Page 189 of Of Blood and Banes
Gavin elbows him to quiet, then murmurs to me, “Did she send you down here, too? Why would she think you’d betray us?”
Heat prickles in my skin because there are three people in this cell who know the answer. Archie, me, and Darian. And that isn’t even the beginning of the secrets. They still don’t know Cole and I aren’t siblings.
“No. She didn’t,” I answer softly. Even though, based on my transgressions, maybe she should have.
“Then why did you come?” Darian rumbles, flicking his gaze up to me momentarily, before Cole answers.
“Because she didn’t want us to be here alone.”
The rest of the evening I toy with the idea of pulling the fire from one of the torchlights. Though, seeing as everything here is iron and stone, I’m not sure what I’d do with it. The minutes tick by more and more painfully. We all sit in silence. Waiting.
I manage to fall asleep on Archie’s shoulder, and wake when someone opens a door. We all edge up off the cold, damp floors as guards come in and unlock the cells. Shouting to form a line. When I glance back at our group, I’m met with confused looks.
Either Melaina’s changed her mind. Or…she already found something.
We’re all led out of the dungeons by the sounds of swinging chains and wet boots. Escorted back to the community hall where Melaina is standing at the pedestal platform, the upper half of her body rising above the heads of the prisoners.
“Have you heard any news?”I ask Daeja.
“No. But we’re right outside the community hall. Say the word, and we’ll burst in.”
As we get closer, my heart drops when I see her father’s sword in her hand. Unsheathed. Her face is stone cold. She flicksa look at me, then down at my shackled hands, before she looks away.
She calls out across our stilling crowd, “It is standard to send traitors to the prison in Millton to await a trial. But given I’m kin of the recent Vitalan leader, I am given the privilege to decide.”
But what if she’s wrong?My breath quickens, and I search for any hint of magic, as if I’ll be able to wield it and turn back time in the event of a mistake. I scan the room for all the familiar faces.
What if it is someone I know? What if…Gods, what if itisDarian?
Melaina lifts her sword and points it directly at someone in the center of the group. “In the name of my father, Sethan Silverstone, all of dragonkind, and the Gods above, I hereby sentence you to death.”
Everyone steps away from the center, leaving Nolan glaring back at her. He growls, “You have no proof.”
“We found your correspondence with the King’s Close Circle hidden within your bag. Come and kneel with any last scrap of honor you might have,” Melaina bites back.
Shock rolls over us all in waves, stilling our feet to the ground. A guard shoves Nolan forward, and he headbutts them before more guards swarm in and drag him up to the pedestal at Melaina’s feet.
Nolan spits at Melaina’s boots. “I am not the traitor here!” He pushes up onto his arms and turns, scanning the crowd. “You all are! You all turned your backs on Arterias and our King! On our homes and our people!”
I shut my eyes and bow my head, unable to witness another death as Melaina rears back her sword.
“You are responsible for my father’s death!” she roars.
“Fuck your—” Nolan’s voice is cut off by the deathly sound of metal through flesh.
I flinch when his body slumps to the ground.
When I walk back to my room and swing the door open, Darian is collecting his things at the farthest wall. He picks his manacles up off the floor and regards them before tossing them back to the floor with a precise callousness.
“Come to say goodbye?” He swings his gaze to me, his expression set in cool casualty. As if nothing changed between us two nights ago.
“Goodbye? What are you talking about?”
“Melaina’s granted me my own separate quarters, after proving my loyalty by saving Archie. That and…since Archie has made up with her, there’s a spare room.”
“What?”I’m glad Archie and Melaina have reconnected…but to give Darian his own room? To essentially let him walk free, after she was just giving me shit about him yesterday?
“Don’t look so disappointed,” Darian mutters and tosses his rucksack over his shoulder.
