Aurora tucked her head between her knees; for a moment Roserine thought she’d gotten through. “I am no longer an Eval. Believe me or don’t, but I will not lie. If I must die, I will die with my honor intact.”
Roserine drummed her fingers together impatiently. “Okay, so tell me where the Eval put their heads down at night; we know they’re somewhere in the hills far north of here. You say you’re not one of them, so telling us that much shouldn’t matter. Help us and I promise that I will help you, however I can.”
“How selfless of you,” Aurora mocked. “Your brother asked me to do the same, to tell him the location of the Eval so that he could try to end the war. He said that if Anthena saw me as an asset that perhaps they’d accept me.”
“Perhaps he was right,” Roserine said, knowing the words were a lie before they left her lips; Anthena would never accept an Eval, asset or not.
Aurora shook her head. “No. He wasn’t. Even in darkness, I can sense your hatred for me.”
Roserine did hate her. All she saw, all she heard, was the blade that had slain her mother.
“I refused your brother. I refused to come back with him to Anthena. You know what he said?”
“Do tell.”
“He said he’d leave it all behind for me; the throne, the Kingdom, you. That’s when I knew he truly loved me. We were going to leave, just ride off together, and then your men showed up.”
The first thing Roserine felt was jealousy and then anger. “Ironic, isn’t it?” Roserine pursed her lips.
“What is?”
“That he was willing to give up everything for you, yet it’s you that will be giving up everything for him.”
“I suppose it is.” She was unmoved by the attempt to get under her skin.
Roserine grew irritated and stood, kicking the stool back. “So, are you going to tell me what you wouldn’t tell my brother?”
“If I wouldn’t give up the Eval to Byron, the man I love, why would I tell his bitch of a sister?”
“Because, you stupid savage, perhaps I can help you unburden your withered soul and find favor with the gods before you meet your end!”
“My soul is freer than it’s ever been. For the first time, my path is laid out before me. There is but one final page in my story; its words are beginning to make themselves clear to me. I close my eyes to this world content with the decisions I’ve made. Your hatred will not take that from me; fight your own war.”
“Very well.” Roserine stepped to the bars. “Aurora, you’ve been sentenced to death for crimes against the people of Anthena. Your sentence will be carried out at sunrise. Do you have any questions?”
“You will stone me?”
“Yes, you will be stoned and your body will be committed to the sea.”
“Inflict as much pain as possible, right? Make them beg a little? You and the Eval aren’t so different.”
“It’s about penance, not suffering. Our gods are of both earth and water. Your blood is the price you pay to them for your transgressions so that you can find mercy in the beyond.”
“Barbarism by any other name is still barbarism.”
“Do you have anything else you’d like to say to me?”
Silence.
“I wish you well on your journey.”
Roserine was almost to the stairs when Aurora’s voice filled the cavernous hallway at her back.
“Your brother will hate you for this. He will turn his face from you forever. Even in death, I am able to take the ones you love. Ironic, isn’t it?”
Roserine thought of going back. Thought of strangling the savage to death in her cell. After a few deep breaths, she started up the stairs. Tomorrow would come soon enough and there’d be more than enough stones to go around.
***
Roserine was exhausted when she finally reached the doorway to her bedroom. Unfortunately, it was on the same hall as Byron’s quarters and she could hear him drunkenly screaming her name.
“He’s been like this for hours, my lady. No one can seem to quiet him down.” The soldier standing guard outside his door sounded apologetic.
“I’ll see what I can do.”
She didn’t bother knocking before she entered; the fool probably wouldn’t have heard her over the noise he was making. He had his face down in the mattress, screaming and cursing her. He was soaked through with sweat. Empty bottles of spiced wine were scattered about the room.
She slammed the door hard behind her and he jolted upright.
“My…sissster,” he hiccupped. “I’ve been…cuh…calling for you.”
“I heard. I’m pretty sure the whole of Anthena heard.”
