by G. Bailey
“Why am I here? I don’t know what happened. Please tell me?” I beg, just like I always do with the guards, but they couldn’t look more disinterested if they tried. “I really don’t know what’s going on!”
“She’s been saying that since we found her,” the guard scoffs, pausing outside a set of towering wooden doors.
The Shadow Warden grunts at me. “Well, I’m sure this will jog her memory.”
Wrapping his hand around the brass handle, he opens the doors and ushers me inside. The guard follows, his taser close to my back. Everything happens so quickly. I’m shoved into a glass box. More light penetrates my eyes, and I struggle to see or hear anything. My senses try to adjust to the light and fresh air I’ve been deprived of for what feels like an eternity. My legs tremble in their sockets, threatening to liquefy as I blink up at the lights. Slowly, my senses acclimate, and the blood drains from my face as I take stock of where I am. I know this courtroom all too well.
My mother often held hearings here and I was allowed to watch from the gallery. Now I’m up in the Box, facing the Grand Warden and his four High Wardens, but I don’t know what crime I’m being tried for.
“Izora Dawn, do you swear on Selena to tell us the whole truth of the events of what we ask you?”
I blink up at the Grand Warden’s sullen face. “Where… where am I?”
“Answer the question, Shadowborn,” another voice demands.
I follow the voice to the shadows at my left, where the darkness seems to gather. There are no lights at that side of the bar. I think it’s where the jury’s sitting, but I’m not sure. I can barely breathe up here let alone think straight.
“Quiet,” one of the other High Warden commands, the only female of the group. She casts a cold glance at the voice and then trains her eyes back on me. “Do you swear to tell the truth?”
My heart stammering in my chest, I choke out, “Yes, I swear. But please… I don’t know what I did… where I am… what’s going on…”
The Grand Warden waves his hand and light bleeds through the darkness concealing the rest of the room. The jury consists of two men and two women. Beside them are the Shadow Warden and the guard who brought me here. I spot my mother at the front of the gallery on the other side, her eyes bloodshot and face streaked with tears. My step-father is on her right, but he’s not looking at me, and my step-sister glowers beside him. I feel dizzy and sick just looking at their faces. This can’t really be happening, can it? It all feels too painful and surreal. Further up the gallery, my gaze lands on the men and women all dressed in white lab coats, just like…
Everything hits me in one ravening wave.
The injection on the back of my neck. The pain. The wings. The power.
The memories come flooding back and I collapse to the floor, my fall cushioned by more white padding. Tears slide off my face and seep into the ground. Whatever those monsters did to me, I’m being punished for it. But I never asked for any of this. I never wanted to be abducted and tortured into a Light Fae. I search the courtroom in a daze, finding my mother again. But the pain I see in her eyes it too much, and I look away. Does she really believe that I’m innocent? Or does she think I’m guilty?
“Izora, you are charged with five accounts of murder,” the Grand Warden resumes. “How do you plead?”
My answer is instantaneous.
“Not guilty! They took me from the academy and tortured me into becoming a light fae. I’m telling the truth!” My voice cracks and echoes around the courtroom. The only other noise is my mother as she sobs into a handkerchief. I can hardly look at her as she wipes her tears, pushing her silver hair behind her ears. A habit I’ve seen her do a million times when something is wrong. Usually, it’s my evil step-sister who did something, not me.
I’ve never fucked up like this. I always follow the rules, just enough to get by and live a normal life.
There’s whispering among the jury. The badges on their suit coats flash in the lights, and I realise some of them are junior wardens and others simply keepers.
“Lying to us will only make your case worse,” the blond male High Warden at the end announces. “You were found in a wrecked building with the incinerated remains of five innocent Shadow Wardens. There is so much proof against you that I fear you will just lie no matter what we discuss here.”
I gape at him, an immediate feeling of cold dread rushing into me. By his scathing expression alone, he’s the kind of warden who won’t listen even if I did have all the evidence stacked in my favour. I doubt any of the people here will listen. Five of their own kin—who kidnapped and tortured me—found dead with only me as a survivor? Of course it’ll be easier for them to pin their deaths on me. That way they can cover up their dirty work.
I look over at my mother, barely holding back my tears. “Mum, you know I wouldn’t do this! Please, help me?”
I plaster myself to the glass. My mother shadowlocates to the front of the box and places her shaking hands opposite mine, her grey eyes completely empty. And that terrifies me. My mother’s eyes are always lit up even in her darkest moments.
More voices talk and throw accusations at me.
“I didn’t kill them,” I tell my mother, letting my tears fall but standing tall.
Looking into her eyes, she knows it’s true.
I’m being set up.
“…then it is decided. We find you, Izora Dawn, guilty of high murder of the five wardens you so viciously killed for your own selfish gain,” the Grand Warden announces. “The punishment will be four years in Shadowborn Prison. Upon completing your sentence, you shall be sent to live alone in the mortal world, wherein you will be an outcast and shunned from this world for the rest of your life. The Enchanted Forest will no longer be welcoming to you, nor will the people and creatures who live in it.”
As the Grand Warden declares my sentence with a knock of his hammer, I can only stare at my mother as she slides down the glass and bursts into tears. She’s whispering something over and over again that I can’t quite make out at first, but when I finally do, I really wish I hadn’t.
“I always knew you would end up here. I’m sorry… I’m sorry I could not stop them.”
“Do you accept your four-year sentence to Shadowborn Prison to repent for your sins?” the Grand Warden concludes, but I can’t bring myself to look at them, too distraught by the sight of my mother falling apart before me.
I scratch at the glass in an attempt to reach out and touch her, my own tears flowing silently down my cheeks. My step-father, without even looking at me, pulls her from the box and takes her away, leaving me alone, falsely accused and convicted of a crime I did not commit.
“Izora, do you accept your fate?” the Grand Warden repeats, his hammer ready to knock again.
“Yes,” I finally answer as they drag me out of the room.
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G. Bailey is a USA Today and International Bestselling Author of fantasy and paranormal romance.
She lives in England with her cheeky children, her gorgeous (and slightly mad) golden retrievers and her teenage sweetheart turned husband.
She loves cups of tea.
Chocolate and Harry Potter marathons are her jam and she owns way too many notebooks and random pens.
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Scarlett Snow comes from a big family in a small Scottish town and has always strived to prove that if you are passionate about something, no one can stop you from chasing your dreams. She lives with her wolf dog and kitties and is unashamedly addicted to coffee.
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