Chapter 31

It isn't the thudding of the sideways rain against the window that dampens my mood this morning—it's the noise. A mass of collective energy stings my own like a horde of furious bees. I throw on a clean sage dress with flowy sleeves and hurry from my bedchambers, not bothering to braid my hair.

It's been a few days since the Black Art and I returned to the castle from our visit to the goddess's temple. As he said, he sent a small group back to pick up Legion's tracks, but I haven't heard if they found anything yet. In fact, I haven't seen much of Sin at all since we've returned.

The foyer is empty—the shadows cast by the room's towering archways the only company in the lonely entrance. I find River in the kitchen, hammering a rolling pin against a sheet of pink fillets, a tad too aggressively to be casual. She doesn't look up when I enter, but rather keeps her attention fixed on the meat before her, definitely hitting them harder now.

"Is there another event here today? I sense a crowd." It's too early in the day for a ball, but perhaps the Black Art has prepared a speech to deliver.

"Not an event. An execution," River answers with forced calmness. She straightens and folds her hands against the divots of her waist. "That boy… oh, that boy. Let me tell you, he is really messing it up big this time," she says, shaking her head.

My spine steels. "Who is being executed?"

"A damn kid. Well not a kid-kid, but they're all kids to me," she sighs, tracing a finger along her eye where a single tear jumps out.

"What was the crime?"

"Nothing worthy of this," she says with a shake of her head and resumes beating the poor cutlets into submission.

I don't bother returning to my chambers for a cape before I'm bolting out into the rain. The guards at the gate point me in the direction of the execution, and I sprint out of the keep, my gut groaning as the phantom tether there cinches down tight. Or perhaps it's just queasiness from what I fear is about to happen.

Please Elysande, don't let this be what I think it is.

It doesn't take me long to find the crowd of busy bodied villagers huddled around a raised platform. I push through them, shoving at their bulky cloaks and coats, ignoring their sneers and grumblings that if I wanted a better view, I should have arrived sooner. Heaving my shoulders into their sides, I make my way to the front of the crowd.

Kneeling on the wooden deck, his wrists bound to his ankles in long iron shackles, is a young man. He appears to be a few years my younger with a head of golden hair and ivory skin, and judging from his iron restraints, not entirely human.

A transcendent.

Sin appears from behind the platform and approaches the young man with slow, calculated footsteps. Dusaro and Ileana appear and take their places on opposite corners of the stage. Ileana's expression is reserved, while Dusaro waves to the crowd, encouraging their cheery applause and whistles of approval.

The Black Art stares at his feet, not even bothering to look at the pleading transcendent before him until the crowd quiets down. And when their rousing hollers finally do fade, there is nothing about Sin's expression that suggests he is in the mood to reconsider.

The crowd goes deadly quiet when he speaks, his booming voice rivaling the thunder in the attention it demands. "Thatcher Alderman, you are hereby accused of inflicting injury to another while in a state of transcendence. Due to the nature of this crime—I, Singard Kilbreth, Black Art of Aegidale—sentence you to death."

Thatcher cranes his neck back to look up at Sin, shaking his head as pleas for mercy fall from his mouth. There is no softness in the Black Art's all-consuming glare as he closes the small gap between him and the prisoner at his leather clad feet.

"Sin!" I call his name.

His head snaps up at the sound of my voice, and he quickly scans the crowd to find me. I continue as soon as our eyes lock. "Sin—Your Grace—please reconsider your sentencing."

"The decision is final," he growls, strands of wet black hair sticking to the sides of his face like sodden branches.

I ignore Dusaro's warning glare burning a hole in my face. "There must be another way. He can serve the kingdom, work in the castle. For as long as you see fit, a lifetime even. I'm sure you could always use more hands around the—"

"This is not the time for negotiations, girl," Dusaro drawls, cutting me off.

My stare doesn't waver from Sin's, and something close to remorse crinkles around his eyes before promptly fading away. His jaw tics with a steadfast decision.

"I beg you, Your Grace. Please." I am not beneath groveling when a life is at stake.

The rain pelts us harder as if hurrying his decision, and the crowd shifts uncomfortably, muttering annoyances at the delay. Thatcher begs for reconsideration, pledging fealty as his tears mix with the rivulets of rain droplets streaming down his cheeks.

