by Claire Luana
Wren watched as the men walked up onto the platform, tears stinging her eyes, helplessness threatening to overwhelm her. She wanted to scream this was wrong, to start a riot—to do something—anything—but stand here and watch as these men she respected and cared for were put down like animals.
The black-hooded executioner placed nooses around each of their necks, cinching them tight. The king held up his hand for silence, and the crowd quieted down. He began to speak. “These men have been found guilty of treason against the crown…”
Bile rose in Wren’s throat at the lies coming off the king’s tongue as easily as spun sugar. But, she realized, this was her golden opportunity. If she made a scene, perhaps she could give Callidus and the others one last chance. If they called off the execution on account of an attack… before she knew what she was doing, Wren was clambering up the side of the carriage, past the driver’s seat, onto the roof. She stood, straightening. “Lucas Imbris!” she screamed into the wind.
The king stopped mid-word, turning towards her with a scowl that could break glass.
Lucas turned, too, surprise registering on his face. He took a step towards her.
“The Apricans are in the city. You and your family are their target. Get them to safety,” she shouted. “The Apricans are in the city! Save yourselves!”
The crowd hummed to life, the hushed silence instantly replaced by screams and shouts of panic.
The king snarled at a guard, pointing to Wren.
The guard leveled his crossbow at her and Wren dropped to her stomach as a bolt twanged by above her.
The twang of another bowstring and another sounded above the din of the crowd. Wren looked up to see an arrow pass inches from the king, coming from somewhere at the edge of the square.
Then the queen stumbled to her knees, her hands clutching her neck. She slumped backwards onto the platform, a quivering arrow protruding from her milky-white throat.
Chaos exploded on the platform. Lucas moved like lightning, bearing his sister to the ground, covering her with his body. The royal family took cover as arrows flew at them, two catching Prince Maxim in the gut and shoulder, dropping him to the ground like a falling tree.
The crowd was roiling, surging towards the exits from the square, pressing against each other in a mass exodus that was deadlier than the arrow bolts.
From her vantage point atop the carriage, Wren could see two groups trying to force their way upstream, pushing through the crowd. One was led by a tall, thin man with a mop of curly, blond hair. Wren could have wept from the sight of him. Thom. The other, far more effective, group hacked its way through the crowd with swords and axes. Soldiers as tall and broad as gods with shining golden hair towered above the crowd, making their way towards the royal family. Even in their brown cloaks and white shirts, the Apricans were as plain as day.
The Black Guards were protecting the king with their shields and bodies, crouching back towards the stairs in retreat. The king had abandoned his dying wife, Wren realized with disgust.
Virgil was crouching by his mother now, holding her hand. The king was going to escape while the rest of his family was slaughtered, Wren realized. She slipped off the side of the carriage, not sure what she intended to do. But in the end, she didn’t have to make a decision. Four Apricans burst out of the alley behind her and vaulted and clambered over the nearest carriage, blocking the king’s exit with naked steel.
“Hale?” Wren’s voice was choked as she recognized the last man.
He looked back at her for a split second, the bloodlust in his eyes dimming slightly. “I told you to run,” he growled at her.
“I don’t abandon my Guild members,” she spat at him. Fury warred with relief at the sight of him. His presence here was a comfort, though she knew it shouldn’t be. That was the old Hale—the man who joked and laughed and protected her like a brother. She didn’t know this new version—or what he was capable of.
“If you’re here, you might as well free Callidus and the others.” He nodded to the platform before turning to follow his Aprican brethren.
Outrage flared in Wren. Like she needed to be told? She was the one who had risked her life to get back here.
The king and his guards had been routed in their attempted flight and were now retreating back up the platform in the face of the advancing Aprican soldiers. Wren shoved aside her annoyance at Hale’s comment and scrambled up the steps behind them.
Madness reigned on the platform. Lucas crouched over his sister, his sword drawn. Wren shuffled towards them, trying to stay low. Hale’s team was now on the platform, fighting against the king’s guards, and other Aprican soldiers who had made it through the crowd were pulling themselves onto the platform. The rest of the royal family huddled together behind their wall of soldiers.
“Wren,” Lucas said, “are you all right?”
“Yes. You?” Wren breathed.
“I’m all right, in case anyone cares,” Ella snapped.
“I told you there would be an attack,” Wren snapped back, flinching as the dancing battle of two men came their way, then retreated back towards the other side of the platform. “I told Willings, too.”
Lucas looked at Ella sharply. “Wren warned you?”
“It’s a little late for blame now,” Ella said coolly.
Thom had reached the edge of the platform. “Wren!” he called. “We have a way out!” There was a cloaked figure beside him who could only be Trick.
“Go with Trick and Thom.” Wren pointed. “The Apricans intend to execute the entire royal family.”
Ella’s eyes widened, and for the first time, she looked afraid.
Lucas got her to her feet, and they helped her off the side of the platform into Thom’s outstretched arms. “You too,” Wren said.
“Not without Virgil,” Lucas said.
