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“Silence!”
The boy about swallowed his tongue.
“I am a witness for Olene Waterrose and her daughter, Meliora. You’re to take me to them,” I barked. “The execution will not go ahead!”
“But, I can’t—”
Bradach flashed—moving so fast, he was on the soldier before his fallen feather touched the ground. “Is there cotton in your ears, boy?” he growled. Bradach’s dagger pressed to his quivering throat. “My queen has given you an order. The execution is canceled!”
“But, I can’t help you,” he cried, eyes bulging. “It’s too late. The sentence has been carried out. The execution is over.
“The traitors are dead.”
Chapter Sixteen
“The traitors are dead.”
One of my raven guards gasped, clapping her hand over her mouth. “Oh, no. My lady, we were too late. I’m so sorry.”
“No.” Expression hard, I advanced on the captured soldiers. His companions raised, lowered, raised, then lowered their swords as I stalked past—not knowing what to do against the woman that was once their sovereign. “They’re not dead. Stop wasting time and take me to them now.”
Bradach tightened on his throat. “Are you certain?” he asked me.
“Yes. Salman holds his executions after daybreak, so that the temple priestesses can attend. It delights him to lord over his victims that their slaughter is divined and sanctioned by Meya. We still have time, but not much,so take me to them now!”
Emiana living in my head for months was worth something in the end. Faced with her knowledge and her face, the soldier gave in—ordering for the doors to be opened and the queen invited inside.
I chased him through the halls, and then he chased after me. Emiana’s memories were fading from my mind like water through my fingertips, but the place where Salman forced a small child to watch men and women be beheaded... that memory would stay long after she was gone.
Something caught my eye.
Emiana’s hair draped over my shoulders, the gorgeous flaming crown known by all in the kingdom. So striking and uniform, except for the ebony tips dipped in ink.
“Oh, no,” I breathed. “Bradach!”
He raced to my side, and quickly noticed what I did. “I was afraid of this.” He craned his head around farther than an unchanged faeman’s could go. Our followers were too far behind us to hear. “The body-switching curse works in reverse when it’s broken. First, you lose your body then your mind. Now, you’ve regained your mind and next will come your body.
“You have to do this quickly,” he forced through clenched teeth. “You said it yourself. The only voice they’ll hear in that room is that of a queen.”
I urged my feet on without a huff or puff. I wasn’t winded in the slightest, even though I was running faster than Emiana’s limit. My true body was returning, and it wouldn’t wait.
“If I fail, get my mother and sister out of here.” I whipped around a corner, blowing past a servant who screamed and dropped her bucket. “I don’t care if you have to leave me behind. Get them to safety.”
A thousand emotions warred on his chiseled face. “If I do so, it’s an act of war. I’d be proving they’re spies of Lumenfell who violated Lyrica’s sovereignty, and then we violated it again by preventing them from executing two traitors to the kingdom.”
“So be it. If it’s a war Salman wants, it’s one he’ll get soon enough. But promise me you’ll save them, Bradach. They will not die today!”
I burst through the doors.
“—the reading of the charges. Olene Waterrose, you are hereby sentenced to death and—”
“Stop!”
The same officiant who married me and Alisdair dropped his book, whirling around.
My stomach heaved at the sight before me.
The room chosen to be the final stop of Salman’s enemies was a bright, plain, circular space. A ceiling-high windowfaced the west, soaking in the final rays of the setting sun. Standing beneath the window were the officiant and two temple priestesses. Across the room, Salman, his advisors, and Kirwan Dawnbreaker observed my mother and his daughter chained to the middle of the floor—hatred rimming his red eyes.
