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No. She’s innocent. She’s done nothing wrong.
Laia’s eyes go wide. She tries to back away on her knees. The same Augur
who delivered her to the dais kneels behind her and holds her still with an iron
grip, like a butcher holding a lamb for slaughter
.
“When I tell you to proceed,” Cain goes on calmly, as if he’s not talking
about the death of a seventeen-year-old girl, “you will all simultaneously attempt
to execute her. Whoever carries out the order will be declared victor of the
Trial.”
“This is wrong, Cain,” I burst out. “The Empire has no reason to kill her.”
“Reason does not matter, Aspirant Veturius. Only loyalty. If you defy the
order, you fail the Trial. The punishment for failure is death.”
I think of the nightmare battlefield, and my blood goes leaden at the memory.
Leander, Demetrius, Ennis—they had all been on that field. I’d killed them all.
Laia had been there too, throat cut, eyes dim, hair a sodden cloud around her
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head.
But I haven’t done it yet
,
I think desperately.
I haven’t killed her.
The Augur looks at each of us in turn before taking a scim from the
legionnaires—one of mine—and laying it on the dais equidistant from Marcus,
Helene, and me.
“Proceed.”
My body knows what to do before my mind, and I dive in front of Laia. If I
can place myself between her and the others, she might have a chance.
Because I don’t care what I saw on that nightmare battlefield. I won’t kill her.
And I won’t let anyone else kill her either.
I get to her before Helene or Marcus and spin into a crouch, expecting an
attack from one or both of them. But instead of coming for Laia, Helene leaps
for Marcus, knocking her fist against his temple. He drops like a stone, clearly
not expecting her attack, and she shoves him off the dais, then kicks my scim
toward me.
“Do it, Elias!” she says. “Before Marcus comes to!”
Then she sees that I’m guarding the girl instead of killing her, and she makes
a strange, choked sound. The crowd is silent, holding its breath.
“Don’t do this, Elias,” she says. “Not now. We’re almost there. You’ll be
Emperor. Foretold. Please, Elias, think of what you could do for—for the Empire
—”
“I told you there’s a line I’m not crossing.” I feel strangely calm as I say it,
calmer than I’ve felt in weeks. Laia’s eyes shift from Helene to me rapidly. “This
is that line. I won’t kill her.”
Helene picks up the scim. “Then step aside,” she says. “I’ll do it. I’ll make it
quick.” She moves toward me slowly, her eyes never leaving my face.
“Elias,” she says. “She’s going to die no matter what you do. The Empire’s
decreed it. If you or I don’t do it, Marcus will—he’ll wake up eventually. We can
end this before he does. If she has to die, at least something good will come of it.
I’ll be Empress. You’ll be Blood Shrike.” She takes another step.
“I know you don’t want rulership,” she says softly. “Or lordship over the
Black Guard. I didn’t understand before. But I—I do now. So if you let me take
care of this, I vow, by blood and by bone, that the second I’m named Empress,
I’ll release you from your oaths to the Empire. You can go wherever you want.
Do whatever you want. You’ll be beholden to no one. You’ll be free.”
I’ve been watching her body, waiting for her muscles to tense in preparation
for the attack, but now my eyes snap to hers.
You’ll be free.
The only thing I’ve
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ever wanted and she’s handing it to me on a silver platter with a vow I know
she’d never break.
For a brief, terrible moment, I consider it. I want it more than anything I’ve
wanted in my life. I see myself sailing out of port at Navium, leaving for the
southern kingdoms, where no one and nothing have a claim over my body or my
soul.
Well, my body, anyway. Because if I allow Helene to kill Laia, I won’t have a
soul.
“If you want to kill her,” I say to Helene, “you’ll have to kill me first.”
A tear snakes down her face, and for a second, I see through her eyes. She
wants this so badly, and it’s no enemy keeping it from her. It’s me.
We are everything to each other. And I’m betraying her. Again.
Then I hear a thud—the unmistakable sound of steel sinking into flesh.
Behind me, Laia pitches forward so suddenly that the Augur falls with her, her
hands still pinning the girl’s limp arms. Laia’s hair is a storm around her, but I
can’t see her face, her eyes.
“No! Laia!” I’m down beside her, shaking her, trying to turn her over. But I
can’t get the damned Augur off her, because the woman is shaking in terror, her
robes tangled with Laia’s skirts. Laia is silent, her body limp as a rag doll’s.
I spot the hilt of a dagger that’s fallen to the dais, the rapidly widening pool of
blood spilling out of her. No one can lose that much blood and live.
Marcus.
Too late I see him standing at the back of the stage. Too late I realize that
Helene and I should have killed him, that we shouldn’t have risked him waking
up.
The explosion of sound that follows Laia’s death staggers me. Thousands of
voices yell at once. Grandfather bellows louder than a gored bull.
Marcus jumps onto the dais, and I know he’s coming for me. I want him to
come. I want to crush the life out of him for what he’s done.
I feel Cain’s hand on my arm, restraining me. Then the gates to the
amphitheater burst open. Marcus jerks his head around, shocked into stillness as
a foam-coated stallion gallops through the doors of the stadium. The legionnaire
riding him slides to the ground, landing on his feet as the beast rears beside him.
“The Emperor,” the legionnaire says. “The Emperor is dead! Gens Taia has
fallen!”
“When?” The Commandant cuts in. There’s not an ounce of shock on her
face. “How?”
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“A Resistance attack, sir. He was killed en route to Serra, only a day from the
city. He and all who were with him. Even—even children.”
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