War.

  The word echoes in my head as I numbly follow the High Court attendants towards the auditorium’s exit. Abel has said it. Taron and the High Guard have said it. Now the King has, too.

  War.

  My head swims and my chest constricts. I catch hold of a bench’s back and step away from the flow of bodies. I dig my nails into the wood as I wrestle for control. Control over my expression, over the fear roiling in my gut. I need time. Not war. There’s still hope for me during the fall season—but not if War cuts the season short. And what if I cannot find a match then? Skies, what if Maurus doesn’t even allow me to participate at all? Why would he risk losing his source of gold for the airships?

  I force air in and out of my lungs. When I look up, Clara and Lilianna have already disappeared with most of the High Court members. Some glance at me as they pass, many offer warm smiles or a word of greeting. These people who can smile after words like ‘war’.

  I force a smile to my lips and step back out into the aisle to move with the last of the crowd to the exit. Outside, I’ll be able to breathe again.

  I’ve almost reached the top of the aisle when Lord Graff’s brother passes through the doorway and reveals a man standing by the exit.

  A tall man, dressed in a sharp, perfectly tailored tailcoat and waistcoat. One with dark brown hair tied neatly back at the nape of his neck.

  I freeze. My heart stops. Time ceases.

  He wears no mask.

  I’m nudged from behind and my legs carry me numbly up the aisle. It cannot be him. He cannot be in this room. Talking to these people. Cannot be him that Foundress Gosfeld beams up at.

  “I will do my best. Now, if you’ll please excuse me,” he says and makes it a quarter pivot away from her before his gaze falls on me. His impassive expression doesn’t shift, doesn’t break, but his eyes hold mine. He gives the tiniest shake of his head, likely imperceptible to anyone who doesn’t know him as well as I do.

  As well as I thought I did.

  Lord Gosfeld’s wife follows his gaze. “Oh! Lady Aubrey!” She draws me in by the elbow. “I’m sure you two have never met, my dears. May I introduce the lovely Lady Aubrey and the ever reclusive,”—she waves a hand to the man beside her—“Lord Rael.”

  “Lord,” I echo, helplessly disjointed as I stare up at Abel, “Rael?”

  “Pleased to make your acquaintance, Lady Aubrey.” He bows, stiff and cordial, just as all the others do.

  A dozen little pieces fall into place. How Abel dresses when I’ve seen him in the city. The way he speaks, so eloquent and educated. How he always seems to know all the latest city news.

  Lord Rael, the rich, highly respected recluse who never attends social events. I’d assumed the Lord Rael to be much older, because he’d served with my father. Then again, so had Abel.

  I stare at him, at a loss for words. An icy shudder rolls down my spine. I stare at a stranger. A Lord. His whole principle, everything he’s told me about his cause. It’s all a lie?

  He nods to Foundress Gosfeld. “Ladies, do excuse me. Good evening to you both.” He flashes a charming smile—one I’ve never quite seen before—and walks away.

  My insides twist as I stare after him.

  The sparkle of his skin… hadn’t been from a sheen of sweat. It was his Wyvernmail. That’s what I’d seen. I can’t believe I’ve been so stupid. I know what it looks like. I saw it on Maurus the day he took his Lordship, I’ve seen hints of it on Taron in the sunlight.

  “What a charmer he is, that one,” Foundress Gosfeld says with a shake of her head. “Pity he won’t be social enough to find himself a nice wife.”

  “Yes, indeed,” I force myself to say. “Please excuse me, I must catch up with my family.”

  The burning embers within me flare white hot, wild. They tear at my chest from deep within as memories of the Moon Festival ignite behind my eyes. Dancing together by the bonfire. The meadow with all its dew and the winking stars overhead. Us entangled together on the furs within his tent. His lips upon mine, upon my skin. My mind and soul and the deepest parts of me filled with the unspoken promises of his love.

  All a beautiful lie.

  I stumble along with the crowd, jostled this way and that by stray elbows and skirts. I still can’t quite wrap my head around Abel’s identity. Around his lie. He knows what I’m up against. He knows it better than I ever realized and still, still, he didn’t tell me. He allowed me to expose myself to him, yet kept himself concealed.

  Lord Rael.

  High Court nobility pour from the front doors of the palace and I drift with them. The sound strikes me first. An assault of jeering and shouting. It comes from the mass of peasant and lower nobles already gathered outside.

  This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

  I’ve forgotten about the final announcement the King promised. The heavy sickness in the pit of my stomach drops further.

  A wall of shoulder-to-shoulder palace guards preserve a clearing at the center of the square. Bustling nobles obscure my view of what lies at the center. I can only make out the tip of a tall wooden structure. Another cluster of red-clad guards secure an area of the members of High Court to gather.

  I can just barely make out Clara’s dark, straight hair at the front, so I wedge my way through until I stand beside Lilianna. There, I get an unimpeded view of the clearing’s contents.

  At the center sits a square wooden platform with a tall beam jutting into the sky. A man has been tied to the post.

  A man who, despite the cuts and blackened swelling of his face, I know.

  Chip.

  Chip, who tried to teach me peasant dances only a few nights ago. Chip, who laughed and smiled constantly even after the horrors of his life. He squints unseeingly out at the crowd. Every few seconds his head slumps, then jerks back to consciousness.

  Ice runs down my body. My feet freeze in place. I stare.