“You know what I…heard?” He attempted to stand, wagging a finger, his face clammy and pale. “I heard…a little birdie told me…that you intend to…murder Aurora at dawn.” He fell back, too dizzy to make it to his feet.
“She will be executed at dawn. You know our laws regarding the Eval.” She was too tired to soften the blow.
“I won’t…wuh…won’t let you…hurt her.” He was on his back, head rocking back-and-forth, his words soggy and clumped together.
“Is there anything further I can do for you, Byron? It is late.”
“If you do this, you are no longer my sister.” His chest started shaking as he wept.
“I haven’t been your sister for a long time, just your caretaker. Goodnight, Byron,” she said softly as she slipped from the room.
15
At dawn, Aurora was led from the outer bailey and into the open field. An enraged mob, held back by a thin layer of soldiers, awaited a glimpse of her. None of them knew her name. To them, she was the Eval whore. She was guided through the narrow press of bodies by armored brutes that held tightly to her elbows. They didn’t wait for her feet to move, if she refused to walk or she didn’t walk fast enough, they simply dragged her along.
“Whore!”
“Death to the Eval whore!”
The journey to the execution site only took ten minutes, but it seemed like hours. She closed her eyes for the last leg of the journey and when she opened them again she saw the place where she would experience her final breath. The narrow press of bodies had opened up into a circular patch of grassy, green earth lined by soldiers, each of them holding a large stone. At the center of it all was a hole with a fresh pile of dirt beside it; it was just deep enough to keep her head exposed. Across from her, standing on the other side of the hole, was Roserine; she wore a black corset, black leather pants, a sword on her hip, and was carrying a stone in her right hand. The aisle of bodies collapsed behind Aurora and forced her forward; the circle was complete and she was trapped.
She was forced to her butt and pushed into the hole. As the cold soil began to envelop her from the ankles up, one shovelful at a time, she kept her mind focused on what might lay beyond the mortal world, on her time with Byron, on her parents waiting by the door for her return. After the last bits of dirt were sprinkled around her shoulders and chest, the soldier with the shovel packed it tight with the heel of his boot. The pressure was immense. She struggled to breathe and found solace in the knowledge that she would soon be at peace.
Roserine stood over her, stone tucked away behind her back as she recited the crime and the sentence. Aurora did not meet her eyes, remaining silent when asked if she had any final words. After Roserine stepped away a hush fell over the crowd. Aurora took the deepest breath she could manage and braced herself.
A violent blow rocked the right side of her head. Her vision flashed and her neck cracked from the whiplash. She groaned against the pain and was angry at her weakness; she’d sworn she wouldn’t give them the satisfaction of breaking her.
Just as she was coming back to her senses, the next stone hit.
And then the next.
One after the other they came, granting her only a brief pause between each impact; just enough time to register the pain coursing through her splintering skull. The final stone slammed into the back of her head with a sick,
squishy thud. Her head fell forward. The blood began to pool in the dirt beneath her face. She was dying, slowly. Fading in and out. Her soul dripping from her body one crimson tear at a time.
Two boots appeared in front of her. She struggled to turn her head up. A torrent of blood flooded her eyes, stabbing at her pupils like a river of tiny daggers, but through the haze, she could see the foggy face of Roserine; she was holding a sizable boulder in her hands.
Kill me, the voice trapped inside her body screamed.
Somehow Roserine heard her.
***
There was nothing cathartic about the execution. It’d felt much different than she’d imagined. Seeing Aurora’s skull cave and shift as stone after stone slammed into it, the jubilance of the crowd, the cold, mechanical way in which each soldier had gone around the circle launching their projectile, had sickened her. It’d taken everything in her not to look away. But she’d been forced to maintain composure. Any wavering from the path would have been seen as weakness, a lack of commitment to defeating the Eval. The killing blow—her blow—hadn’t been an act of malice. It’d been an act of mercy.
Roserine rested in the throne room. The throne was too big for her; she was angled sideways, her legs propped across one arm and her back resting against the other. She tried to drift, to supplement some of the sleep she’d lost the past few nights, but every time she closed her eyes she saw Aurora’s head crumbling at her feet.