"They came at me first. I was only defending myself! But I'll never shift again, just don't kill me. Please don't kill me. Please, Your Grace, I beg for mercy."

Thunder claps overhead as if even the storm clouds sensed a decision has been made. Sin shifts his gaze to my right and summons a guard with a wave of two fingers. Hands clamp down around the tops of my arms and yank me backwards, but I dig my feet into the ground and thrash myself free.

"Let me stay! Clearly you enjoy an audience," I say, gesturing to the gathered townsfolk, "so go on then. Show us what happens to those born differently than the precious Black Art." I spit the words up at him.

Sin's slivered eyes narrow farther, but he nods once to the guard who then takes a step away from me. I shift my focus to Thatcher and make a silent vow to remember him. I take note of the roundness of his cheeks, his wavy blonde hair, his aquamarine eyes and pretend not to notice his resemblance to Galen. This could very well be my nephew's future.

No. No, it can't be.

I hold back the tears, refusing to allow a single remaining memory of Thatcher's short life be clouded through bleary eyes.

Please let it be quick.

It isn't.

Sin swoops down with the speed of a raptor and grabs Thatcher by his shoulders. As if he was struck by the storm's lightning, Thatcher writhes in the Black Art's grip, his body jerking forward and back in rapid succession. Tendrils of blue magic emanate from Sin's fingertips, but his hold never loosens, even with Thatcher's violent convulsions.

The transcendent throws his head back in a blood-curdling scream, and the chains connecting his hands and feet begin to rattle. His body twists and contorts at inhuman angles, no longer belonging to himself, and his face begins to widen.

Sin is forcing him to shift.

He didn't bind Thatcher in iron to protect himself. No, it was for show; to prove a point to the high lords he knew would gather here to witness the turpitude unfolding before us.

That even iron has its limits.

They won't question that the most powerful mage of Aegidale had to flood the transcendent's veins with magic to force his body to shift under the iron. They will only watch as Thatcher morphs into something foreign, something monstrous, and cheer as their almighty Black Art slaughters it before them.

Slayer of beasts, they will call him.

Thatcher's face begins to blur as his features stretch and elongate. With a metallic ring, his chains break at the ankles as his legs widen and shift into thick, muscular stumps. He stands on his new hind legs, his shirt ripping across his chest that now emerges broad and covered in a yellow-tan coat.

The shifter tilts his huge, furred head back in an ear-splitting howl, and when he lowers it again, his light eyes are now set in a face of golden fur, his snout long and rectangular. His second skin is a mix of something canine and bear, and the size of a small horse. His ears are short and pointed, and now lowered as he bares his razor-sharp teeth at Sin, emitting a low guttural growl.

Thisis what Sin wanted. Because the scene unfolding is all these people will go home remembering about today: that the accused transcendent shifted under iron and threatened the Black Art.

Sin unsheathes the long sword at his hip and that sound—the sliding of steel against leather—will haunt my dreams, waking and not, until my final breath.

I don't wince as his sword connects with Thatcher's broad neck. I don't wet my lips at the innocent blood that sprays onto the wood and speckles Sin's dark surcoat, his face. I don't hear the celebration at my back.

But I see him.

Bloodied and severed and erased at the Black Art's shoes. How soon after defeating Legion will Sin declare war on all transcendents? How soon after I help him stop Legion will he turn on me and send his men to hunt down my family like rabid dogs? Just when I thought that maybe Sin wasn't a complete monster, he reminded me why so many in Aegidale cower at the mere mention of his name.

I can't make an escape and find Cosmina on my own. At least not flee with her afterwards so long as the tethering spell binds me to him. Sin would hunt me down. No matter how far we ran, or how deep into the woods we hid, he would find me.

He will always find me.

But if I slip away just long enough to find her—rescue her—I could accept my demise when Sin inevitably comes for me if it means freeing my sister on my own. It hadn't occurred to me before, but the longer Legion remains a threat to the kingdom, the more time my family has to form a plan before war is declared on their kind. Finding Cosmina on my own is my family's safest option. She could return to the others and together, they could hunker down in a new location.

But for this plan to work, I need to be as fast as the lightning striking overhead. I need to know Cosmina's precise location.

And there's only one person who can tell me.