by Claire Luana
Chapter 36
The city was just beginning to wake. Wren couldn’t help but look with pity at the sleepy citizens around her. It was possible that this would be the last peaceful morning they experienced for a long time. The day everyone remembered. The day everything changed.
The palace loomed above her as she raced up the cobblestone path, stepping out of the way of a fast-moving carriage. It was an imposing fortress; it looked today like the prison that it was, not a home to raise a family.
Two Cedar guardsmen stood at attention by the main gate. She straightened, striding up to them, wishing her hair was not whipping about her like a whirlwind. She did her best to corral it with a hand. “I’m here to see Lucas Imbris. He’s expecting me.”
“Name?” The guard looked bored. Perhaps he wished he could be out on the front lines, earning glory and accolades. She wanted to scream at him, to shake him and tell him that the Apricans were already in the city. To bar the gates. But they would think her mad. She needed to talk to Lucas.
“Wren Confectioner.”
The guard looked up at her name before glancing to his fellow. “Come with me.”
Something felt off about the veiled exchange, but Wren ignored the feeling. She had little choice but to go forwards.
The guard led her through the palace, up a flight of stairs, to a comfortable sitting room. “Let me fetch him.”
Wren crossed to the paned window, watching dry leaves swirl by outside. The wind whistled in the window, the frame not quite flush along the bottom. In the courtyard below, a line of carriages were hitched to horses. She pressed her forehead against the cold glass, trying to get a better vantage. Were those carriages intended to take Lucas and his brothers to the execution? She had to stop them.
“How kind of you to deliver yourself to us.”
Wren whirled at the snarled comment, her heart sinking as she recognized who had entered. Steward Willings leaned against the frame, resting one hand on the sword at his hip. Behind him in the hallway she could see the shadow of guards.
“Willings,” she said, trying to hide her dismay. “Still spending your days imprisoning innocent Maradian citizens?”
“Innocent.” He chuckled, shoving off the doorframe and stalking towards her. “I’m amazed you can call yourself that with a straight face. There’s no end to the trouble you’ve caused. But those days are over. The king has a special cell picked out for you.”
“Do with me what you will,” she said. “I’m here to warn you. Warn Lucas. There’s going to be an Aprican attack in the city. They’ll be targeting the royal family. You mustn’t let them go to the execution today. Call the whole thing off.”
“The Apricans can’t breach the wall,” Willings said. “The royal family is safe within the city. The king wants a show of family solidarity today.”
“They can and they will,” she said, wishing there were a way to save Lucas and his siblings without warning the king too. She wouldn’t mind if Hadrian was caught in a little crossfire. “This threat is real. It’s not worth risking the entire royal family. The entire line of succession.”
“You seem to know a lot about these plans. Yet this is exactly what I would expect you to say if you were trying to save your guildmaster and disrupt the execution. Without some proof of its truthfulness, I’m afraid you’re just not a credible source.”
She closed her eyes. She didn’t want to admit Hale’s involvement, but she had to convince Willings somehow.
“It’s a shame, you know.” He turned, pacing across the room. “Killian could get the truth out of you if he were here. The man had a gift.”
Her anger boiled within her, and she almost, almost, said nothing. But she couldn’t doom Lucas’s family just because Willings was a bastard. “They’re using the escape tunnels. From the palace. The municipal court. They have the key. They’re already in the city.”
Willings’s head whipped towards her, his pockmarked face gone pale. “How do you know about those tunnels?” His voice was low.
“Does it matter?” Wren threw up her hands. “There’s little time! Warn them!”
Willings stood for a moment, blinking rapidly, his mind clearly working through the facts she had just told him, judging their veracity. “Stay here,” he snarled, storming towards the door.
Wren stood for a moment, straining to hear the sound of Willings’s boots on the tiles of the hallway. Was he going to warn Lucas? Had she convinced him? Wren chewed her lip, weighing her options. She needed to be sure Lucas was nowhere near that execution. And then she needed to find Thom, and pray to the Beekeeper he and Trick had come up with some way to save the guildmasters. She hurried to the door, examining the lock. A voice sounded on the outside, deep and male. Another answered. She straightened, cursing under her breath. Guards. He had stationed guards outside. Even if she could pick the lock, she wasn’t a fighter. Not against guards with swords.
She whirled back towards the window, where the wind whistled through the cracks in the panes. The window was designed to open. She looked down and saw the row of waiting carriages far below. There would be no better chance. So long as she didn’t break her neck on the way down.
Wren unhooked the latch and pushed the window open. She winced as it screeched in protest, looking over her shoulder, waiting for the guards to burst into the room. None did.
The opening was narrow, the window titled out rather than sliding up. But Wren was slim, and she managed to maneuver her body through the opening, head first, slithering like an eel. Once outside, her feeling of elation dimmed instantly. She clung to the rim of the window and it was the only thing keeping her from sliding down the slick tiles of the roof.
The carriages were waiting below, and as she crouched, precariously perched on the second-story roof, the king and his retinue emerged from the far building, heading towards the first carriage. They were leaving! Had Willings not convinced them? Had he not even tried?
