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ALISDAIR KEPT TO HISword over the next fortnight.
He went where I went. Or more accurately, I went where he went. Trailing him throughout the day and glimpsing what he did outside the times we planned in the war room, or practiced archery on the field. I was treated to what Alisdair Shadowsoul did when I wasn’t looking—
—and it was horrible.
A coyote faeriken knelt in the snow, still under the shadow of two swords, but not silent. He growled a steady, ferocious snarl—his expression showing nothing resembling remorse.
“You don’t have to do this!” I jumped off the litter and threw myself at Alisdair—holding him back with my body alone.
Emiana enjoyed watching this, but she never got to the end. My horror always brought me back to consciousness.
“We can put him in jail,” I cried. “Life sentence. He deserves nothing less.”
“We do not have jails, Princess.” He kept walking, easily dragging me behind him. “Children are put into corners to think about what they’ve done after misbehaving. But adults know what they’ve done, andthisadult knows the cost. He chose this.”
“That’s bullshit!”
Alisdair raised his arm—claws growing to their lethal, impossible length. I dangled off his elbow trying to bring his hand back down.
“You’ll keep an innocent siren imprisoned in a dungeon, but your criminal subjects are too good for the same treatment!”
“Because they get worse,” he roared, flinging me about trying to shake me off. “You’re still not ready, little bird. You’re soft!”
“And you’re still a bastard!” Heaving up, I sank my teeth in his forearm.
His bellow echoed through the endless night. “Damn you, nightmare woman!” Alisdair tore me off and tossed me over his shoulder, ignoring my kicking and pummeling. “Fine!” he barked. “Since you’ve declared me unfit to be judge, jury, and executioner, I will pass the task to another.”
“Good. I sentence him to the dungeon—”
“Not you,” Alisdair sliced in. He turned on a twitching, trembling figure in the snow. “You. What say you, Oona. What will his sentence be?”
Oona looked from Alisdair to the kneeling coyote man—shaking harder. Oona was older than me, but not by much. Brown and gray fur covered her head to toe, and flicking over her shoulder, was a large, bushy tail.
She was the first squirrel faeriken I met in Lumenfell, and she seemed just as skittish and nervous as the animal who possessed her, but it wasn’t hard to see why. Oona clutched her arm to her chest. It was bandaged with thick, heavy wrappings soaked in healing ointments. A smell so strong it turned the nose of every faeriken with heightened scent.
The care was necessary considering that the same coyote man kneeling in the snow bit through fur, skin, and muscle when he tried to eat her.
“Oona,” I called, straining to see around Alisdair’s back upside down. “You don’t have to do this. I will—”
“Kill him.” Oona shook and twitched, but her voice didn’t. “My lord, do it. Slit the worthless son of a whore’s throat.”
Alisdair didn’t even put me down. He ripped the head off the coyote’s shoulders, spraying warm, thick blood on the back of my boots and legs.
My scream disturbed no other ears than mine.
WE WERE A SILENT PARTYtrekking back to Castle Riagin. Alisdair left three guards behind to clean up the mess and escort Oona back to her home. The rest protected me, including Alisdair.
“I can’t believe you bit me,” he gritted. “I should’ve traded an actual fucking bird off Salman. At least that creature wouldn’t be so ill-mannered!”
I bared my teeth. “I’m ill-mannered? You do these horrible fucking things for no reason, and you dare to say that I’m the problem? My only regret is not tearing a chunk out of you like hedid to Oona— Oh,” I cried, slapping a hand over my mouth. “Of course I can’t. If I did, you’d rip off my head!”
“Don’t be ridiculous!”
“Ridiculous? You mean to say your terrible, barbaric laws don’t apply to me?” I scoffed. “If only you could spare such mercy for your people.”
“Barbaric, you say?” True anger burned in his eyes. “You are a wonder, Princess. You’ve ruled in my kingdom for an entire two moons, and you believe you know better what my kingdom and my people need?
“Bradach.” Alisdair spoke to him, but glared at me. “Who’s next?”
