Elara had ruined his life.
She was laid out on the wooden slats before him, unconscious.
Elara was the enemy.
Her station had been ruined, the beautiful, toxic meal destroyed.
His father had been right all along.
Lafontaine watched from the safety of the caravan. Doctors in red tended to him, Gabriel, and Tremblay: the only other surviving Counseil members. They were slumped in their jeweled chairs, pale and dripping in sweat as they were treated.
Upon the cobblestones, the bodies of Faucher, Perrault, and Cormier had been covered with white sheets. They would remain there for the duration of the events as a reminder, Lafontaine had said, of what evil was capable of.
The officers finished with the machine and returned to the line they were holding. Behind a wall of officers wielding batons, guns, and blades, a riotous crowd loomed. A lucky few had escaped, but the rest would be forced to watch his father win once and for all.
“Rouse her,” Lafontaine ordered.
A doctor shoved smelling salts beneath Elara’s nose. She launched upward, sputtering and coughing. Her first instinct was to fight, but her hands were bound. It was like watching a rabbit in a cage.
“Elara Rousseau,” Lafontaine’s voice bellowed. “You are charged with the assassinations of Souverain Appoline Faucher, Souverain Odile Perrault, and Souverain Claude Cormier. You are also charged with conspiracy to commit treason via a burgeoning rebellion.”
The guards yanked her to her feet and dragged her across the platform to the contraption Nik had never seen before.
Two beams stretched high into the air above what resembled a pillory. Between them, a hungry blade caught the festival’s lights. Beneath, a basket awaited, making the purpose of the construction clear.
Nik could almost hear the sickening blow now.
And it was Elara who stood between the beams.
The first victim of his father’s glorious future.
“How do you plead?” Lafontaine called.
Elara’s skirts rippled in the summer wind as she took in the crowd. They honored her by not looking away. They would remember her as the first to fall in what Nik could only imagine would be a massacre.
Her chin lifted. “The only one guilty of murder is you. Why don’t you tell them about Lisette Plouffe. About Gaetan.”
The guard gagged her with a rag, but it was too late. The crowd had heard, and their fury started to boil.
The guards pushed Elara to her knees and shoved her head beneath the pillory, leaving her pale neck exposed.
Elara had ruined his life… Elara was the… His father…
Behind her dark curls, he caught a glimpse of her face. She was as peaceful as the night he’d found her cooking in his kitchen, away fromprying eyes. Her eyes were closed, and he swore he could hear her humming. She was exactly where she wanted to be.
Elarahadruined his life, because there was no way he could return to who he was before. He’d been foolish to think Anespérer could be fixed by one selfish man who only wanted to own her. She could only be fixed by the people who made her heart beat. It was the people who’d made Anespérer the world’s greatest hub of art, and it was the people who deserved to fix her and rule in the Counseil’s stead.
Elarawasthe enemy, because she’d killed the boy he used to be. But from that death, Nik had been allowed to become someone new. He really did deserve to try again as many times as it took to make things right.
And his fatherhadbeen right all along. Nik was weak like his mother. He was Restes to his bones, and he wanted to follow his heart rather than crawl in the shadow of a man who dangled love when it should be freely given.
“Elara Rousseau, you will be the first example of what happens to traitors of the Counseil, of anyone who wishes to endanger Anespérer’s people with treasonous lies.”
An officer unhooked the rope, and the blade dipped.
Nik refused to look away.
He would be with her to the end.