“My lady, are you okay?” Emily was standing nearby.
“I’m fine.” She gave up trying to rest and sat up straight.
The door on the west side of the throne room opened and Eirik entered, flanked by two soldiers.
“Everything is ready. Your brother awaits your arrival by the north gate.”
“Very well.” She stood from the throne and followed.
It was evening as she moved into the meadow. For so long she’d been begging Byron not to leave, had been warning him of the dangers present in the lands beyond the wall, and now here she was, casting him into those very lands; the dark irony didn’t escape her. The wall mocked her from a distance, whispering in her ear the things to come, causing her stomach to churn like a stormy sea. She stutter-stepped as a momentary dizziness overcame her and batted away the concerned paws of Emily.
There was no one walking the meadow at this hour, just a few hands to tend to the roaming cattle and some distracted stargazers cuddled up near the staircase. The exile of Byron would happen quietly, unannounced until after he’d been given time to depart. No fuss. She didn’t want her brother suffering the same treatment Aurora had. Justice was being carried out, it was simply being carried out on her terms; she’d given this land more than its allotted pound of flesh.
Byron stood in front of the north gate, a line of soldiers at his back, blocking him from leaving until he’d heard the details of his punishment. He appeared wobbly from his previous night of drinking. There were dark circles under his eyes and he wore the same dirt crusted clothes he’d had on when Eirik had carried him through the gates on horseback, bound and beaten. Roserine stopped a few feet away and let the chirping of the crickets and the distant laughter of the stargazers hang between them. If he wanted to scream and curse her, this was his chance. After a minute passed of him silently wobbling back and forth, she decided to speak.
“Byron Shalewind, you’ve been accused of treason…of colluding with an enemy of Anthena. Subsequently, you’ve been found guilty. Do you have anything you’d like to say to me?”
More silence. More drunken wobbling.
“Very well.” She inhaled deep through her nostrils and exhaled through her mouth, steadying her nerves; these words had been haunting her. “Byron Shalewind, you have been sentenced to exile. You are to be cast out of Anthena and into the lands beyond. Any attempt to return will be treated as an act of aggression. Do you understand what I have said?”
The guards at Byron’s back separated to allow him room to leave.
Byron turned, but before he stepped through the gate he stopped. “When I return, it will be an act of aggression; mark my words.” His voice was steady. Sober.
As the gates closed, Roserine stood in somber silence.
“It’s okay,” Emily said softly.
“He wasn’t wobbling,” Roserine said.
“What do you mean?”
“When he said he’d return, he wasn’t wobbling…he wasn’t slurring.”
“My Queen, they were just words spoken in anger. Don’t worry yourself.”
“If he returns, my Queen, I’ll be ready for him,” Eirik spoke confidently.
Roserine turned and shook her head. “No, Commander, I don’t think you will. I don’t think any of us will.”
16
Dominic, Lerah, and Hawthorne had been sailing for over five months. They’d stopped off at every beach and port they happened across. Sometimes they encountered life: plants, animals, humans. When luck was on their side, they found odd jobs patching roofs and repairing wells, their labor paid for in food, water, and other supplies. Even when they encountered ruin they were often able to scavenge something useful from the detritus. Through hard work and blind luck they’d come by sleeping mats, binoculars, spears, clean clothes, and a velvet bag of blue marbles that Hawthorne spent most of his free time rolling across the deck of the boat. But much to Dominic’s dismay, they’d yet to come by a single round of ammunition.
“Most of this shit is useless. How do you fight with arrows and…string?” he often grumbled.
Lerah would laugh softly in his ear and kiss his cheek. “All this talk of fighting. That isn’t our world anymore,” she’d say before strolling away, humming some tune he didn’t know the words for.
