She smiles, but it’s a grim, crooked thing. “Fear was burned out of me long ago.” Her gaze shifts upward then, mouth tightening, her expression draining of all color. “Let us hope our father found his courage before the end.”
I follow her eyes and wish I hadn’t.
The thick wooden pole rises into the night.
I see the lashed feet first, bruised and bare. Then legs flayed to the bone, and a chest carved open. His neck slashed so deep I see tendon. His arms limp at his sides like broken branches. Then his face. Or what remains of it. Once marble-smooth. A face that couldcommand a court with nothing but a single, frigid glance. Now it’s a butchered mangle of torn flesh, unrecognisable to anyone else.
But I know him.
I would know him anywhere.
Even faceless.
Even dead.
Father.
I’d seen centuries with him. Fought by his side. Bled in his name.
And now the rain washes over his corpse as if it means to cleanse what’s left. But no blood pours from his wounds. No color clings to his skin.
“How long?” I rasp, my voice hoarse and barely louder than the storm. “Ilyra! When did they…”
But the words die in my throat as my gaze shifts.
Another pole. Another body.
Long, pale limbs exposed to the elements. Blonde hair tangled and soaked red with blood. Lady Ilyra. Butchered like my father.
I freeze. Ice crawling down my spine.
Because just then, something brushes past. The shimmer of silk, the swish of a gown’s hem dragging through puddles.
I look up and I see her.
Ilyra.
Alive.
Yet her body still hangs above, eyes wide and staring, and that’s when realization hits me.
The pieces slide into place with a sickening click, and if I hadn’t already had the shit beaten out of me, I’d do it myself for being so fucking blind.
“Which one are you?” I groan through cracked lips, the taste of blood thick on my tongue. “Vashar… or Vasheeth?”
The figure before me cocks her head. Slowly her form begins to ripple, silk and satin dissolving into worn leather and filthy furs, soft blonde waves receding until only a slick, bald scalp remains.
She drops into a crouch before me, leathers creaking, then she fists my hair and yanks my head up, forcing me to look her in the eye.
“I’m wounded you don’t recognize me, Your Highness,” she hisses, lips curling back to reveal rows of needle teeth. “I am Vasheeth. At your service.”
And then she slams my head back toward the ground.
I catch myself inches before my face meets stone.
“How long have they been dead?” I spit, my voice gravel.
She rises slowly, letting her gaze drift to the poles looming behind her. “Days. Weeks. I stopped counting,” she says with indifference, almost boredom. “There were so many to play with.”
