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So, we end this today, my unicorn side vowed. No matter what it takes.
But how? I looked down as Bess and her children were pushed into a shallow tub not far below and to my left — the kind used by tanners to treat leather. But instead of a quicklime solution, the tub was filled with an inch of oil that splashed and slurped as Bess was forced in, clutching her two youngest.
Twenty feet above her, on a wide section of the castle wall that served as a second balcony, Lady Thornton stood with a burning torch. All she had to do was drop it, and Bess and her family would be burned alive.
But that was only her second sick insurance policy.
“No! Please!” Bess screamed as one of Lady Thornton’s men dragged Tom up an exterior staircase in plain view of everyone. Halfway up to where Lady Thornton stood on the parapet, the guard stopped and held a knife to the boy’s throat.
The sheriff stood stiffly at Lady Thornton’s side, and she turned to him, fluttering her eyelashes.
The moment anything fishy happens, they die, Lady Thornton’s gleeful expression said.
I formed fists with my hands so tightly, my knuckles threatened to rip out of my skin. And as for the sheriff… Never had I seen a dragon rage so close to the surface without actually breaking through. He practically shook with the effort it took not to throttle Lady Thornton. A good thing she had turned away for a word with her guards.
He’s a dragon shifter. I have no idea what Robynne sees in him, but they’re secretly an item, Tuck had told me. Anyway, he’s on our side, he’d added begrudgingly.
That made him our ace, but his hands were as tied as mine were — figuratively, at least.
A trumpet blared, and every head turned as Robynne Hood was brought into the square in a creaky wagon.
“Robynne Hood! Robynne Hood!” people cried, murmured, and wailed.
“Pretty clear whose side they’re on,” I muttered to the prince.
He shrugged. “It doesn’t matter what they think, want, or need. She dies today. One way or another.”
He pointed to the gallows erected at the far end of the square, then at a group of five archers on a section of wall near it. All had their arrows nocked and aimed at Robynne.
“Insurance,” the prince gloated. “In case those Merry Men of hers try anything.”
I glanced hopelessly toward Lady Winthrop, who’d been brought out to join the sheriff. The prince and Lady Thornton had thought of everything, it seemed. No matter what we tried, death was inevitable, at least for Robynne and whoever else stood in the way of that evil duo’s plans.
“You disgust me,” I muttered, but the prince just laughed.
“Oh, I cannot wait for our wedding night.”
I clamped my lips in a tight line. If I failed to kill him today, I would do it then. My only regret would be not being able to kill him twice.
“Robynne!” women wailed as their heroine was led to the gallows.
Her step was loose and easy, though her expression was serious.
“Brave, isn’t she?” someone in the crowd murmured.
The prince made a face.
“Never thought Robin Hood could be a she,” a man in the crowd murmured.
I rolled my eyes. Of course he hadn’t.
The bailiff thumped a heavy staff on the wooden platform of the gallows, calling everyone to order.
“Hear ye, hear ye. On this day of our Lord, the twenty-third of February, 1194…”
Everyone strained to listen over the sound of a few late arrivals — a group of cloaked men on horseback. Supporters of Prince John, no doubt, coming to enjoy the spectacle. I shot them a dirty look.
Meanwhile, the bailiff droned on.