Wren hissed in frustration. “Fine. I’m getting Callidus and the others.” She pulled a knife from Lucas’s belt, shoving it into her own. She looked back at the other side of the platform, where the fighting was growing more pronounced. Most of the Cedar Guards were down now, and the two Black Guards looked like they had been wounded. The crown prince and the king had their swords out now.
“Be safe,” Lucas said, pulling her into a rough kiss.
“You too,” she said, leaving bloody handprints on the brocade of his jacket.
Chandler was the closest of the four guildmasters, and so she ran for him, standing on her toes to try to loosen the noose around his throat. “Always good to see you, Wren,” Chandler said. Even though he looked worn and tired, she caught a twinkle his eye as he said the words.
“Likewise. Now let’s get you free.”
“Wren, look out!” Thom screamed from below.
Letting instinct seize hold of her, Wren dropped, her knees hitting the wood of the platform with a painful thud.
The executioner’s sword stabbed the air above her where her torso had just been. Wren twisted to behold him, fear slithering up her spine. The man was huge, clothed all in black, with a black leather hood obscuring the top half of his face. He grinned at her, baring teeth dark and stained from chewing tobacco.
With only a knife to defend herself, she needed to stay out of reach of that sword if she wanted to live. Or too close to reach. Instead of getting to her feet, Wren lunged at him, trying to tackle him with her shoulders.
Though he oofed in surprise, the man hardly moved, standing as sturdy as a rock. But moving him wasn’t her objective. She whipped out the knife and sliced at the forearm of his sword hand, once, twice, three times.
The executioner bellowed and dropped the sword. “Guild bitch,” he spat.
“At your service,” she said with feigned distain, offering a mock little bow.
He came at her surprisingly fast for such a large man.
She hardly had time to dodge to the side and miss his blow. She scrambled and stomped on the instep of his foot before burying her knife in his gut. Elation surged in her. She
might beat this man.
He grunted in pain. And then his fist came at her, connecting with the side of her head in an explosion of stars.
Wren staggered away, tasting the metallic tang of blood in her mouth. The knife had stayed in the executioner’s stomach, and now he retrieved it, throwing it to the side, where it skidded across the wooden boards of the platform and off the other side. She risked a look at the other side of the platform, where Lucas was locked in a desperate battle with an Aprican soldier twice his size. Hale was hacking his way through Cedar Guards, his eyes intent on the king. There would be no aid. She revised her assessment. She would probably not beat this man.
The executioner lunged at her again, swinging his massive fist. She ducked and punched him in the stomach where crimson blood was leaking from the knife wound. He wheezed in pain, but his hand shot out and grabbed her around her throat, locking about her neck like a shackle. He bared his teeth as he raised her above the ground, her feet scrambling uselessly for purchase in the air.
Stabs of pain shot through her neck, poking brilliant stars in her vision. Her lungs burned as she gasped for breath, finding none. She kicked out with her feet in a desperate play for any contact and was rewarded when her shin connected with the man’s groin. But it wasn’t enough. He doubled over slightly but narrowed his dark eyes and squeezed harder.
“Wren!”
She heard Thom’s panicked shout from the ground, but it was too late. He was too far away to do anything, even if he could.
Wren’s vision was growing dark now, and she had only one last desperate move to try. “I know who you are,” she croaked, though she had no idea. She needed to intrigue him, to get him to draw her closer.
“What are you talking about?” he snarled, pulling her closer.
It was close enough. She shot her hands out, and with desperate snatching fingers, plunged her fingers into his eye sockets, grasping for the delicate flesh of his eyeballs. He roared with pain, releasing her. As he did, she fell to the platform, bearing with her the disgusting cargo of one of the man’s eyes.
He went berserk with pain, roaring and stumbling, holding his hands to his face while blood poured from between his fingers. Wren gasped for breath, cradling her battered neck, the world tilting around her as oxygen flowed back to her brain. The executioner was stumbling between Callidus and Chandler now like a drunken top, roaring in agony and fury. He staggered into Callidus before recoiling and falling to the side. Right into the lever that would plunge Callidus to his doom.
Wren inhaled sharply, sending a symphony of pain through her neck.
The executioner fell over the lever, sagging to his knees, the bulk of his body shoving the lever forwards before he tumbled over the side of the platform.
The wooden boards under Callidus parted beneath him. Her guildmaster dropped from sight, the dancing of the rope the only sign that he might, by some miracle, still be alive.
Chapter 38
“Callidus!” Wren heard herself scream his name, saw the platform gape open beneath his feet as if in slow motion. Her eyes met Thom’s in the crowd, and she was sure the horror in his was reflected in her own.
Thom sprang into motion, running towards the platform, ducking under the wooden structure to grasp Callidus’s quivering body. He wrapped his arms around Callidus’s legs and hoisted, trying to lessen the pressure on the rope. Wren looked down as Callidus took a hacking breath, his face a violent purple.
“Cut him down!” Thom hollered, looking up through the hole at her. His instruction shook something loose in her shocked brain. Wren whirled, looking across the platform for her knife. It had fallen to the ground with the executioner when he had gone over the edge. But there. The executioner’s sword, discarded by McArt’s feet.
