyard and out over the people outside the castle gates as clearly as though he stood only a foot away.
“Today we have gathered here to eliminate our enemies. To mark the occasion and to show that any future enemies who attempt to stand against the crown will be dealt with accordingly, I’ve allowed you all the opportunity to bear witness!”
Cheering erupted at his statement.
“We have already seen the demise of one such enemy, the barbaric witch who attacked our beloved King Tywin!” Cosmo paused. “Let no one stand against the monarchy and go unpunished. Let no one attempt to take down our royal family and live.”
I gulped hard, the metal of the Totalis warming against my skin.
A flash of movement in the distance caught my attention and my senses sharpened. There, in the shadows, crouched the direwolf. Watching. Waiting. Somehow the rest of the crowd had focused too much on the platform to be disturbed by the presence of the massive lupine form.
And somehow I knew that he understood: I had the tool and I was about to make a run for it. Noren was waiting for me to get the hell out of here. Somehow seeing him there made the stakes even higher. I had to escape. I had to take the chance that the tool would work.
Even if I might not be powerful enough to entrance the entire crowd.
I nodded to Noren.
Oh my god.
My god.
One shot to save my own life, and to save Onyx, the way I hadn’t been able to save Barbara.
Cosmo Foxfall still addressed the crowd, and after a few more lofty statements of pure posturing, he clapped his hands together. Called for silence. And gestured for the guards to proceed.
The execution was set, and just as a swell of magic rose around us, I reached under my shirt to grab the Totalis .