Wren narrowed her eyes, glaring at the king. The man seemed unperturbed by the siege at his gate or his brutal suppression of his own Guilds. His face was a calm mask, his crown polished to a shine on his temples. He was wearing the Falcon crest of the Imbris clan, and a lush fur cloak was buckled about his shoulders. He approached the carriage, but there was no footman waiting to open the door. The king’s calm face twisted in displeasure, and a servant scrambled around the carriage at Willings’s shout. The king disappeared into the carriage and Willings cracked the man across the face with the back of his fist, sending him stumbling against the carriage, clutching his jaw. Wren’s mood darkened, and a part of her rejoiced that the Apricans were coming to dispatch this unworthy despot.
Willings disappeared into the carriage with the king, and more of the royal family appeared. The crown prince, Zane, and his Centese bride. Prince Casius, still walking with a cane from his time under the Apricans’ “hospitality.” Lucas’s other half-brothers, Maxim and Rikard. Virgil. Lucas.
Wren went as numb as her clutching fingers at the sight of Lucas dressed in a coat of dark forest green, decorated by a line of silver buttons. From afar, he looked cold and imperious, his face stiff and unmoving, just as royal as the rest of them. This wasn’t her Lucas. This was Prince Imbris. A man who was a target, as surely as he wore his emerald coat.
She willed him to look up, to see her crouching on the roof like an unlikely pigeon. But he didn’t, instead stepping into the carriage with Virgil.
Wren’s fingers were totally numb now, and she knew there was only one way this could end. She had to get down somehow. There was a carriage below her, its black roof glistening with dew. This would be Ella and the queen’s carriage, she thought. If she went now…but in the end, her fingers made the decision for her, slipping off the wooden lip of the window frame. She slid down the pitch of the tiled roof, her feet scrambling for purchase, her fingers grasping at the sharp tiles for a handhold but finding only slick, wet surfaces. And then the edge was approaching and she tried to grasp f
or it, but she didn’t have the right angle, and she tumbled into the air, freefalling in a swirl of cloak and dress and grasping hands.
She landed on the roof of the carriage below with a hard thunk. She groaned, her back protesting, cradling her sliced hands to her chest. The door was opening and Ella and her mother were walking out. Before Wren even had a chance to pray for Ella to miss her, those sharp eyes caught hers, widening in surprise. Wren held a shaking finger to her lips, and Ella narrowed her eyes, considering her options. She looked resplendent in a dress of gold damask, a high collar and plunging neckline accenting her proud posture.
“Mother.” Ella grabbed her mother’s arm, pointing away towards the end of the carriage line. “Did you see that?”
“See what, darling?” the queen asked. She wore a dress of the same fabrics but in a demurer cut, her silver hair twisted in an elaborate crown around her gold circlet.
“Hmm, I could have sworn I saw a bald eagle,” Ella said. “Good omen for today, don’t you think?” She held the door for her mother, motioning for her to enter first.
“When did you grow a set of manners?” The queen chuckled but went in.
Ella closed the door quickly. “What are you doing here?” she hissed. “They’re looking for you.”
“You’re in danger,” Wren said. “There will be an attack at the execution.”
“What kind of attack?” Ella asked, but the queen was opening the door.
“Ella, dear, whatever are you doing?”
Wren shrank back onto the roof of the carriage, away from the queen.
“Just looking for the eagle, Mother.”
“Did you find it?”
“Just some sad little wren,” Ella said, stepping into the carriage. “I don’t know how I confused it.”
And then the driver and footman were approaching from the stable, hopping onto the front of the carriage. Wren plastered herself flat on the roof, praying they wouldn’t see her. The line of carriages in front was already moving. The driver cracked the whip, and the carriage began to move.
Chapter 37
The carriage jostled through the streets of Maradis, bouncing on the cobblestones. It was all Wren could do to hold on to the edges of the roof, her blood-slicked fingers making it nearly impossible to keep her grip. She thought about allowing herself to slide off, hoping she could find a forgiving pile of trash, but she held on. She needed to get to the execution. If she lost her grip now, she might arrive too late.
At last, after what seemed an impossibly long ride, the carriages began to slow. They were approaching a roadblock manned by Cedar Guard soldiers, cordoning off the large square where the execution would take place. The soldiers moved the block to let the carriages go past, and they trundled up the alley behind the courthouse before turning the corner into the large public square, where they pulled to a stop behind the massive wooden platform. Wren let go of her death grip, slumping against the roof in relief. Her hands were smeared with blood, stinging and shaking.
A crowd was already gathering in the square to watch the spectacle, held back from the platform by low fences and guards.
Wren kept her head down, hoping no one had seen her on her strange perch. The crowd began to roar, and Wren saw that the king had exited his carriage. He was walking up the stairs, waving and smiling. Wren shimmied onto the side of the carriage before letting her feet dangle off the side. She dropped to the ground, her ankle twisting painfully. “Son of a spicer,” she swore with a hiss of breath.
She limped painfully forwards to the carriage that had transported Lucas and Virgil. She pulled open the far door, ready to give her warning. But it was already empty, the door on the other side just clicking shut. She crept around the carriage towards the platform. Lucas and Virgil were already summiting the stairs, followed by Ella and the queen, who went to stand next to King Imbris, waving at the crowd. Wren’s mood grew blacker. It was as if they were at a midsummer festival, not an execution.
