He had been there to witness that mercy, while his own fate still hung in the balance. Had been forced to watch as the king unsheathed a plain battle sword, its water-marked blade gleaming mirror-sharp. It had caught the light, sending a spike of painful radiance into his eyes. But he’d refused to close them, refused to look away even for an instant, lest it be taken for weakness.
And so he’d seen the sword descend, the neck sever in two, a pulsing arc of pure fey blood shimmering in midair like a spill of rubies. It had all been limned in a flare of red, a slash across his vision, burning the image into his memory. It reminded him of the gleam thrown off by the setting sun just before it slips below the horizon. The difference between day and night, between what was, and what will be.
The crowd gasped at the first execution some of them had ever witnessed. But they quieted again as the king stepped past Vítus’s body and stopped before ?lvir. He had been manacled kneeling, as the damage to his legs from the battle was too severe to allow him to stand. His hands were bound before him in cold black iron attached to heavy chains. The metal leeched his strength, and if left in place long enough, it would burn the skin.
It wouldn’t have time to mar his.
He’d straightened as the king’s shadow fell over him, first his back, then his neck, looking up proudly, tangled black hair falling over his shoulders and sticking to his cheeks. The damage to his face was ugly, and still only half-healed. Only one eye opened enough to see out of but he had stared up at the king without flinching.
He had not begged for his life or for mercy.
He had been offered neither.
The High King finally finished his platitudes and the nobles took their places, in a ring of special seats set close around the stands. They’d been there when the executions took place, too, ensuring that they went home with their finery splattered with the blood of traitors. It had been a clear message, as if any of the puling cowards had needed it.
The king stripped off his outer shirt, folded it and set it neatly on the thick gold grass next to the platform. His circlet of office went on top, and he smoothed his hair back over his skull, knotting the tail in a neat, quick movement that kept it off his face. Finally, he walked up the steps to the platform, stopping in front of the rack.
He bent and picked up the whip by the handle, leaving it to uncoil as he straightened, the braided leather slithering over the wood with a dry, scaly sound. He said nothing further as he paced to the required distance, as he drew back, as the whip snapped through the air with a crack. It would be the first of many.
Blood was soon dripping down the prisoner’s back and legs, oozing from his tightly bound wrists, adding a new pattern to the reddish brown stains beneath him. The Domi had lobbied hard, or so he’d heard, for the maximum sentence: five hundred lashes, likely deadly even for a fey. But the king had bargained it down to two, still trying to prevent a war.
Fool. It was obvious to everyone but him. They were already in one.
Chapter Five
Someone slapped me. I flinched, and the brightly lit scene shattered and fell away, leaving me staring blankly at a cobweb on the underside of the porch’s ceiling. I was sprawled on the couch with Claire standing over me, a hand gripped around my wrist, her face pale and frightened. Her other hand was raised, but I caught it in time. My cheek already stung enough.
“I’m all right.”
“All right?” she demanded shrilly. “Your face went slack. You wouldn’t talk. You were barely breathing! For over a minute, Dory!”
“I saw something—”
“I’m sure you did! You’re lucky it wasn’t the last thing!” She held up her uncle’s little bottle. “How much of this did you have?”
“Not that much.” I sat up, feeling too warm and vaguely nauseous. I could still smell the blood, hot on the air, hear the eerie silence of the crowd, feel the sharp bite of stripes I’d never taken. But that wasn’t what had me struggling to my feet.
“Sit down!” she snapped, trying to press me back. “I’m going to get you some water, and you’re going to drink all of it!”
“I sawsubrand being punished,” I told her, pushing past to the railing.
“That stuff will make you see anything, if you drink enough of—”
“You were wearing green. An apple green dress. It was hot and you were sweating. You looked like you wanted to be anywhere else.”
She stared at me, her flame red hair glowing in the light from the hall. “How did you—”
“I see memories, Claire.”
“But you weren’t there! Dory, are you telling me you can see other people’s memories? That you can see mine?”
“It wasn’t yours I saw,” I told her, scanning the yard. I concentrated on the distant rain, the metallic smell of it, its elusive, seductive whisper—and at the presence hovering just behind it.
Claire frowned. “Whose, then? Because Aiden wasn’t—”
“subrand?” It leapt out of me on a breath, curled at the end into a question.
Claire clutched my arm. “Dory! He’s in prison in Faerie! He isn’t here!”
“I didn’t see the beating from your perspective,” I told her harshly. “I saw it from his. And I only do that when someone is close.”
“How close?”