There was a struggle as the guards closed in around Rab and Griselda. But both were overpowered, their wrists bound behind their backs, their ankles tied together. They were dragged to Innes and forced down to their knees.
The chopping block was brought in next. Adaira stared at it a moment before realizing that its dark stains were from old blood and its nicks had been made by blades.
Innes was about to behead Rab and Griselda Pierce, right here in the hall.
Adaira’s stomach churned. She began to step back when Innes spun to face her.
“This is twice now that the Pierces have threatened what is yours. By law, you can take their lives for it, with my blessing.” Innes unsheathed her sword. The blade was radiant, betraying its enchantment. As she gazed at it, Adaira wondered what magic had been hammered into the steel. Sweat prickled her hands as Innes offered the sword to her. “Take my blade. Enact your justice.”
Adaira felt numb and slow, as though she were underwater. But she accepted Innes’s sword. She grasped the cold, smooth hilt. The blade was heavy; she held it with both hands, and she glimpsed her reflection in the polished steel. She looked pale, riddled with doubt.
Innes brought Rab to the chopping block first, forcing him to lay his head on the wood.
The hall was deathly quiet as Adaira stared at Rab. He was panting, drool shining on his lips. There were tears in his eyes when he gazed up at her. Griselda began to weep.
“Cora,” Rab whispered. “Cora, please.”
She knew he was guilty, in more ways than one. And there was a shadowed, hungry side of her that wanted to see his blood spilled.
She raised the sword.
She had never killed anyone before. She had never driven a sword through a neck, and there was a good chance she was going to make a mess of it. She was angry and sad and everything in her ached when she thought about Jack in the arena with a helm locked to his face. When she thought of Torin missing, spirited away. When she imagined Sidra, dying at the dinner table by the same poison that had claimed Skye. When she thought of Sidra and Torin’s child, whom Adaira longed to hold and watch grow.
Can peace be won by spilling blood? she wondered. That ravenous side of her suddenly diminished, and she was left with a strange, hollow place at her center, as if she could transform into anything.
This is not the path I want to take.
Slowly, she lowered the sword. She released it, watching the blade clatter at her feet.
She looked up, meeting the gazes of the Breccans.
“I invited Sidra Tamerlaine and her four guards to the west because I knew she could help us,” Adaira began. “We are dying, stricken by a blight. We are starving, beholden to the wind. The west cannot go on like this. And when I brought one who could help us, you poisoned her cup.” Adaira stared at Rab, who had closed his eyes in relief. “I stand here and ask myself ‘why?’ Why did you want to kill the Tamerlaines, who trusted us after centuries of strife? Why, if not for your own fear and ignorance? You look to the past, where there is nothing but bloodshed. You chart your present by what has been done and what has happened, as if you can never rise and break away from it.”
Adaira began to walk along the table. The same path Innes had taken. She was no longer addressing the Pierces but all the nobility. Her heart was beating swiftly, but her voice was strong, chasing away the shadows of the hall.
“I ask you now to look to what may come,” she said. “What do you want for your daughters and sons? What do you want for the west? Shall we continue to live in a blighted and silent land, cursed to hide our wounds and our illnesses and drinking poison and mistrust? Or can we set our fate on another course?”
She glanced at her parents. Innes and David stood together, watching her. David looked awed, and Innes looked angry. But they were both listening, waiting for her to continue.
Adaira came to a stop at the chopping block once more. Rab had sat back on his heels, and he was staring up at her.
“I ask you to lay down your swords,” she said. “I ask you to lay down your prejudice and your anger and all that you have been taught in the past. I ask you to dream of an isle that is whole and thriving, but first . . . we must trust each other.”
It was silent.
Adaira could feel the weight of that silence, and her doubt started to creep over her once more. Doubt and worry and that nagging feeling of being inadequate. But then she heard someone rise from the table. The clatter of a sword being cast down. Adaira turned toward the sound. One of the thanes had surrendered her blade. Then came another, and another, until the remaining twelve thanes and their heirs had disarmed themselves and knelt before her.
The gravity of what was happening struck her a moment later, seeping through her like wine.
Adaira stood with every sword in the Breccans’ hall shining at her feet.
She knew Innes was displeased with her.
After the nobility had left the hall to find lodging in the castle for the night, Adaira had followed Innes to her chambers for a private conversation. She thought Innes’s anger stemmed from the speech she had given, words that had poured out of her, effortlessly as breath. Words that had been hiding in her, like an arrowhead caught in her ribs. A shard of stone that she had been carrying, week after week in the west. She had never felt so light and unburdened as she did in that moment when she released those words along with the sword.
But now, watching Innes pace before the hearth, Adaira realized there was more to her displeasure than that.
“You’re angry with me,” she said. “Tell me why.”
Innes abruptly stopped, but she was facing the fire. The light illuminated the sharp planes of her profile, the silver in her hair, the circlet on her brow. It felt unusually dark in the laird’s chambers, and Adaira realized that the flames were burning low and dim. As if they wanted to extinguish.
“I don’t know what I feel, Adaira,” said Innes.
The sound of Innes speaking her eastern name made Adaira want to weep. She felt seen, acknowledged. She had to reach out and take hold of the nearest chair before her knees buckled.
“I’m not angry at you,” Innes continued. “I simply don’t know what to make of you.”
“Because of what I said?”
“Because of what you didn’t do.”
Adaira frowned, confused. Innes turned to face her, their gazes meeting.
“You should have beheaded the Pierces,” Innes began. “If their plans had succeeded, it would have caused endless strife between the clans, and it was your right to end their line. Because you didn’t, however, they will perceive you as weak, and they will strike again. Next time they will take it all away from you. Do you understand? This was your moment to rise and show the nobility who you are, and what it means if they cross you.”
Adaira finally saw the evening from Innes’s point of view.
“Rise to become what?” she countered.
Innes clenched her jaw. “If you must ask me such a question . . .”
“I merely want to hear you say it.”