Page 106 of This Monster of Mine

Sarai’s palms grew clammy.That could be me.

Beside her, Anek’s expression was unreadable. Harion was surprisingly quiet as well, a bruise on his cheek. She wondered if it was Tullus. A man like that didn’t conserve his violence for women alone.

She drowned out Aelius’s lengthy speech on the evils of social chaos, focusing only when Cisuré stepped forward at the end, sunset and firelight painting her golden. Sarai could scarcely recognize her.

Who was this girl with confidence in the line of her spine, directing a sneer to Admia as though she were garbage? When had her friend vanished?

“Admia of Edessa, you have forsaken Urd law and the law of the Elsar by taking a life so vital to this country that its extinguishing amounts to treason. Now you must beg the gods’ mercy.” Cisuré’s voice was frosty. “Whom will you Summon?”

“Lord Death.” Admia spat the name of the Elsar who would likely be her doom.

A nod from Cisuré, and Admia was unbound. She collapsed, dripping blood onto the stage.

This was all wrong. But no one seemed to care that Admia had been sent straight to execution without any recounting of the events leading to the murder. It was a spectacle to the crowd. They applauded when Admia daubed her fingers with blood from her wounds, and jeered when she faltered.

“Pitiful,” Harion muttered under his breath when Admia tottered at one point.

Anek’s eyes were chips of slate as Admia completed the first rune,safsherfor “sword.” The air quivered with anticipation. Something cold and panicky roiled inside her with each stroke of blood over marble.

Admia completed her rune after rune. The Aequitas pulsed with magic, a painful buzz building with each symbol. Sarai recognized some; Anek filled in the others.Safsher, yaris, riukhen, naiya, khon, frazam, layk,andmodrai. Sword, flame, strength, heart, blood, end, unity, and, finally, the rune for Death himself that Jovian had fearfully painted across his study.

Tendrils of black mist rose from the symbol. Before completing the last stroke, Admia looked up, turning pleading eyes to Cisuré and Aelius. Bile crept across Sarai’s tongue at their near-identical expressions of serenity. Admia closed her eyes and drew the final line.

A falling pin could have been heard in the subsequent resounding silence. Even the wind seemed to hold its breath.

Then the Aequitas trembled with a strident crack as black fire flared from the runes, rapidly growing high. The agonized screech of a voice broken beyond straining filled the air as Admia bent backward at the waist, radiating—no—beingdrainedof power.

The crowd gasped as Admia was lifted from the ground by an unseen force. Her eyes bugged out of their sockets, filling with blood as she shrieked her throat raw.

Sarai’s white-knuckled grip on the railing tightened, and Anek shot her a concerned look when her teeth clacked together audibly. But she couldn’t explain the horrible twisting in her chest, an awful mix of dread and dark familiarity.

Bright crimson ran in a stream from Admia’s nostrils, her wails like nails on slate as she rose and rose until she was a beetle-sized figure at the very top of the Aequitas.

“She can’t hold on.” There was no emotion in Anek’s voice. “She’s done.”

“Lord Death,” Aelius’s voice boomed. “Is this woman worthy of pardon?”

The flames rising from the runes across the stage winked out of existence. Admia jerked, limbs splayed wide as the force that had anchored her to the air vanished.

And Sarai knew what was going to happen.

Look away.Don’t watch.But she couldn’t move as Admia dropped like a stone, hurtling to the ground, gaining speed with every second.

Look away—

Admia slammed into the marble floor of the stage with a crack, neck snapping in two. Staring at the exposed mess of her vertebrae, at her splintered skull, and at the fragments of her hands, Sarai blinked once. Twice. Three times.

Then, she collapsed.

Anek caught her arm, sitting her down. Around them, the crowd booed their disappointment.

Aelius didn’t bat an eye. “Lord Death has provided his judgment.”

“As the Elsar will it,” the onlookers chorused, starting to file out of the Aequitas.

Nausea rose hard and fast. Muttering a brief thanks to Anek, Sarai raced out of the Aequitas and vomited onto the grass. She leaned against the wall, attempting to steady her breathing when a hand tapped her shoulder.

“Sarai, are you alright?”

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