The only consolation was that Trick was not on the platform with the rest of his family. Perhaps Thom had been able to find him and they had some last desperate move up their sleeves. Wren bit her lip, considering her options. The crowd was too far for Lucas to hear her shout, and guards lined the platform, even two at the stairs on this side, to keep unruly citizens from reaching the royal family. But she was running out of time. If she didn’t do something soon, she would be too late.
The crowd roared to life, surging with an angry wave of jeers and shouts. The prisoners were being led out now, their hands chained before them. Wren tightened her hands into fists as she saw Callidus, her fingernails stinging the wounds on her palms. He wore a white shirt and trousers, and his feet were bare. His ebony hair hung about his ears and over his forehead, his proud coif now just a straggle of locks. His flesh was sallow, and deep purple shadowed the skin beneath his eyes. Wren’s heart twisted painfully. She couldn’t stand here and watch this. She had to do something. But what? The prisoners were flanked by a dozen Cedar guards, and two Black Guards, the king’s most elite trained soldiers. There was no way she could fight her way to free them. Chandler followed Callidus, looking old and tired. The vitality Wren had seen in the man seemed to have been sucked from him, replaced with resignation. McArt followed next, his one wrist bound to his body. Bruxius followed last, surrounded by most of the guards. The guards had threaded a chain from a collar on his neck to shackles at his wrists and ankles. Wren was relieved to see he had recovered from Killian’s stab wound enough to have some fight left in him.
Wren watched as the men walked up onto the platform, tears stinging her eyes, helplessness threatening to overwhelm her. She wanted to scream this was wrong, to start a riot—to do something—anything—but stand here and watch as these men she respected and cared for were put down like animals.
The black-hooded executioner placed nooses around each of their necks, cinching them tight. The king held up his hand for silence, and the crowd quieted down. He began to speak. “These men have been found guilty of treason against the crown…”
Bile rose in Wren’s throat at the lies coming off the king’s tongue as easily as spun sugar. But, she realized, this was her golden opportunity. If she made a scene, perhaps she could give Callidus and the others one last chance. If they called off the execution on account of an attack… before she knew what she was doing, Wren was clambering up the side of the carriage, past the driver’s seat, onto the roof. She stood, straightening. “Lucas Imbris!” she screamed into the wind.
The king stopped mid-word, turning towards her with a scowl that could break glass.
Lucas turned, too, surprise registering on his face. He took a step towards her.
“The Apricans are in the city. You and your family are their target. Get them to safety,” she shouted. “The Apricans are in the city! Save yourselves!”
The crowd hummed to life, the hushed silence instantly replaced by screams and shouts of panic.
The king snarled at a guard, pointing to Wren.
The guard leveled his crossbow at her and Wren dropped to her stomach as a bolt twanged by above her.
The twang of another bowstring and another sounded above the din of the crowd. Wren looked up to see an arrow pass inches from the king, coming from somewhere at the edge of the square.
Then the queen stumbled to her knees, her hands clutching her neck. She slumped backwards onto the platform, a quivering arrow protruding from her milky-white throat.
Chaos exploded on the platform. Lucas moved like lightning, bearing his sister to the ground, covering her with his body. The royal family took cover as arrows flew at them, two catching Prince Maxim in the gut and shoulder, dropping him to the ground like a falling tree.
The crowd was roiling, surging towards the exits from the square, pressing against each other in a mass exodus that was deadlier than the arrow bolts.
From her vantage point atop the carriage, Wren could see two groups trying to force their way upstream, pushin
g through the crowd. One was led by a tall, thin man with a mop of curly, blond hair. Wren could have wept from the sight of him. Thom. The other, far more effective, group hacked its way through the crowd with swords and axes. Soldiers as tall and broad as gods with shining golden hair towered above the crowd, making their way towards the royal family. Even in their brown cloaks and white shirts, the Apricans were as plain as day.
The Black Guards were protecting the king with their shields and bodies, crouching back towards the stairs in retreat. The king had abandoned his dying wife, Wren realized with disgust.
Virgil was crouching by his mother now, holding her hand. The king was going to escape while the rest of his family was slaughtered, Wren realized. She slipped off the side of the carriage, not sure what she intended to do. But in the end, she didn’t have to make a decision. Four Apricans burst out of the alley behind her and vaulted and clambered over the nearest carriage, blocking the king’s exit with naked steel.
“Hale?” Wren’s voice was choked as she recognized the last man.
He looked back at her for a split second, the bloodlust in his eyes dimming slightly. “I told you to run,” he growled at her.
“I don’t abandon my Guild members,” she spat at him. Fury warred with relief at the sight of him. His presence here was a comfort, though she knew it shouldn’t be. That was the old Hale—the man who joked and laughed and protected her like a brother. She didn’t know this new version—or what he was capable of.
“If you’re here, you might as well free Callidus and the others.” He nodded to the platform before turning to follow his Aprican brethren.
Outrage flared in Wren. Like she needed to be told? She was the one who had risked her life to get back here.
