Page 122 of The Lure of Wolves and Whispers

Each of her shrieks cuts to the quick of me. The nobles’ lips press into thin lines, their fingers clutching at the gems sparkling at their throats and wrists, as if they finally feel them for the shackles they are.

Only torchlight marks our path now. The eerie orange lightglows against the mist hanging in the night air, tingling at the throbbing ache at my temple. Blood crusts over my cheeks from the gardai’s blow; I can feel where my dark hair sticks to my skin.

There’s no use trying to pull it away when I know I’m still bleeding.

The jagged horizon at the end of the lane rises up ahead. Only mangy dogs roam the edges of the Black Quay at this hour.

I catch the dying orange slivers of shuttering windows, the figures behind them vanishing as they snap closed, and remember—sometimes, it takes hours to die on the spikes.

The gardai’s marching feet slap to a stop.

The rattle of the royal carriage slows.

I hear the hinges of the prison cart creak, and Eavan’s screams fading to low moans, then abject cries. And as hard as she fought when the gardai forced her into that cart at the castle gates, she fights twice as hard against them as they try to get her out.

Silent fury ripples off the long lines of nobles.

I taste it, coating the air.

Cash’s expression is pure ice as he climbs down from the carriage. His ringed fingers trace the hilt of his sword and settle at its base. Sandy hair falls into his face, and there’s no hint of sapphire in his tight gaze. No remorse, either. Just the cold fury he doesn’t try to hide—and fixes right on the High Queen for the entire court to see over the sound of Eavan’s panicked pleas.

There’s nowhere for her to run.

No one to help her now. The gardai lead Eavan up the low steps to the Black Quay, jutting out into the sea with a dozen different blackened spikes reaching up toward the stars. Once, the table in the middle might’ve been wood. But years of struggle and bloodand filth have coated every inch of it into a hardened black—just like what’s on every one of the spikes. Its edges are as jagged as broken teeth, with whole chunks clawed out of the old wood.

Four iron shackles wait for her, bolted on each corner. Two for the hands and two for the feet. A fifth one waits for her neck, a cruel metal collar that will lock her into place.

It only takes two gardai to haul Eavan up the steps—until she sees the table. Then her eyes roll back in wild terror, and her every muscle leaps to life. This is desperate, animal terror, lashing and shrieking and clawing at everyone around her.

Another three of the gardai come to hold her down.

A heavy regret wrenches in my gut.

I know the terror she must be feeling. I’ve felt it, the night the gardai hauled me from my bed and brought me in an identical cart up to the castle. I remember the blinding, desperate whirl of panic, the sureness of my coming death.

Battlefield,I force myself to remember.

This is a battlefield, and I’m the one who brought us here. This is war, no different from the violence they’ve waged on us for years. And no war is won without sacrifice.

The only sound then is shackles clanking into place and the final pleas of the girl beneath the last moonrise she will ever see.

Eavan strains against the shackles, bucking and screaming.

Begging.

In the market, when the gardai massacred innocents to appease the High King, I squeezed my eyes shut and let Finn lead me through.

But I don’t look away now.

I will bear witness, and I will remember.

The executioner heaves, and the sound of the spike…

Old Ones, forgive me.

There are no words.

Beside me, Aoife vomits silently. My hands find hers, tightening as she sags against me. Across from us, Cash’s cheeks are gray and sallow. Beside him, a woman in heavy chains of emeralds sways on her feet.