Page 58 of Memory of Ashes

“Would you put this fae above your people?” the emperor asked her.

Her mouth dropped open, and her shoulders sagged. Her answer didn’t matter.

“We’re all going to die anyway,” she murmured as Ruven was dragged away from her. He glanced back and smiled.

It stung. This might be the last time she saw him. He’d tried to help her escape and warn her people, and they were turning him out, sending him to certain death. Shame clung to her like dirt beneath her fingernails.

The gates opened, and her mind emptied as she watched the Councillor and two guards take Ruven towards Casyl.

As they approached him, his raised voice carried on the breeze.

It was so quick. She’d barely blinked. Casyl unsheathed his sword and cut down the councillor and both guards. Their bodies fell from their mounts. He dismounted and knelt before the councillor, sword in hand.

“Somebody stop him!” the emperor cried.

Casyl seized the councillor by his wispy white hair and drew his sword across his neck again and again, until the head came free.

Amelia fell to her knees as she watched someone she knew, a harmless old man, butchered. Every last hope that some good remained within Casyl shattered.

Casyl stood, holding the head by its hair.

“We gave you a chance,” he yelled, and then threw the head towards the city. It hit the gate with a sickening thud.

Those on the city walls froze in shock. There were rules to war, and Casyl had disregarded every single one of them. The fae weren’t human; why had she expected them to follow human rules?

There would be no mercy.

A hollow panic clawed at her stomach as she stared down at the blood pooling in the dust beneath Cyrus, realising that these stone walls she’d always trusted for safety would protect them no more.

What was Casyl going to do to Ruven? Ruven had stood watching all of this, emotionless. Were they all like this?

How could she have had feelings for someone who could be so vile and ruthless? Those hands that had performed such violence had been embracing her but a few days before.

Casyl remounted and turned his horse towards the city, tilting his head towards her. There was no sneer or triumph on his face. He wiped Cyrus’s blood from the blade against his trouser leg, sheathed it and turned his back on both Amelia and the city. With Ruven in tow, he returned to his army.

“Ready the weapons,” the emperor snarled.

Chapter 13

The bodies of the guards and the poor old councillor remained on the ground before the city walls. The blood had mingled with the dirt, staining the earth. A stark reminder of who they were dealing with.

It was now completely dark, and they waited anxiously for the enemy army to strike. But the attack never came.

Amelia stayed on the wall, watching the army, waiting. Emin tried to take her inside, but she couldn’t look away.

“Did you know?” she asked.

“Did I know what?” Emin said.

“That everything was a lie? That the fae were here before us? That the emperor has kept this from us?” Her voice rose with each question.

Could Emin have kept this from her? She trusted him more than anyone else alive. Everyone else had betrayed her or died. Could she no longer trust him either?

“That’s not true.” He shook his head. “We would have known.”

She stared into his eyes, searching deep into his soul for the truth.

“Don’t you think your father would have discovered if there’d been an ancient civilisation here before us?” he said.