“Yes, but Callan always believed he could charm his way out of any mess. He’s not charming his ass out of this one.”
“None of us are,” I said.
Going silent, we all stood and stared down at the wheat and corn swaying in the warm summer breeze. In the paddocks below, the horses grazed as they chased away the flies with their swishing tails.
“So, can we stay in our home?” Billy asked.
I glanced at the young boy, who I’d always considered like my own annoying little brother. At eight, he was still very much a child, but his eyes didn’t reflect that as much as they used to.
Over the past few months, he’d become far wiser than he was before. I would have given anything for that not to have happened.
“We’ll stay… for now,” I assured him.
Mr. Fletcher was right; we’d all do better if we could move freely around the realm.
“I should go get Callan. It’s almost time to leave for the Veiled Rock,” I said.
I’d hoped Ryker would be back by then, but it didn’t look like that was going to happen.
“What abadplace to choose,” Ruby muttered. “I know the Veiled Rock is a kid’s place, and most adults and the sheriff stay away from it, but any child, at any point, could enter while you’re there.”
“The children won’t tell,” I said. “That rock is all about secrets, even if it’s the most well-known secret in Nottingshire.”
“It was still a bad choice.”
“Callan and his sister aren’t known for their brains,” Mr. Fletcher said. “Their looks and charm, yes. Their intelligence, no.”
That was very true. I just hoped their bad choice didn’t get us all captured or killed.
CHAPTER SEVENTY
Ryker
After the lastbody was claimed, I excused myself from Ivan’s presence. My father glowered at me as I did so, but there was no reason for me to remain.
They wouldn’t allow anyone else into the earl’s castle, and I’d played my part. I’d been a taciturn, deterring presence to all those who arrived for their loved ones.
Ivan had wanted a show of force for all those who returned for their dead to note. He hoped they would spread the word that the king had more men than they could ever hope to defeat.
I doubted most of them had noticed, as they were far too focused on their grief to take much note of anything else. That wasn’t something Ivan would ever understand.
The pile of dead servants would be carried outside and burned now that Ivan didn’t require their bodies to be on display. The captured servants had been led away by Samael and his men.
They’d sobbed as they shuffled toward their new life of imprisonment and torture. I didn’t look at them as they were ledpast me, but I felt their terror like it was my own and smelled the rank, foul aroma of the ophidians’ dungeon, my own shit in a bucket, and the filth clinging to me once more.
Tomorrow, they traveled to Nottingshire to begin their torture tour of the villages. Ivan insisted the tour would start in the largest town in the realm; those amsirah would be the first to see what would happen to them if they put one toe out of line.
He planned to keep them there for at least a week before moving on, but word of what was being done to them would spread throughout the realm long before they moved on to the next town. Once they finished with the villages closest to Ivan’s palace, the servants would be taken to the coastal communities. By then, they would already be missing more than a few body parts.
None of them would die before the tour ended, unless they were purposely slaughtered, and I wouldn’t put it past Ivan to start the tour all over once it came to an end. These poor, reckless souls would experience endless suffering for months, if notyears,to come.
I couldn’t let that happen.
Striding out of the ballroom, my boots thudded against the freshly scrubbed stone as I made my way to the front doors. Samael and the man who’d helped place Ellery’s mother in her coffin stood in the doorway.
They watched as dozens of guards locked the prisoners into the pillories and shackled their hands before them with the chains that would suppress their powers. No one else would come to the castle, but those guards would stand there all night.
“Ryker,” Samael greeted.