She ran for it and snatched it up, bringing it to bear on the thick rope. The angle was awkward and the rope was tough, but she sawed back and forth, making progress through the rope.
“Hurry!” Thom shouted.
“I am!” she cried, desperation in her voice. The final strands of rope were taking an interminable length of time to cut, but finally, the rope snapped apart, the coil snaking down into the hole in the platform.
Wren bent over, panting, her hands on her knees.
Thom and Callidus had fallen to the ground, Thom’s arms around Callidus’s waist. Thom scrambled up, ripping the rope off of Callidus’s neck.
“Is he all right?”
Thom was inspecting Callidus, his hand placed gingerly against Callidus’s temple.
Callidus’s eyes fluttered open. “Took you….long enough…” he wheezed.
Thom let out an incredulous laugh and hugged Callidus. “He’s all right,” he called to Wren.
Wren’s heart unclenched and she let out a breath of relief, straightening. But there was no time for relief. The fighting was still thick on the other side of the platform, and the other three guildheads were still chained, nooses tight around their necks. “See if you can find the keys on the executioner’s belt,” she yelled down to him before running to Chandler, McArt, and Bruxius, freeing each of them in turn from thick ropes holding them.
“Wren!” Thom called from below, tossing her a ring of keys. It soared through the gray air and flew through her outstretched hands, missing her completely.
She hissed in exasperation, scrambling after them and seizing them in shaking fingers. She undid the guildmasters’ shackles, and Bruxius stretched wide, cracking knuckles and joints as the collar and chains fell off his massive bulk. “Whose side are we on?” he asked, nodding to the fray that continued on the other side of the platform.
The guards’ numbers had dwindled alarmingly. Two of the Imbris princes had fallen, their emerald jackets stained crimson. It was down to the king, Crown Prince Zane, and one Black Guard against three Aprican soldiers and Hale. Lucas and Virgil crouched over their mother; it appeared she was still alive.
Wren hissed through her teeth. They should have been gone by now. “I think we’re on our own side,” Wren finally said. “I need to get Lucas and Virgil to safety. The rest of the chips will fall where they may.”
“I’m with you,” Bruxius said. “You just saved our lives. Least I can do is help your friends.”
Wren nodded in gratitude, swallowing a question about his knife wound. If he thought he could fight, he could fight. She needed all the help she could get. Wren turned to Chandler. “Thom and Trick have a way to safety. Go with them. We’ll catch up.”
Bruxius helped the other two men off the platform, lifting them off the side and dropping them gently on the ground. Thom and Callidus had emerged from below the platform; Callidus leaned heavily on Thom, his arm around his shoulder.
“I’m getting Lucas and Virgil,” she said. But when she turned, she found the scene had already changed. One of the Aprican soldiers was sliding his sword out of the crown prince’s gut—the man slumping forwards onto the platform, blood bubbling from his lips. The soldier bared his teeth in a hideous celebration, and the lone Black Guard seized the opening and stabbed him though the spine with a vicious thrust.
It was just King Imbris and the Black Guard now against two Apricans and Hale.
Lucas surged to his feet and picked up a sword, running at the nearest soldier. “Lucas, no!” she screamed. The soldier parried Lucas’s blow and turned to face his new opponent.
A stream of curses ran through Wren’s mind. Why did Lucas have to be so noble? His father didn’t deserve protection, wasn’t worth Lucas risking his life. Wren and Bruxius ran to Virgil, who now stood, watching with his blood-soaked hands over his face in horror. “Virgil,” Wren said when she reached his side. “We need to go.”
He turned to her, a blank look on his face. After a moment he seemed to register who she was, his eyes clearing somewhat. “I won’t leave my mother.”
“Virgil.” Wren looked down at the waxen face of the queen. She was gone. Even in death, she seemed gentle, kind. She hadn’t deserved such a violent end
. Wren struggled to hold herself together, feeling herself fraying. She didn’t want to see anyone else die. “She’s gone. She wouldn’t want you to risk yourself over her.”
“I can’t leave her.” Virgil was shaking his head like a wild man. He wasn’t thinking clearly.
Frustration and despair welled in her. Maybe Lucas could convince his brother to leave. She turned to see Lucas dodging a feint, coming back with his own lunging strike. The soldier whirled, moving behind Lucas and slashing him across the back with a powerful blow.
“Lucas!” Wren screamed, moving towards him, not sure what she expected to do. The soldier had a grim smile on his rugged face as Lucas fell to his knees before him, exposed for a killing blow. But Bruxius was faster. He barreled towards the man with startling speed, crashing into him with the strength of an ox, bearing him to the ground. The sight of Lucas bleeding and prone seemed to rattle Virgil to his senses, and Wren and Virgil both hurried to his side. Virgil explored the wound with delicate fingers, his shoulders slumping with relief after a moment. “It’s shallow. He should live.” Lucas’s eyes were blinking rapidly, his breathing coming in shallow hisses.