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Janin was only a girl when the last fairy war ended, but she remembers the celebration to christen the new castle, the way humans and fairies celebrated with dancing in the streets and midnight swims and feasting that went on and on until people collapsed on the grass to sleep off the effects of too much meat and wine.
I imagine the streets filled with laughing people. I imagine pleasure ships floating in a peaceful sea, waiting to take the adventurous out for a swim with the giant turtles. I imagine so hard that, for a moment, I swear I hear music—fairy pipes and fiddles calling all to dance—but then we arrive at the throne room and my paper-thin imaginings are burned away by the reality of a bonfire lit before an ogre altar and a scaffold of pale wood against the wall behind.
Niklaas and Jor stand atop the scaffold, their hands tied and nooses looped around their necks, already trussed and ready to die.
“No!” I scream, tears springing into my eyes.
Niklaas calls out my name as I’m dragged across the room, but Jor doesn’t waste his words.
“Don’t do what they ask, Ror!” he shouts, turning his face as the soldier next to him grabs the back of his neck. “Let me die, it’s all right. I love you, I—” His words end in a pained cry as the soldier forces a rag into his mouth.
My brother is as thin as I’ve ever seen him, with bruises on his face and a filthy, patchy beard that makes Niklaas’s look perfect in comparison, but he isn’t broken. He is as strong and good as ever, and willing to die for what is right.
But by the stars, how can I let him? How can I watch him hanged? How can I let my brother, my best friend since the day he was born, the boy whose baby tears I wiped away, who has trusted me with his hopes and dreams and fears and whose hand has always fit so perfectly in mine, die, if there is anything I can do to spare him?
And Niklaas … Niklaas …
Gods, goddess, any good force that might be listening, give me the strength to do what’s right, to save them if I can and to make their deaths noble if I ca
But how can I? How? I would rather die myself. I would rather suffer torture for a hundred years than see either one of them lost.
By the time I’m shoved into a chair in front of the flames, separated from the scaffold by the fire, altar, and a number of armed guards, I’m crying so hard I can barely see. The world blurs, turning the priest’s robe to a smudge of white.
“You may still save the ones you love, child,” the priest says, his voice so deep it vibrates my bones. “If you do as I bid you.”
I sniff hard, focusing on the dagger in his hand, following his arm up to his shoulders, and on to his eyes. It is Illestros, Ekeeta’s brother, the priest who terrified me as a child, and the puppeteer behind the ogre queen’s cruel reign.
His gaze is even more predatory than I remember.
“What do you want me to do?” I glare at his oiled head, wishing I could strip the skin from his bones, piece by piece.
“It is not what I want, but what the goddess demands,” he says with a cruel smile.
I shiver. Illestros is no servant of the goddess. He isn’t even deluded like the fanatics who burn people they suspect of being witches; he is simply evil and greedy and willing to do whatever it takes to convince those who follow him to commit the necessary atrocities. The goddess is nothing more than a tool, an instrument of manipulation he twists in the hearts of his people.
“Release her.” Illestros nods to the ogres pi
I wrench free, rubbing at my shoulders but making no move to rise from my chair. There are at least a hundred men in the room: five priests, the rest soldiers. I am fairy-blessed, but even on my best day I wouldn’t stand a chance against these odds, and today is far from my best day. Walking to the throne room was enough to have my heart beating faster. I am a shadow of myself, weaker even than the animals slain in the garden.
You will not need strength, and if you need it, it will be too late. Gettel’s warning echoes in my mind, giving me some small hope that my weakness won’t matter.
“What must I do to save them?” I ask. “I want them both spared.”
“That is within my power, so long as you do as you’re told,” Illestros says. “You will await my signal. When I raise my cup above the altar to begin the ritual, you will drive this knife into my sister’s heart.”
He motions with his free hand, and a moment later, Ekeeta, her arms bound and mouth gagged with a strip of her own torn dress, is shoved onto the stones before me. She kneels as she did in the bedroom, looking up at me with eyes that beg me not to what her brother demands.
“You want me to kill your sister,” I echo.
“Yes.” Illestros holds out the dagger. My fingers reach for it, wrapping around the hilt without my conscious permission.
I imagine it, the way it would feel to drive the dagger into Ekeeta’s heart, to destroy the woman I hate. It should fill me with savage anticipation to have the justice I’ve hungered for finally within my grasp. Only minutes ago, I was aching to destroy her, or at least I thought I was, but now … with the reality of Ekeeta helpless before me …
I don’t want to kill her. I don’t want to kill anyone. I just want to take my brother and Niklaas and go home.
“It is the only way to open the gates to paradise,” Illestros continues, “and she’s done her share of killing your kind.” He fists his hand in Ekeeta’s wig and pulls it away, revealing her bare skull and so many soul tattoos I can’t begin to count them.
My jaw drops. The markings spread across her skin like a rash, old and new crowded together along every inch of her skull until they spill down her neck and crawl beneath the collar of her dress.
“She has glutted herself in preparation for this day,” Illestros says, “but she was willing to betray the humans’ sacrifice to spare her own life.”
So that’s the reason for her change of heart. Ekeeta must have known she was destined to die.
“She deserves death,” Illestros continues. “Yours will be the hand of justice.”
I shake my head. “No, I … I can’t.”
“You are gentle, then, like your brother.” Illestros hums beneath his breath. “I understand, but I will tell you, his gentle ways earned him no mercy from my sister. She whipped him. Whipped him and set beetles free to infect his wounds. They have likely laid eggs. When they hatch, the young will burrow from his flesh, causing great pain. Perhaps it’s better for him to die quickly.”
He turns away, leaving me with the dagger—knowing there is no risk in leaving me armed when I’m surrounded by guards—and circles around the fire, bowing to the other priests before climbing the steps to the scaffold.
The platform is elevated, allowing everyone in the room a clear view. I realize this method of execution was likely chosen for that exact reason, but then Illestros stops beside my brother and I lose the ability to think of anything but Jor’s life so close to being lost. A single push and he will fall through the hole in the boards and choke to death and there will be nothing left to do but mourn.
I look to Jor, but his eyes are closed. He is prepared to die. I should let him. I should honor his wishes, respect his bravery and his willingness to sacrifice himself for our people, but I can’t. I can’t sit by and watch my brother and Niklaas be killed. I am weak and selfish and I don’t want to live to see a world without them.
“Don’t do this!” I beg. “Please! Kill me instead!”
“Impossible,” Illestros says, his calm voice carrying clearly across the room. “In order for the prophecy to be fulfilled you must kill the queen. You are the briar-born child with fairy blessings.”
The prophecy fulfilled. I can’t help him plunge our world into darkness, but I can’t let him destroy my brother, either. I can’t think straight, I don’t know what to do. I need more time, time to think of a way to—