Delicious. Pass the decanter.
Two more loads. That’s all.
Why isn’t it done already?
I can only move one load a day without rousing notice.
Finish it. It’s not safe where it is. Too many come and go at the arena.
And they found a squad of murdered scouts in a ruin yesterday. It was a bloody mess. There are still loyalists out there.
You hear that? We need to get it below ground. Do it tomorrow.
More wine, Your Majesty?
Include spy as a charge. That will validate our attack when it comes.
Someone throw water in her face. I want her looking at me when I ask questions.
* * *
The healer’s hand shook as she poured more of her medicine into a glass. Another convulsion twisted my body. She leaned close and I heard a faraway voice. Hers? I’m sorry. I have no antidote. I never did. But I do have other poison I could give you. It would finish this for you. They would never know. Nod if you want me to give it to you.
* * *
Death paced the room, watching me. Impatient.
He walked to the end of my bed and stared, his bony fingers curling around the bedpost, his stare cutting through me, as if he knew what I was thinking. Blink last. Make it one more day.
My shoulders shivered with his chill. I had always thought those were my words, but they were his. They had been his all along. I remembered the fear that gripped me that long-ago night. His whisper. His challenge for to me to stay alive.
I felt his fear now. Or maybe it was his anger.
Make it one more day.
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
JASE
The moon was a sharp scythe in the sky, smoky orange against a backdrop of stars. A reaping moon. Not enough light to expose us. We were shadows, trees, an army of specters that were there, but not there at all.
We assembled at the base of Kalliope, the largest tembris just past the outskirts of town. Her arms reached far into the other tembris. Next came Eudora, then Acantha, and Gaia. The sisters, we called them.
&n
bsp; Synové’s blunt arrow whirred upward through the night, then fell back to the ground, circling one of the lowest branches. We used the string attached to it, to hoist up a heavier knotted rope into the towering tembris. Six of us would be going up.
Five days we had been waiting. The announcement only came yesterday. I had paced the vault like a madman, wondering what they were waiting for. What was taking them so long? It was insane to be eager for her hanging—but I wasn’t going to let her hang.
We would be in position when the sun rose.
Soldiers stationed on roofs would be looking down for trouble when they should be looking up.
CHAPTER FIFTY
KAZI
Tonight I woke. Or maybe it was a dream. But my eyes seemed to open. The room was as black as the deepest, darkest hole in the world, and I was falling into it, a hole that had no bottom, but through the attic window, a light shone, the brightest light I had ever seen.