  The High Guard stands beside the platform, hands clasped around a lit torch, staring straight ahead. A sudden and intense hatred towards him rises within me. This monster who stands here and enacts the atrosities of the monarchy. He who upholds these archaic and sadistic laws.

  Peasants and lower nobles alike jeer and some even throw rocks. They dare to smile and cut derogatory shouts. I want to scream at them. What is it about blood and torture that draws such lust in masses?

  Bile burns my throat. No matter who this man is, no matter his crime, this is wrong.

  A hush falls over the crowd and I twist around to see the High Court nobles part for the Prince. He flashes me a smile as he passes through. The guards relinquish their linked arms to allow him into the clearing.

  I hate his sick blue eyes, his sleek hair, his crimson tailcoat that makes him look grander than the filth he is. Royal red. Red like the blood and bruises all over Chip’s face—Farnell’s face, too. Red like the uniform they placed upon my father’s wrapped corpse.

  The Prince steps onto the platform beside Chip. “People of Kheovaria, we have here one of the Rebels who terrorize our lands, our villagers, our peace!” He shouts, waving his arm at the tied up man beside him. Chip’s head slumps into unconsciousness again. “Let this be a lesson to the others out there. We will find you. We will hunt you. Anyone found aiding these so-called Apostate’s Disciples will meet the same fate as this man here.”

  The High Guard thrusts the torch to Prince Emory. The Prince hesitates, his gaze falling upon it. Then he steps down from the platform and takes it.

  I stop breathing. Every muscle in my body seizes. This isn’t just a beaten man put on display. At Chip’s feet lay a small pile of wood strips. The wooden structure.

  My body jerks. To act. To do something. Anything.

  A warm hand wraps around mine, and I startle.

  Abel—no, Lord Rael. He doesn’t look at me. His gaze is fixed upon the platform, on Chip. Only the subtle bulge of muscle at his jaw gives any hint of expression to his face.

  He squeezes my hand.

  I squeeze back, because I need this, him.

  He has something planned. Some brilliant attack. A distraction. A rescue.

  Something.

  The Prince holds up the torch to the crowd. They thunder a cheer.

  Prince Emory dips the torch to the wooden platform. With a horrible whoosh, the platform ignites. Flames shoot up the structure like it’s soaked in lamp oil.

  Within a breath, the flames climb Chip’s legs and my insides scream as loudly as he does. I cling to Abel’s hand, grip it with every taut muscle I cannot release.

  Chip’s screams rip through the cheering and the clapping of the surrounding mob. It pierces my ears, my skull. It won’t stop.

  I am powerless to do anything but stare. I deserve to see this. Deserve to have this image engrained in my mind forever. I owe it to Chip to never forget, to never forgive.

  Monsters.

  Monsters live here. Real ones. Ones of flesh, rather than hardened scales.

  I want to scream, to drown out the sounds. But I cannot. I watch. They expect me to watch. I owe it to Chip to watch. To remember.

  By the time the last of the flames flicker low over the blackened char of what had once been a wooden structure and a human being, my body has lost itself. I am far away, like I watch from somewhere high above. My only anchor is Abel’s hand, like the string tethering a kite in a storm.

  Abel’s hand squeezes one more time, then releases. He steps back into the crowd. Leaves me to drift away in the winds of chaos.

  Except something remains in my palm. I turn it over with my fingers. Paper. I shove it into the pocket of my skirt.

  Clara turns away from the scene and gives me a push. “Let’s go.” She sounds far away, muffled. She has Lilianna by the arm.

  Lilianna stares vacantly, like she too has left her body and not returned.

  I fall into step behind them, ears ringing. I turn over the paper in my pocket over and over again, trying to hang onto the tether Abel’s hand had been moments ago.

  Clara leads us to the carriage and doesn’t even wait for a footman to open the door. She rips it open and shoves Lilianna inside.

  Lilianna hits the bench and crumples. Big, horrible, soundless sobs shake her body.

  I climb in after and take a seat. My eyes burn and brim with tears. Here, inside the carriage with the wooden back biting into my spine, I become aware of the smell singed into my nose. Sweet and putrid at the same time. Like freshly tanned leather, mixed with ash and something worse than rot. Bile claws up my throat and stings my eyes. I struggle to breathe.

  Clara slams the carriage door and bangs her fist on the wall to signal the driver to go. He inches forward at a crawling pace, the street likely clogged by all the abruptly leaving carriages.

  “Monsters,” I breathe, staring at my useless hands. The faint callouses of training mean nothing if I don’t use them.

  Clara grabs me by my upper arms and shakes me. “Of course they are! They’re all monsters! Every single one of them. Rebels, kings, princes, knights, and peasants. Do not mistake any one of them as ‘better’—there is only power. Those who have more and those who have less. That is why we must align ourselves with the ones who can protect us from the others. That is survival. That is our existence. Always has been, always will be.”

  I draw in a haggard breath. Those with and those without. That power everyone hunts so ruthlessly.

  All my life I’ve been without.

  Never again.

  I’m done being nobility. Done being nothing more than a woman in a dress. Skully has power. Abel has power. Maybe not the kind of power to stop what happened today, but enough to fight against it. Against these people. Maybe that made the rebels monsters, too. But they aren’t the ones burning people alive.

  I understand now why my father started the Apostate’s Disciples. Why his men followed him into the forest. Why he’d kept it a secret, even from his family, even from me.

  Why it was worth dying for.

  I close my fist over the note in my pocket. I won’t be prey any longer.