Thranic was no longer looking at the elves. He was staring at his own hands. “Purification is never easy, but always necessary,” he muttered pensively. “Fetch me that tall male with the missing tooth,” Thranic ordered. “I’ll begin with him.”
Following the sentinel’s direction, the guards ripped the elf from his cage and bound his elbows behind his back. Using a spare rigging pulley, they hoisted the unfortunate prisoner by his arms to the overhead beam. The effort pulled the elf’s limbs from their sockets, causing him to scream in agony. His wails and the wretched look on his face caused even the seret to look away, but Thranic watched stoically, his lips pursed approvingly.
“Swing him,” he said. The elf howled anew from the motion.
The sentinel looked at the cages again. Inside, others were weeping. At his glance, one female pushed forward. “Why can’t you leave us alone?”
Thranic searched her face with a look of genuine pity. “Maribor demands that the mistake of his brother be erased. I’m merely his tool.”
“Then why not—why not just kill us and get it over with?” she cried at him, eyes wild. Thranic paused. He stared once more at his hands. He turned them over, examining both sides with a distant expression. He was silent for so long that even the seret turned to face him. Thranic looked back at the female, his eyes blurring and lips trembling. “One must scrub very hard to remove some stains. Take her next.”
CHAPTER 7
ROTTEN EGGS
For Empress Modina, everything had changed a month ago, after she had stood on the balcony and addressed the citizens of the New Empire. Due to Amilia’s constant chipping away at the regents’ resolve, the empress now enjoyed an unprecedented degree of freedom within the palace, and she wandered freely, dressed in fresh new clothing.
She never went anywhere in particular, and oftentimes after returning she could not recall where she had been. Although she longed to feel grass beneath her feet, her permitted boundary did not extend past the palace walls. She was certain no guard would stop her if she tried to leave, but she feared Amilia would suffer the regents’ wrath if she did, so she remained inside the keep.
Now Modina walked gracefully in her new dress, silent and pensive, the way an empress should. As she descended the curved stair, she felt the hem of her gown drag along the stone steps. The new dresses had also been Amilia’s doing. Her secretary had personally supervised the imperial seamstress in their construction and curtailed any attempts the woman had tried to make to embellish them with lace or embroidery. Each was brilliant white and patterned after a simple, yet eloquent, design. Amilia had told the seamstress that the main goal was to create clothing that would make Modina feel as comfortable as possible, so the dressmaker focused on constructing plain but well-fitted garments and dispensed with utilizing stiff collars, tight bodices, or stays.
While the freedom and new dresses had been welcome changes, the most dramatic difference had been the way people reacted when seeing the empress. Since leaving her bedroom, Modina had passed two young women carrying a pile of linens and a page with an armful of assorted boots. He had dropped one the moment he spotted her, and the two girls chatted excitedly to each other. She had seen in their faces the same look that everyone wore: the belief that she was the Chosen One of Maribor.
When she had first come to the palace, everyone had avoided her the way one evades a dog known to bite. After her speech, those few members of the palace staff she chanced upon had looked at her with affectionate admiration and an unspoken understanding, as if acknowledging that they finally comprehended her previous behavior. The new gowns had the unintended effect of turning admiration into adoration, as the white purity and modest simplicity gave Modina an angelic aura. She had transformed from the mad empress to the saintly—although troubled—high priestess.
Everyone attributed Modina’s recovery to Amilia’s healing powers. What she had said on the balcony was the truth. Amilia had saved her, if saved was the right word. Modina did not feel saved.
Ever since Dahlgren, she had been drowning in overwhelming terrors that she could not face. Amilia had pulled her to shore, but no one could call her existence living. There had been a time, long, long ago, when she would have said that life carried hope for a better tomorrow, but for her, hope was a dream that had blown away on a midsummer’s night. The horrors were all that remained, calling to her, threatening to pull her under again. It would be easy to give in, to close her eyes and sink to the bottom once more, but if pretending to live could help Amilia, then she would. Amilia had become a tiny point of light in a sea of darkness, the singular star Modina steered by, and it did not matter where that light led.