She’d become quite the optimist since they’d left the Wastes, the Union, and the Rebels to dissolve in a cloud of nuclear fire, but it wasn’t always that way. There’d been a time of mourning early on in their journey. For Lerah, the loss of her father had been difficult; he’d been a deeply flawed man, but she’d loved him dearly. However, the most difficult thing for her to deal with had been the trauma she’d suffered at the hands of Silas and his crew. Dominic had woken her from countless nightmares and had caught her crying below deck on more than one occasion. When he’d ask if she was okay she’d blow him off and push him away. But he could see there was pain behind her eyes. He didn’t press her on the matter; one part of him didn’t want to upset her further and the other part of him felt responsible and didn’t want to face the demons just yet.
But things weren’t always gloomy. When the waters were calm and the sun was high, when the skies were clear and blue—a color they were learning to get used to—they’d anchor the boat. Dominic and Hawthorne would fish, their legs dangling over the edge of the boat, while Lerah exercised: push-ups, crunches, shadow-boxing, trying out different techniques with the spear.
Hawthorne would often catch Dominic staring back at Lerah while they were fishing. Her white, blonde hair was down past her shoulders. Dominic still thought she was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen, with her pale green eyes and olive colored skin. She wasn’t the unmarked maiden he’d first taken to the Wastes with. She had surfaces that were no longer smooth to the touch. She’d been through hell. Her metal had been tested: thrown into the fire, hammered, and bent. She had scars. And he cherished every single one of them.
“You love Miss Adams, don’t you?”
Dominic would sigh as a familiar, welcome ache pulsed in his chest. “That I do, boy. That I do.”
“She’s a good lady. You’re lucky, Mister Dominic. I hope one day I find a lady like her.”
Dominic would turn and smile at him, slapping him on the knee. “You will, boy. We’ll find you a woman, yet.”
They were surprised to find that most of the places they dropped anchor knew nothing about what’d come before: the fire that’d swallowed the old world, the Great War. When Dominic and Lerah talked of the fire and the bloodshed, the people simply looke
d at them as if they were campfire poets spinning tall-tales from active imaginations.
Their latest port of call was a small island, made up of jungle and a sliver of white, sandy beach. The locals called the island Turook’Mala, after one of their gods. He was an ugly fucker if the shrines were any indicator: bulged eyes, spikes coming out of an oversized head, sharp ribs poking through his skin, and six slithering snakes for arms; there were three on each side of his body. Hawthorne had stayed back at the boat. His stomach was sick; he’d been puking overboard most of the night and had just drifted off to sleep when they dropped anchor.
“I don’t get the appeal of their god,” Lerah whispered to Dominic as they stood before the council of village elders.
“Must be the arms,”
“Seems rather inconvenient, how’s he supposed to pick anything up; he has no fingers?”
He shrugged. “The mouths, I’m guessing.”
“Pretty small mouths; can’t exactly carry much.”
“Guess that’s why he has six.”
He and Lerah were standing in front of a long, hand-carved table. Dominic wore a black shirt marred by a prominent sweat ring and a pair of dirty jeans; he had a machete holstered on his right hip and a pistol tucked away in the back of his waistband. Lerah wore a tan tank-top and a pair of black shorts that ended in the middle of her thighs; she carried her spear along with two combat blades affixed to her hips.
Across the table, in high-backed chairs, sat the council; three dark-skinned men with wild hair, multi-colored loincloths, and various pieces of bone jewelry protruding from their bodies.
“How many wolves are there total?” Dominic asked.
The leathery, old men put their heads together and whispered over each other for a moment before the one in the center, who’d introduced himself as Arav Harish, spoke. “Three wolves.”
“Big wolves,” the man to his left added, opening his arms wide to try to demonstrate the enormity of the beasts.
There was a loud bang at the back of the room as four, young warriors entered and one of them bounced the dull end of his spear off the floor in protest. “This is a disgrace! We do not need these invaders to handle our business! Me and the other men, we’re more than capable!” He was a well-muscled kid, probably in his early twenties. He was dressed similarly to the council of elders, only with less bone jewelry ornamenting his body.
Blood & Stone: The Saboteur Chronicles Book 3 Page 11
