The Chancellor’s eyes narrow. “From what I understand, you spoke Clode’s language fluently enough to suggest you’ve been hearing such words for a while.”
I offer a wide smile. “Beginner’s luck.”
“Lie.”
I flick a sideways glare at the broad, blond-haired Runi, my gaze dropping, scouring the two gold buttons adorning the central seam of his robe. An etching stick and a small musical note.
Truthtune.
He garnishes me with a stony stare, and I frown.
“Rude.”
“And Bulder?” the Chancellor asks. “What of him?”
I cock my head to the side. “Haven’t you ever wished the ground would split and chew on your enemies? Guess my dream came true. Lucky me.”
“Not a lie.”
“See?”
The Chancellor condemns me with a seething scowl, like he’s picturing me being chewed by a hole in the ground as we speak.
Clearing his throat, he begins reading from the scroll. “You, self-appointed as Prisoner Seventy-Three”—he peers down at me, eyes narrowed, and my smile widens in unison with his deepening frown—“are hereby charged for the murder of twenty-three soldiers of The Crown—”
“Twenty-five,” I correct, and the room bursts with murmurs again as the Chancellor raises a brow.
“Excuse me?”
If he’s going to read out my charge, he might as well get it right.
“Personally, I lost count. But the guard who led me here said I killed twenty-five.” The Chancellor opens his mouth to speak again, but I cut him off with a swift, “Also, I’d like it added to the record that I bit off the tip of Rekk Zharos’s finger. I only recently managed to flick out what was left of it from between my tee—”
“That’s enough.”
“Pity.”
He flays me with a stare, and even the scribe pauses his incessant scratching. “Do you find this … amusing?”
“You misread me.” I let all the humor fall off my face, my response a bite of bloody flesh spat at him with a sawtooth snarl. “I find it fucking tragic.”
This time, there are no murmurs. Just a gluttonous silence that grates my bones.
“Truth.”
Yes, it is.
“Bring in the evidence,” the Chancellor bellows.
I marinate in the seething echo of his outburst while a male comes up the shaft of stairs at my back, toting two sacks he dumps on the ground before me, then loosens the drawstrings. He begins pulling out flaps of preserved flesh, flopping them on the ground in a semicircle around me, each bearing letters carved with my own hand.
Unmistakably.
I’m certain nobody else has handwriting like mine. Certainly nobody old enough to be out there slitting throats and dumping bodies off the wall. I hope.
“These were taken from confirmed victims of Fíur du Ath,” the Chancellor states. “Each of them important, upstanding members of our society, their loss crippling blows to The Crown.”
I practically preen, chest puffed, about to thank him for the compliment when he waves a familiar board at my face, adorned with three words etched in coal.
“And this was your … handwriting when you signed for your rations,” he says, a bemused look in his cruel eyes. “If you could even call it that. I’m certain my youngling could do a better job, and he’s barely out of the crib.”
Some of the Nobles spill a roll of laughter that deflates my chest and makes me feel entirely too small. Makes my cheeks burn.
I learned to write with a piece of coal on the ground of a cell, and no matter how hard I try, I can’t stop my words from looking like I’m still scratching them upon the stone. Every letter is a sooty ghost tilled from my past, but I refuse to let them beat me.
I click my tongue, glancing from skin slab to skin slab as the guard continues to slap them upon the floor. “Well done. You possess a brain cell.” I glance up again, holding the Chancellor’s beady glare. “I would cheer, but I’m certain you’ll do enough of that this slumber while you’re staring at your floor-length mirror, fisting your microcock.”
Gasps rain upon me as the Chancellor’s face reddens, the veins in his temples pushing to the surface. He opens his mouth, and I can see by his narrowed eyes that he’s thinking about using a phrase. One I’ve used more times than I can count, exhibited by the flaps of flesh decorating the floor at my feet.
His lips thin, and he clears his throat.
Lifts his chin.
“You do not deny that you took the lives of these individuals?”
I look up, straight into the shadowed eyes of the Incognito King who just won’t stop watching me, wishing he’d kindly fuck off.
A one-shoulder shrug as I meet the Chancellor’s stare again, threads of pain lancing across my flesh like fiery veins. “Seems a bit pointless given the evidence, wouldn’t you say?”
“I do not appreciate your attitude,” he scolds, the other Nobles murmuring between each other while they leer down on me, passing me looks of disgust.
Disbelief.
Rage.
“Well, apologies for hurting your feelings.”
He opens his mouth, but I cut in.
Again.
“I, however, do not appreciate being forced to take out the population’s filth because this kingdom is run by an imbecile who believes that having a cock, three beads dangling from his ear, a cruel dragon, and a powerful army means he doesn’t have to iron out the kinks in his rumpling society.”
The upper mezzanine erupts in a riot of sound, the Nobles looking between each other, some of them throwing their hands in the air as they heave words toward the Chancellor. Like it’s somehow his fault I possess a brain that thinks, a mouth that speaks, but lack the self-preservation to avoid using both while standing in their presence.
Good. Hope I’m making enough of a spectacle that the Nobles will be satisfied with my capture. That Rekk will be given something else to chase, and the Ath will flip from the fire—even if it’s only for a little bit.
If I’m going out, it might as well be in style. It’s not like I’ve got anything to lose.
Not anymore.
The Chancellor hammers his gavel against the table three times over, silencing the racket. “You would disrespect our king so publicly?” he bellows, cheeks red like his ruddy cloak.
I cock a brow. “Is that a rhetorical question, or did you want me to answer?”
The Nobles murmur between each other while I rock back and forth on the balls of my feet, desperate to be done with this. I have a bowl of slop calling my name.
Again, I peek up at the mezzanine.
He’s still watching, arms crossed over his broad chest.
I sigh, pick at some of the filth beneath my nails, flick it away. “I’m incredibly bored with this conversation. Can we get to the point where you condemn me to execution for taking out the trash? That’s the part I’m most excited about.”
“You want to die?” the Chancellor asks, not bothering to mask his shock.
“No,” I murmur, picking another curl of filth free. “I’m just so sick of looking at your ugly face that death is starting to sound rather cushy.”
His upper lip peels back from his canines, and I’m certain the vein in his temple is going to burst. I throw him a wink, though considering my other eye is still half congealed, it probably looks more like a blink.
I tried.
“What’s your plea?” he grinds out.
“Guilty. Of all charges.”
“She does not lie,” the Truthtune states.
“Wouldn’t dare.” I glance over my shoulder at the scribe, meeting his wide-eyed stare. “You can probably tack on a few more charges, too. I’m sure I’ll fill the quota if you look hard enough. I’m practically a one-folk show.”
Another swell of murmurs.
I’m surprised they still have things to talk about.
“All those in favor of Prisoner Seventy-Three being drawn and quartered next aurora rise?”
I ignore the frantic thump of my heart as over half the Nobles raise their hands, including half the crowd packed into the mezzanine.
I lift my hand, too.
Most would probably prefer the coliseum, but I’d much rather be sliced open while my heart’s still beating than be served to a thunder of fire-breathing dragons, thank you very much.
“All in favor of feeding her to the Moltenmaws?”