Page 79 of Rise of a Fallen Man

The blubbering, whimpering man they brought in, however, was nothing like I’d imagined. Tall and thin, he stumbled under the weight of the heavy chains that wound around his torso several times to bind his arms to his body. A heavy metal ball was attached to his right leg to prevent him from escaping. He dragged it behind him, barely able to move forward.

The crowd booed and shouted, but all I could do was stare.

“Monsters...” he muttered, wildly roaming his eyes over the crowd. “Demons are coming. Hide your sons... No man is safe...”

What was he talking about?

Saliva foamed in the corners of his mouth, dripping down his unkempt beard. His dark, overgrown hair fell over his forehead, covering most of his face.

The guards positioned him behind the solid wooden block. One of the guards kept her crossbow trained at his head.

As they pushed on his shoulders, forcing him down to his knees, he stared straight ahead at Mother and me, but he didn’t appear to see us. His eyes rotated wildly in their sockets, his chapped lips moving incessantly.

“They won’t stop until we are their property...” he chanted. “...until we all are dead. They’ll cut our flesh off our bones. Burning... They’ll burn us in eternal fire... All of us...”

A guard grabbed his hair, forcing him to tilt his head backward. The sweat-soaked strands fell away from his face, revealing what I first thought was a mask made from clay plastered on his face and never smoothed out.

The guards made him bend over, positioning his head on the block. The executioner raised her axe. The muscles in her tanned arms bulged out. With so few executions taking place in Rorrim, she didn’t get to practice her craft often, but she proved her skill by chopping through the man’s neck in one swift, clean blow.

The mumbling stopped as the head separated from the body and dropped toward the basket positioned in front of the block to catch it. It missed the basket, however. Bouncing off the edge, the severed head hit the platform, then rolled off it and to my feet.

Mother gasped, jumping from her seat. I got up, too, lifting the heavy skirts of my formal attire away from the rolling head and the bloody trail it was leaving behind.

Blood sprayed my slippers. The head stopped in front of me, the glassy eyes staring up into the sky.

What I’d mistaken for a mask turned out to be a thick layer of scars. Elaborate cuts and badly healed burns covered the man’s entire face and neck all the way to the bloodied line at the end of the stub of his neck. His beard grew in uneven patches with bald spots where the skin was too damaged to grow hair.

“Ari.” Mother gripped my arm, but I refused to move, staring into the dead eyes of the killer.

“What happened to him?” I asked. “Why does he look like that?”

Mother shook her head. “He was a dangerous man, daughter.”

I remembered the incoherent mumbling. The look in his eyes as he had stared at me from behind the chopping block didn’t hold much more awareness than the glassy stare of the severed head did.

“He wasn’t well,” I said softly.

Had the man even realized he was about to die? Had he known why?

“My apologies, Your Highness.” The executioner bowed to me, collecting the head.

Watching her toss the dead head into the basket, I remembered the killer’s description that Madam Trela reported to us, “Tall. Dark hair. With a beard.”

She had never mentioned the scars.

THE SCENE OF THE EXECUTIONstayed with me long after I returned to the place.

I hurried up the stairs to my rooms, eager to get out of my ceremonial clothing. The stiff formal gown compressed mychest, and the heavy mantle weighted down on my healing shoulders so much they ached.

After I stumbled back into my rooms, it took three maids to relieve me from the heavy robes of my formal outfit. They helped me into a much lighter and far more comfortable cotton dress with a high waist and cup sleeves.

I wished it was evening already, so I could take a cup of Salas’s tea and go to bed. Whether or not the tea worked, it helped me relax before going to bed. It filled my belly with warmth and my heart with memories of him. Tonight, however, I feared even his magical tea wouldn’t erase the dead stare of the severed head imprinted in my mind.

A short while later, a maid arrived with Mother’s request for me to join her for tea.

Pressure inside my head threatened to grow into a headache. I needed a few more moments of peace and quiet.

“I’m afraid I’ll have to decline,” I said to the maid.

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